Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of
food science that seeks to investigate the
physical and chemical transformations of ingredients
that occur in cooking.
Its program includes three areas, as cooking
was recognized to have three components: social,
artistic, and technical.
Molecular cuisine is a modern style of cooking,
and takes advantage of many technical innovations
from the scientific disciplines.
The term "molecular gastronomy" was coined
in 1988 by late Oxford physicist Nicholas
Kurti and the French INRA chemist Hervé This.
Some chefs associated with the term choose
to reject its use.
== Examples ==
=== Eponymous recipes ===
New dishes named after famous scientists include:
Gibbs – infusing vanilla pods in egg white
with sugar, adding olive oil and then microwave
cooking.
Named after physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs
(1839–1903).
Vauquelin – using orange juice or cranberry
juice with added sugar when whipping eggs
to increase the viscosity and to stabilize
the foam, and then microwave cooking.
Named after Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829),
one of Lavoisier's teachers.
Baumé – soaking a whole egg for a month
in alcohol to create a coagulated egg.
Named after the French chemist Antoine Baumé
(1728–1804).
== History ==
There are many branches of food science that
study different aspects of food, such as safety,
microbiology, preservation, chemistry, engineering
and physics.
Until the advent of molecular gastronomy,
there was no branch dedicated to studying
the chemical processes of cooking in the home
and in restaurants.
Food science has primarily been concerned
with industrial food production and, while
the disciplines may overlap, they are considered
separate areas of investigation.
The creation of the discipline of molecular
gastronomy was intended to bring together
what had previously been fragmented and isolated
investigations into the chemical and physical
processes of cooking into an organized discipline
within food science, to address what the other
disciplines within food science either do
not cover, or cover in a manner intended for
scientists rather than cooks.
The term "molecular and physical gastronomy"
was coined in 1988 by Hungarian physicist
Nicholas Kurti and French physical chemist
Hervé This.
In 1992, it became the title for a set of
workshops held in Erice, Italy (originally
titled "Science and Gastronomy") that brought
together scientists and professional cooks
for discussions about the science behind traditional
cooking preparations.
Eventually, the shortened term "molecular
gastronomy" became the name of the approach,
based on exploring the science behind traditional
cooking methods.Kurti and This considered
the creation of a formal discipline around
the subjects discussed in the meetings.
After Kurti's death in 1998, the name of the
Erice workshops was changed by This to "The
International Workshop on Molecular Gastronomy
'N. Kurti'".
This remained the sole director of the subsequent
workshops from 1999, and continued his research
in the field of molecular gastronomy at the
Inra-AgroParisTech International Centre for
Molecular Gastronomy, in charge of organizing
the international meetings.
=== Precursors ===
The idea of using techniques developed in
chemistry to study food is not a new one,
for instance the discipline of food science
has existed for many years.
Kurti and This acknowledged this fact and
though they decided that a new, organized
and specific discipline should be created
within food science that investigated the
processes in regular cooking (as food science
was primarily concerned with the nutritional
properties of food and developing methods
to process food on an industrial scale), there
are several notable examples throughout history
of investigations into the science of everyday
cooking recorded as far as back to 18th century.
==== Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833) ====
The 
concept of molecular gastronomy was perhaps
presaged by Marie-Antoine Carême, one of
the most famous French chefs, who said in
the early 19th century that when making a
food stock "the broth must come to a boil
very slowly, otherwise the albumin coagulates,
hardens; the water, not having time to penetrate
the meat, prevents the gelatinous part of
the osmazome from detaching itself."
==== Evelyn G. Halliday and Isabel T. Noble
====
In 1943 the University of Chicago Press published
a book titled Food Chemistry and Cookery by
the then University of Chicago Associate Professor
of Home Economics Evelyn G. Halliday and University
of Minnesota Associate Professor of Home Economics
Isabel T. Noble.
In the foreword of the 346-page book, the
authors state that, "The main purpose of this
book is to give an understanding of the chemical
principles upon which good practices in food
preparation and preservation are based."
The book includes chapters such as "The Chemistry
of Milk", "The Chemistry of Baking Powders
and Their Use in Baking", "The Chemistry of
Vegetable Cookery" and "Determination of Hydrogen
Ion Concentration" and contains numerous illustrations
of lab experiments including a Distillation
Apparatus for Vegetable Samples and a Pipette
for Determining the Relative Viscosity of
Pectin Solutions.
The professors had previously published The
Hows and Whys of Cooking in 1928.
==== Belle Lowe ====
In 1932, Belle Lowe, then the professor of
Food and Nutrition at Iowa State College,
published a book titled Experimental Cookery:
From The Chemical And Physical Standpoint
which became a standard textbook for home
economics courses across the United States.
