Molecular Gastronomy Quotes

It may be that a taste for Bittor’s cooking, for his obsessive, slightly mad investigation into the nature of wood and fire and food, has been prepared by our culture’s ongoing attempt to transcend all those things, not just with molecular gastronomy, but with artificial flavors and colors, synthetic food experiences of every kind, even the microwave oven. High and low, this is an age of the jaded palate, ever hungry for the next new taste, the next new sensation, for mediated experiences of every kind.

I, like, added curry spices to the tomatoes and then firmed it with sodium alginate. Then there's the mousse I made with powdered, freeze-dried foie gras blended with turmeric. The white dollop in the middle is a puree of potatoes and six different types of cheese. Once your mouth has thoroughly cooled from those items, you should totally try the piecrust arches. Oh! I flash froze it first, so it should have a very light, fluffy texture. I kneaded coriander and a few other select spices into the pie dough. It'll cleanse your palate and give your tongue a break. This dish is all about "Thermal Sense," y'know. Molecular gastronomy teaches about the various contrasting temperature sensations foods and spices have. I took those theories and put them together into a single dish.

The train of thought went like this: I scribbled down the most "sophisticated" foods I could think of. Foie gras. Truffles. Expensive wine. Caviar. Ibérico ham. The one that struck a chord with my Jewish brain was caviar. Caviar served with blinis, little pancakes hailing from eastern Europe. In Russia they served blinis with caviar and sour cream. But even if I could make a hundred and fifteen blinis in the time allowed (since we had to make a few extras for beauty shots and mistakes), I couldn't just serve them with caviar and sour cream. That wasn't transformative enough. Original enough. What else was served with blinis? I tapped my pen thoughtfully against my Chef Supreme notepad. We were getting to the end of our planning session, and the way the others around me were nodding and whispering to themselves was making me nervous. Sadie, they all know exactly what they're doing, and you don't, I thought to myself. And then I nodded, confirming it. Jam. Blinis were served sweet-style with jam. But even if I made my own jam, that wouldn't be enough. I needed a wow factor. What if... what if I made sweet blinis, but disguised them as savory blinis? Ideas ran through my head as we were driven to the grocery store. I wasn't hugely into molecular gastronomy, but even I knew how to take a liquid or an oil and turn it into small gelatinous pearls not unlike fish eggs. I could take jam, thin it out, and turn it into caviar. Then what would be my sour cream? A sweetened mascarpone whip? And then I needed something to keep all the sweetness from becoming overwhelming. I'd have to make the jam nice and tart. And maybe add a savory element. A fried sage leaf? That would be interesting...

As the excesses of 'molecular gastronomy' have slowly faded away, like the smell of a particularly pungent fart, a breath of fresh culinary air has swept across the country. I've been passionately interested in food and drink for more than 30 years and writing about it for a decade. In my experience there has never been a more exciting time to eat out in this country.

Is there really any difference, the writer Jeb Boniakowski once asked, between highly engineered and processed foods like the kind you find at McDonald’s, and molecular gastronomy, the application of food science to cooking that became popular in modernist haute cuisine establishments like elBulli and Alinea? Boniakowski draws a powerful conclusion that should be obvious in retrospect: “I’ve often thought that a lot of what makes crazy restaurant food taste crazy is the solemn appreciation you lend to it.” But we tend to limit our indulgence of that appreciation. Boniakowski offers a delightful thought experiment to illustrate the point: If you put a Cheeto on a big white plate in a formal restaurant and serve it with chopsticks and say something like, “It is a cornmeal quenelle, extruded at a high speed, and so the extrusion heats the cornmeal ‘polenta’ and flash-cooks it, trapping air and giving it a crispy texture with a striking lightness. It is then dusted with an ‘umami powder’ glutamate and evaporated-dairy-solids blend.” People would go nuts for that.20 Even

Edible flowers have many culinary uses. Sought after for their flavors, aromas, textures and colours, edible flowers are used fresh, frozen, dried, crystallized or as a foam - in molecular gastronomy - and appear in meat and fish dishes, pastas, salads, soups and desserts. Some common forms of edible flowers are found in garnishes, candied sweets, confits and jellies, pickled flowers or flower vinegars; flavourings such as essences and spice blends; food dyes and colourings; teas, infusions and tisanes; flavoured waters and syrups; and liquors, cordials, bitters, wine, beer and mead.

I will never forget that day. It was in Europe, what... seven years ago now? It was molecular gastronomy's most prestigious international competition. As famous name after famous name received their awards... ... imagine my shock when I saw a young girl less than ten years of age step forward to receive one of her own!" "Cooking is art. The more it is honed, the more beautiful and elegant the result. I look forward to showing you all... the beautiful worlds the art of cooking can create." She went on to receive almost all the awards there were to win. By the time she was ten years old, she had successfully obtained forty-five patents and was contracted with over twenty different restaurants for research into new menu items. She is heaven's gift to molecular gastronomy, a certified genius! Of all the first-year students in the institute, no one can refute that she is the one closest to being named to the Council of Ten!

There isn't a menu, only a few daily specials. You might get some molecular gastronomy or classic French food or meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but it's always amazing." "Today they have family-style broasted chicken. The best in the state," Doug said. "Broasted?" "Fried, but under pressure. I don't really know what magic happens, but its extra juicy and crunchy.

After the interview and photo shoot, Cantu invited us to dinner at Moto, where we ate a poached scallop and "pearls" of squid ink sealed inside a polymerized shell made from a buttery saffron and seafood broth; beet-flavored cotton candy, sweet and earthy and fantastic; a menu printed on fully edible paper, with ink that tasted like a tangy aged Manchego cheese; and freeze-dried ice cream pellets with twenty-five-year-old balsamic vinegar, with the richness and complexity of a Sauternes.

We slurped cool briny oysters wrapped in a gossamer sheet of warm pancetta fat and topped with a sweet green pistachio emulsion. We frantically scooped up disappearing clouds of Parmesan "air" with muesli. We popped bubbles of melon caviar between our tongues and the roofs of our mouths. We crunched down on delicate coils of sweet and salty olive oil spring candy. It was delicious, surprising, strange, and fun to eat this food.