What is Molecular Gastronomy?
A field that “attempts to link chemistry to culinary science, to explain transformations that occur during cooking, and to improve culinary methods through a better understanding of the underlying chemical composition of food”(Roudot 2004).
What is Gastronomy?
“Gastronomy in the intelligent knowledge of whatever concerns man’s nourishment…” (1825, Physiology of Taste).
From the Ancient Greek words gastros meaning ‘stomach,’ and nomos meaning ‘law’ or ‘knowledge’.
Generally the study of the relationships between food and culture using interdisciplinary approaches.
The Coining of the Term ‘Molecular Gastronomy’
“A new discipline is being born: molecular and physical gastronomy, the science of food and its enjoyment”(Scientific American,1994).
Claims that it emphasizes that “empirical knowledge and tradition were as important in cooking as rational understanding”
“I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés.”(Kurti).
On Food and Cooking
Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen(2004; 1st edition, 1984), sometimes called the ‘bible’of molecular gastronomy.
Book is taken as a lens through which to examine current trends, particularly because of its popularity both within the food industry and to a broader public.
Approach in McGee’s OFC
Uses scientific research to explain (and oftentimes debunk) traditional culinary techniques.
–“As a cook I wanted to believe that chefs were right, that their experience of doing these things over and over must prove something…but as a scientist I could see that the evidence didn’t hold up”(McGee 2004, 2).
It attempts to foster an understanding of why cooking techniques work in the way they do, and how to harness chemical principles to produce the desired effects.
Emphasis is on reducing or eliminating empirical, trial and error methods.
Debunking the Copper Bowl
McGee: “the copper bowl claim struck me as unlikely from the start... I figured it was either an old wives’tale or a promotional ploy by the copper industry”.
The crucial experiment: “I would have cried ‘Eureka!’if I hadn’t been so invested in the idea that it was all a hoax...compared with whites beaten in a glass bowl, the foam took almost twice as long to form. But it developed a lovely golden hue, became stiffer and moister, and stayed that way much longer.”
Explanation? Copper ions add strength to the protein’s original (delicate) structure, thus making it “more forgiving of a cook’s inattention”and much more difficult to beat egg whites to the point of irreversible collapse.
Distinctive Hallmarks of this Genre
Use of technical, scientific language—such as ‘chicken albumen foams’and ‘copper reaction vessels’.
Employment of traditional scientific methodology of hypothesis testing. Hybridisation of source materials.
Establishment of authority (not only scientific, but also gastronomic).
Compare Molecular Gastronomy and Traditional Cooking
Classic recipes are considered to be ‘time-tested and thought-less’according to McGee.
‘Thoughtful cooking means paying attention to what our senses tell us as we prepare it, connecting that information with past experience and with an understanding of what’s happening to the food’s inner substance, and adjusting the preparation accordingly’.
Emphasis here is on one best approach to knowing and therefore to cooking.
Puzzles Still To Be Solved?
Why add salt to the water when cooking green vegetables?
Usual (‘unscientific’) responses: salt maintains or enhances colour, or lowers the boiling point of water and thus speeds up the cooking process– This example underscores the niche (or downright vacuum) of scientific knowledge within which molecular gastronomy has positioned itself.
McGee: there is ‘no good reason’for adding salt…the practice has continued by tradition rather than as a result of any rigorous testing’.
The Puzzle of Salting Water
But ‘for the record, as every cook knows, green beans cooked in salted water definitely have more flavour…somehow the salt must inhibit the osmosis of chlorophyll into the cooking water…’
The promissory note: ‘someday I’ll figure out exactly how’.
What is to count as a ‘reason’for cooking something in a particular manner is a description chemical interactions that accords with our sensory experiences—the ultimate goal is to find the answer.
So What Do Some Forms of Molecular Gastronomy Leave Out?
That there might be a multiplicity of answers about why we do what we do in the kitchen, and what we should do.
Since there is no unanimity with regard to what tastes good or how we want our food prepared, unclear why we should privilege one method of production or knowing.
Alternatives?
Instead of viewing molecular gastronomy merely (or primarily) as a means of reduction and control, there is a need to emphasize its role in processes of discovery and emergence.
Molecular gastronomy might add some content (e.g., allow adaptation of principles/theories to new settings).
View cooking as a process “in which the rules are not fixed beforehand, but created while playing”(after Parasecoli describing Adriá’s‘cooking as deconstruction’).
Be attentive to reducing the emphasis on oneright way to know and produce, and hence one idea of what is real and good.
But...
Trial and error sometimes wins the day...
One day, McGee used a silver-plated bowl, and whipped up a perfect light and glossy egg foam.
Do you ‘need’the chemical details to do the same thing? (obviously not).
«La découverted'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur du genre humain que la découverted'une étoile»(“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.”), (Brillat-Savarin).
By Rachel A. Ankeny, The University of Adelaide, Australia, Power Point presentation available http://wwwdata.forestry.oregonstate.edu/orb/events/lectureseries/pdfs/ankenylecture.pdf. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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