The book is an exhaustively researched look
into the science of everyday cooking referencing
hundreds of sources and including many experiments.
At a length of over 600 pages with section
titles such as "The Relation Of Cookery To
Colloidal Chemistry", "Coagulation Of Proteins",
"The Factors Affecting The Viscosity Of Cream
And Ice Cream", "Syneresis", "Hydrolysis Of
Collagen" and "Changes In Cooked Meat And
The Cooking Of Meat", the volume rivals or
exceeds the scope of many other books on the
subject, at a much earlier date.
==== Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas ====
Though rarely credited, the origins of the
Erice workshops (originally entitled "Science
and Gastronomy") can be traced back to cooking
teacher Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas, who studied
at Le Cordon Bleu in London and ran a cooking
school in Berkeley, California.
The one-time wife of a physicist, Thomas had
many friends in the scientific community and
an interest in the science of cooking.
In 1988, while attending a meeting at the
Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture
in Erice, Thomas had a conversation with Professor
Ugo Valdrè of the University of Bologna,
who agreed with her that the science of cooking
was an undervalued subject, and encouraged
Kurti to organize a workshop at the Ettore
Majorana Center.
However nothing happened until Kurti met Hervé
This: both approached the director of the
Ettore Majorana center, physicist Antonino
Zichichi who liked the idea.
They invited the food science writer Harold
McGee to join them as invited co-director
of the first workshops in 1992.
=== Nicholas Kurti ===
University of Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti
advocated applying scientific knowledge to
culinary problems.
He was one of the first television cooks in
the UK, hosting a black-and-white television
show in 1969 entitled The Physicist in the
Kitche, where he demonstrated techniques such
as using a syringe to inject hot mince pies
with brandy in order to avoid disturbing the
crust.
That same year, he held a presentation for
the Royal Society of London (also entitled
"The Physicist in the Kitchen") in which he
stated:
Kurti demonstrated making meringue in a vacuum
chamber, the cooking of sausages by connecting
them across a car battery, the digestion of
protein by fresh pineapple juice, and a reverse
baked alaska—hot inside, cold outside—cooked
in a microwave oven.
Kurti was also an advocate of low temperature
cooking, repeating 18th century experiments
by British scientist Benjamin Thompson by
leaving a 2 kg (4.4 lb) lamb joint in an oven
at 80 °C (176 °F).
After 8.5 hours, both the inside and outside
temperature of the lamb joint were around
75 °C (167 °F), and the meat was tender
and juicy.With his wife, Giana Kurti, Nicholas
Kurti edited an anthology on food and science
by fellows and foreign members of the Royal
Society.
=== Hervé This ===
Hervé This started collecting "culinary precisions"
(old kitchen wives' tales and cooking tricks)
the 24th of March 1980, and started testing
these precisions to see which held up; his
collection eventually numbered some 25,000.
In 1995, he received a PhD in Physical Chemistry
of Materials, for which he wrote his thesis
on "La gastronomie moléculaire et physique"
(molecular and physical gastronomy).
He served as an adviser to the French minister
of education, lectured internationally, and
was invited to join the lab of Nobel-winning
molecular chemist Jean-Marie Lehn.
This has published several books in French,
four of which have been translated into English,
including Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring
the Science of Flavor, Kitchen Mysteries:
Revealing the Science of Cooking, Cooking:
The Quintessential Art, and Building a Meal:
From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism.
He currently publishes a series of essays
in French, and hosts free monthly seminars
on molecular gastronomy at the INRA in France.
He gives free and public seminars on molecular
gastronomy any month, and once a year he gives
a public and free course on molecular gastronomy.
Hervé This also authors a website and a pair
of blogs on the subject in French, and publishes
monthly collaborations with French chef Pierre
Gagnaire on Gagnaire's website.
== Objectives ==
The objectives of molecular gastronomy, as
defined by Hervé This, are seeking for the
mechanisms of culinary transformations and
processes (from a chemical and physical point
of view) in three areas:
the social phenomena linked to culinary activity
the artistic component of culinary activity
the technical component of culinary activityThe
original fundamental objectives of molecular
gastronomy were defined by This in his doctoral
dissertation as:
Investigating culinary and gastronomical proverbs,
sayings and old wives' tales
Exploring existing recipes
Introducing new tools, ingredients and methods
into the kitchen
Inventing new dishes
Using molecular gastronomy to help the general
public understand the contribution of science
to societyThis later recognized points 3,
4, and 5 as being not entirely scientific
endeavours (more application of technology
and educational), and has revised the list.
