To me, the kitchen is like a science laboratory, while cooking is like another form of scientific experiment. Imagine a chemistry laboratory. Of course, you will find some chemicals, and there are containers that can mix and react chemicals, devices that can control the reaction temperature, and devices that can weigh the content of chemicals in each chemical reaction. In addition, there may be relatively unfamiliar instruments that can determine the products of chemical reactions-these instruments can tell you the results of experiments.
Your kitchen also has all kinds of devices-instruments that can heat or cool, mix, cut and grind, and weigh various ingredients-and all kinds of raw materials (that is, food ingredients) that you can make chemical reactions.
whenever you cook according to a recipe, you are conducting an experiment. You weigh the ingredients according to the instructions in the recipe, mix (or react) the ingredients together, and then taste the dishes to test the results of the experiment. Then you check your experimental results in a scientific way, and compare the taste and taste of the dishes you cook with the photos of the dishes in the cooking books. Usually you will be very disappointed-because the photos in the cookbook are always better than your first attempt. So you will try again and change some practices.
excellent chefs will adjust the temperature and the proportion of various ingredients in food according to their own experience to improve. A scientific chef will read the instructions in the cookbook and ask why and whether it can be changed. The application of science to cooking in families and restaurants has developed into a new discipline called molecular gastronomy-that is, the application of scientific principles to the understanding and improvement of cuisine.
In the past ten years, a group of chefs, scientists and food writers held a meeting at the ettori majorana Science and Culture Center in Erice, Sicily, which largely decided the form of molecular gastronomy. These conferences (international symposium on molecular and physical gastronomy) were first initiated by Elizabeth Thomas, president of a cooking school in California, and created by the late Nicholas Coty (the most important cryogenic physicist in the 2th century). After the death of Nicolas Coty, I helped Dr. Hervé This of Ecolé de Paris to set up the Erice Studio.
The wide range of topics discussed by these studios helped to form a new discipline of molecular gastronomy. For a long time, although we molecular gastronomy researchers have mainly tried to solve interdisciplinary problems, all these efforts are only to develop a special discipline about food cooking, which includes the whole cooking process from raw material preparation to finished dishes.
Molecular gastronomy includes the following broad topics:
How are our specific taste and taste-sensing organs and our general food preferences and dislikes formed? Why? How does the cooking method of food affect the taste and mouthfeel of food ingredients?
how do these ingredients change in different cooking methods?
can we find a new cooking method to make an unusually excellent taste and mouthfeel?
how does the brain integrate signals from various sensory organs and finally determine the "taste" of food?
How do other factors, such as eating environment and mood, affect our food preference?
At that time, only one research group (that is, the Ervi Tis research group in Paris) was devoted to the study of molecular gastronomy, but there were several other research groups devoted to a single aspect of molecular gastronomy, especially the topics of aroma release mechanism and taste perception. Two of the most important ones are Professor Andy Taylor from Nottingham University and Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia, USA. They all attended the Aries Conference.
The main driving force for the development of molecular gastronomy at that time was the cooperation between scientists and chefs. In France, Ervi Tis cooperated with Michelin star chefs Pierre Garganier and Phillipe Conticini. In Britain, I cooperated with Heston Blumenther of Fat Duck Hotel, and our cooperation was fruitful and influential. For details, please see the article "A scientist in the kitchen".
my own interest in molecular gastronomy stems from my interest in physical and chemical processes in cooking. Together with Heston Blumenther, we use our deep understanding of the physical and chemical processes of cooking to develop new dishes and cooking processes. Cooking meat and fish at low temperature (see the article "Scientists in the Kitchen") is a typical example of the new cooking method produced by the application of new technology, which has been applied in hotel restaurants.
The further transformation of the practical pipeline includes installing the filtration system of the original soup and the meat and vegetable soup, so that the preparation time can be shortened by several hours or even days, and crystal clear sauce and pectin can be made. A novel emulsion can be made by using an ultrasonic mixer-what if vodka is used? There are countless possibilities, some of which may quickly walk from the hotel into the family kitchen.
besides improving the physical and chemical changes of food, molecular gastronomy has many other connotations. One area that attracts me most is how each sense affects our appreciation of food. Even touch can affect how we feel about the taste of food.
You can try the following experiment yourself. Eat some delicious ice cream. Then, while sending a spoonful of ice cream into your mouth, you can touch a velvet cloth, and the taste of ice cream will be smoother and softer! What's even more surprising is that when you eat another spoonful of ice cream, you touch a piece of sandpaper and even the ice cream seems to be rough. When we close our eyes, it seems that the feeling of our hands can be transferred to our tongue through the brain.
another really surprising fact is that the sound of food will change our expectation of taste. A simple example is the trivial potato chips. Merchants who sell potato chips have long known that they should sell small packets of potato chips that make a crisp crackling sound when eaten. If the potato chips don't sound good when eaten, consumers will think that the potato chips are not fresh.
We are just beginning to understand the important role that various senses play in the process of the brain feeling the taste. But we still have a lot to learn before we fully understand how we taste food and feel the taste and taste of food. Molecular gastronomy, a new discipline, can be said to be an exciting and encouraging journey of discovery.