The Persistence of Molecular Cooking

In the NYT:

In September, talking to an audience of chefs from around the world, Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan waxed enthusiastic about a type of ingredient he has been adding to his restaurant’s dishes.

Not organic Waygu beef or newfound exotic spices or eye of newt and toe of frog, but hydrocolloid gums — obscure starches and proteins usually relegated to the lower reaches of ingredient labels on products like Twinkies. These substances are helping Mr. Dufresne make eye-opening (and critically acclaimed) creations like fried mayonnaise and a foie gras that can be tied into a knot.

Chefs are using science not only to better understand their cooking, but also to create new ways of cooking. Elsewhere, chefs have played with lasers and liquid nitrogen. Restaurant kitchens are sometimes outfitted with equipment adapted from scientific laboratories. And then there are hydrocolloids that come in white bottles like chemicals.

Sara Dickerman's observation still rings true:

The subtext of both the Adrià and the mass-market approach [a la Extreme Doritos] to food is the notion that eating has become boring and that for food to be interesting, it needs to be hypermanipulated. This is obviously the philosophy being peddled by mass-market food producers who would encourage us to snack ourselves to obesity with technological marvels like McGriddles (pancake sandwiches with the syrup "baked right in"), Dippin' Dots ice cream, and Hot Pockets. And even though Adrià and his tech-y ilk use exquisite ingredients (organic vegetables, fish that were swimming just hours before dinner), they are also deploying junk-food tactics without questioning where this industrial food aesthetic might be taking us.

Comments

[Elatia Harris]

That Sarah Dickerman can really call it.

[Robin]

On Hot Pockets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFTwnYXI20

[Carlos]

"Of course, that might not stop me from picking up some agar-agar and seeing if I can follow El Bulli's recipe for transparent ravioli."

Or you could just use Vietnamese rice paper and you wouldn't need the latex gloves and the safety glasses.

Better, eschew all this bizarre revelry in these unseemly concoctions and just make Vietnamese spring rolls. All the wonderful concepts (or, as Harris would have it "the offal of the past") fully realized in the cuisines of the world are hardly going to be surpassed by people who are serving one ego to another rather than one heart to another. Food is art, language and love, not science masquerading as art.

Gaffigan: Hot Comic.

[D]

Anyone who nudges us past the sense that "natural" is good and "chemical" is bad is on the side of the angels.

[N Miller]

Well bullshit has walked and talked for the cosmetics and hair care industry for decades - probably centuries - why can't it work for food! The lab coats and liquid nitrogen baths are merely curtains for the wizards, I mean chefs, to hide behind. Now where did that oxygenated hydrogen sommelier get off to...