=== Areas of investigation ===
Prime topics for study include
How ingredients are changed by different cooking
methods
How all the senses play their own roles in
our appreciation of food
The mechanisms of aroma release and the perception
of taste and flavor
How and why we evolved our particular taste
and flavor sense organs and our general food
likes and dislikes
How cooking methods affect the eventual flavor
and texture of food ingredients
How new cooking methods might produce improved
results of texture and flavor
How our brains interpret the signals from
all our senses to tell us the "flavor" of
food
How our enjoyment of food is affected by other
influences, our environment, our mood, how
it is presented, who prepares it, etc.
== Chefs ==
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the term
started to be used to describe a new style
of cooking in which some chefs began to explore
new possibilities in the kitchen by embracing
science, research, technological advances
in equipment and various natural gums and
hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food
processing industry.
It has since been used to describe the food
and cooking of a number of famous chefs, though
many of them do not accept the term as a description
of their style of cooking.Chefs who are often
associated with molecular gastronomy because
of their embrace of science include Heston
Blumenthal, Grant Achatz, Ferran Adrià, José
Andrés, Sat Bains, Richard Blais, Marcel
Vigneron, Sean Brock, Homaro Cantu, Michael
Carlson, Wylie Dufresne, Pierre Gagnaire,
Adam Melonas, Kevin Sousa, and Laurent Gras.Despite
their central role in the popularisation of
science-based cuisine, both Adria and Blumenthal
have expressed their frustration with the
common mis-classification of their food and
cooking as "molecular gastronomy", On 10 December
2006 Blumenthal and Harold McGee published
a 'Statement on the "New Cookery" in the Observer
in order to summarise what they saw as the
central tenets of modern cuisine.
Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Thomas Keller
of the French Laundry and Per Se signed up
to this and together released a joint statement
in 2006 clarifying their approach to cooking,
stating that the term "molecular gastronomy"
was coined in 1992 for a single workshop that
did not influence them, and that the term
does not describe any style of cooking.In
February 2011, Nathan Myhrvold published the
Modernist Cuisine, which led many chefs to
further classify molecular gastronomy versus
modernist cuisine.
Myhrvold believes that his cooking style should
not be called molecular gastronomy.
== Techniques, tools and ingredients ==
Carbon dioxide source, for adding bubbles
and making foams
Foams can also be made with an immersion blender
Liquid nitrogen, for flash freezing and shattering
Ice cream maker, often used to make unusual
flavors, including savory
Anti-griddle, for cooling and freezing
Thermal immersion circulator for sous-vide
(low temperature cooking)
Food dehydrator
Centrifuge
Maltodextrin – can turn a high-fat liquid
into a powder
Sugar substitutes
Enzymes
Lecithin – an emulsifier and non-stick agent
Hydrocolloids such as starch, gelatin, pectin
and natural gums – used as thickening agents,
gelling agents, emulsifying agents and stabilizers,
sometimes needed for foams
Transglutaminase – a protein binder, called
meat glue
Spherification – a caviar-like effect
Syringe, for injecting unexpected fillings
Edible paper made from soybeans and potato
starch, for use with edible fruit inks and
an inkjet printer
Aromatic accompaniment: gases trapped in a
bag, a serving device, or the food itself;
an aromatic substance presented as a garnish
or creative serveware; or a smell produced
by burning
Presentation style is often whimsical or avant-garde,
and may include unusual serviceware
Unusual flavor combinations (food pairings)
are favored, such as combining savory and
sweet
Using ultrasound to achieve more precise cooking
times
== 
Alternative names and related pursuits ==
The term molecular gastronomy was originally
intended to refer only to the scientific investigation
of cooking, though it has been adopted by
a number of people and applied to cooking
itself or to describe a style of cuisine.
Other names for the style of cuisine practiced
by these chefs include:
Avant-garde cuisine
Culinary constructivism
Cocina de vanguardia – term used by Ferran
Adrià
Emotional cuisine
Experimental cuisine
Forward-thinking movement – term used at
Grant Achatz's Alinea
Kitchen science
Modern cuisine
Modernist cuisine, which shares its name with
a cookbook, and which is endorsed by Ferran
Adrià of El Bulli and David Chang
Molecular cuisine
Molecular cooking
New cuisine
New cookery
Nueva cocina
Progressive cuisine
Techno-emotional cuisine—term preferred
by elBulli research and development chef Ferran
Adrià
Technologically forward cuisine
Vanguard cuisine
Techno-cuisineNo singular name has ever been
applied in consensus, and the term "molecular
gastronomy" continues to be used often as
a blanket term to refer to any and all of
these things—particularly in the media.
Ferran Adrià hates the term "molecular gastronomy"
and prefers 'deconstructivist' to describe
his style of cooking.
A 2006 open letter by Ferran Adria, Heston
Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and Harold McGee
published in The Times used no specific term,
referring only to "a new approach to cooking"
and "our cooking".
== See also ==
=== People ===
=== Restaurants ===
=== 
Subjects
