Molecular Gastronomy: Experiments You Can Eat

The last thing most of us think about when pulling a tube out of the centrifuge or taking a vial out of the desiccators is eating it.  Unless you’re willing to grow a third arm out of your back, consuming your experiments should never cross your mind…

Or should it…

The field of Molecular Gastronomy would beg to differ.  Simply put, molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline that examines the physical and chemical changes that take place when food is cooked.

Although the discipline was created over 20 years ago, it has recently gained popularity, due in part to it’s exposure on a number of reality-based cooking shows on television.  But don’t let the reality-tv association fool you, this field is serious about science. Chefs carefully manipulate time, temperature, concentration and moisture level of their ingredients and document the results in a way that would make a PI proud.  Inventive techniques, like cooking meat for 24 hours at 50C, have emerged that greatly enhance the flavor and texture of food.  Ingredients such as calcium chloride, sodium alginate and sake, used to create “synthetic caviar”, often look more like they’d be purchased in a chemistry stock room than in a grocery store.

Regarded as one of the world’s best chefs, Heston Blumenthal (Chef/Owner, The Fat Duck, UK) features menu items such as “The Not-so-Full English Breakfast” (liquid nitrogen-scrambled eggs with bacon ice cream and hot&iced tea) and “Powdered Anjou Pigeon” (Blood pudding and confit of entrails).  The key to the meals is not only a boundless imagination, but also an impressive technical savvy.

Interestingly, despite the field’s origin as “Molecular gastronomy”, many top chefs reject the term, preferring to use “scientific gastronomy”, “culinary alchemy” or “sensory design”.  In all three cases, you notice the one word they’ve purged…

Quoting an article published in Time magazine earlier this year “’Molecular gastronomy sounds scary,’ said Harold McGee, who writes regularly on the science of cooking for The New York Times… ‘If it were called something else, it wouldn’t make you think there’s something there you don’t know or can’t trust. But the moment you start talking about molecules, about these particles that you can’t see, people begin to get concerned.’”

I’ve had some bad days in lab where molecules terrified me, but I’m sticking with “molecular gastronomy.”  Regardless of what you call this discipline, it’s awe-inspiring dishes represent what’s possible when careful experimentation is combined with limitless imagination.  Unfortunately, the evolution of the name suggests that society is still suspicious and afraid of what we do.  This misconception is our responsibility, as scientists, to change.  (Until then, I hope people don’t find out the iPhone is made of molecules- that could kill it.)

Ever eaten a meal prepared using molecular gastronomy techniques?  Or better yet, tried to prepare one?  Who’s to blame for society’s inherent fear of molecules and science?  Who’s job is it to fix?