| I’ve encountered a lot of strange foods in my time | | | | occur during cooking. The techniques involved in |
| and most of them are somewhat disgusting; | | | | molecular gastronomy encourage the scientific use of |
| scrambled calf brains, jellied moose nose and the | | | | different ingredients and cooking methods to invent |
| infamous casu marzu for example. These | | | | new and interesting recipes, as well as making the |
| experiences, whilst life-enriching, have left me | | | | public aware of the truth about food and cooking. |
| somewhat dubious about new “interesting | | | | During the course of their scientific investigations into |
| recipes” – like a chocolate mixed with meat. | | | | cooking, the molecular gastronomists have proven that |
| However, despite my hesitation when I first heard | | | | you don’t need to add salt to water when cooking |
| about dark Belgian chocolate mixed with chilli-spiked | | | | green vegetables, that searing meat does not seal in |
| pork fat; chocolate-meat combination foods have | | | | the juices and that you don’t need to start with |
| started popping up all over the place! I’d tried and | | | | cold water when you make meat stock! |
| enjoyed veal with chocolate sauce; but | | | | Although using chemistry to study food dates back |
| bacon-chocolate, chocolate with pureed salami and | | | | well into the 18th Century, the foundations of the |
| chocolate biscuits wrapped in crispy chicken skin were | | | | science of molecular gastronomy could well be |
| a little bit outside the scope of my knowledge! | | | | attributed to Nicholas Kurti; Professor of Physics at |
| To pursue my interest, I headed along to the Paris | | | | Oxford from 1967 to 1975. Host of the TV series "The |
| Chocolate show (as I am wont to do), where I had the | | | | Physicist in the Kitchen", Kurti was the original TV chef |
| dubious delight of sampling truffles with peas and | | | | and was responsible for one of my all-time favourite |
| wasabi sauce! It wasn’t the best thing I had ever | | | | quotations: |
| tasted, but it opened my mind to the new influences | | | | "I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while |
| we are seeing on the world of chocolate; I had never | | | | we can and do measure the temperature in the |
| had Japan down as being a nation to pride itself of | | | | atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on |
| puddings - not after I heard about their basashi ice | | | | inside our soufflés" |
| cream anyway! It’s not like bizarre foodstuffs | | | | Modern-day molecular gastronomist Dominique Duby |
| haven’t been fashionable for a while; bacon and | | | | justifies the use of meat with sweet, claiming that the |
| egg ice cream was one of the things to make The | | | | protein can be used to give deserts a subtle |
| Fat Duck as famous as it is! After all, if sweet things | | | | “smoky, salty flavour” that conventional |
| like chocolate can be added to savoury dishes, why | | | | desert-makers simply cannot create. Although I’m |
| shouldn’t savoury things like meat be perfectly | | | | not convinced that either a smoky or a salty taste, |
| acceptable in desert dishes? | | | | however subtle, would add anything positive to my |
| The field to which we must all turn to for answers to | | | | after dinner chocolate; I have enough respect for the |
| questions like these, is molecular gastronomy – the | | | | science that I’m willing to give it a go! |
| study of the physical and chemical processes that | | | | |