Good evening and welcome.
My name is Jill Pipher.
I'm the director of ICERM, the
Institute for Computational
and Experimental Research in
Mathematics, a National Science
Foundation institute
at Brown University.
ICERM is delighted to be
co-hosting this public lecture
with Johnson & Wales University.
And we also
gratefully acknowledge
the support of the National
Science Foundation and Brown
University.
It is my great
pleasure to introduce
the extraordinary
applied mathematician
and physicist who represents the
mathematical side of tonight's
lecture.
Doctor Michael Brenner
is the Glover professor
of applied mathematics
and applied physics
and Harvard College professor
at the Harvard School
of Engineering and
applied sciences,
as well as the area dean
for applied mathematics.
He completed an undergraduate
degree in math and physics
at the University
of Pennsylvania,
and went on to earn his
Ph.D. In physics in 1994
at the University of Chicago.
He is a 2014 fellow of
the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences.
And he is a well known
educator and lecturer.
Together with his
colleague, David Weitz
and chef, Ferran
Adria, he developed
the amazingly popular Harvard
class, Science and Cooking.
Doctor Brenner's
research uses mathematics
to examine a wide
variety of problems
in science and
engineering ranging
from atmospheric
chemistry algorithms
to help simulate global
pollution to material
science, self assembly
and pattern formation,
to physiology.
Doctor Brenner has
a remarkable passion
for science and mathematics.
And I'm really
delighted that he'll
be here to share some of
that with us tonight I'm
going to turn the podium
over to Peter Lehmuller, dean
of the College at
Johnson & Wales, who
will introduce our other
chief scientist tonight.
Good evening, everyone.
It's my pleasure to introduce
an incredibly talented chef,
and Johnson & Wales university
alumnus, chef Mark Ladner.
Mark's culinary
career also began
in Cambridge, at independently
owned and operated
pizza counters, not
quite Harvard University.
But it was followed by his
formal culinary education
with us at Johnson &
Wales in Providence.
After graduating in 1990,
he moved to New York City,
and worked with several
well-regarded restaurateurs
before teaming up with Mario
Batali and Joe Bastianich
to open Babbo as its
sous chef in 1998.
Mark cooks a sensible
interpretation
of modern regional
Italian-American cuisine,
or cucina New Yorkese.
And over the past 17 years, he
has continued with the group
as chef partner,
opening such restaurants
as Lupo Osteria Romana, OTTO
Enoteca Pizzeria, and Del
Posto.
And since opening in 2005,
Mark has led Del Posto
to a four star New
York Times rating,
the first Italian
restaurant to achieve
this in nearly 40 years.
Michelin star, Relais
& Chateaux Grand Chef,
the Grand Award
from Wine Spectator,
and the Five Diamond
award from AAA.
This past fall, Mark traveled to
the Northeast collegiate Carter
with his newest concept, the
gluten free quick service pop
up called Pasta Flyer.
Always true to Johnson
& Wales, his first stop
was our harbor side campus.
And this May, we
will be honoring
Mark for his many
culinary contributions
to the culinary world and
his unwavering dedication
to the students
of his alma mater
by awarding him the honorary
doctorate in culinary arts.
We couldn't be prouder or more
delighted to have Mark join us
for this special event.
Please welcome Mark Ladner.
So I guess now it's us.
It's us.
It's us, yes.
OK, let's see how this goes.
So this is a quote
that I like very much.
Mark, I don't know what
you think about it.
But it's by this guy whose
name is Brillat-Savarin
who, at least to my
knowledge, I don't
know if [INTERPOSING VOICES] He
was the first person who really
wrote a book about the
science of cooking.
And he wrote this book
which was published in 1826
called the Physiology of
Taste that you can all go
home and get online for free.
In this book, at
the beginning, he
has sets of aphorisms,
some of which
are not repeatable in public.
But the one that I think is
most appropriate is this one.
He says the discovery
of a new dish
confers more happiness on
humanity than the discovery
of a new star.
And the reason I
like this quote is
that basically,
universities like this one
have long lauded and supported
the discovery of new stars,
but they really haven't paid
very much attention at all
to the discovery of new dishes.
He was quite a controversial
individual for his time.
And people still study and
try to interpret his writings
today.
Some of it is wrong, actually.
Food certainly has
a lot to more to do
with the pleasure of
humanity than perhaps a star.
So anyway, that's the
basis of tonight's lecture.
There will be words, but there
will also be cooking, right?
Some, yeah, some.
And Mark will be doing the
cooking, so it will be good.
I'm going to cook a thing
of M&M's for you guys.
Mathematician's cuisine.
But anyway, OK.
So I guess next, you're
supposed to talk about--
Packing.
No, it's you.
Del Posto.
So this is the restaurant that
I'm currently responsible for.
We are currently
in our tenth year.
And as you can see,
it's a behemoth
on the west side of Manhattan.
25,000 square feet.
We employ over 200
people, which is
quite unusual for a restaurant.
So yeah, it takes quite
a bit of organization,
and I'm like the curator
of what happens there.
I don't find myself cooking
as much as I have in the past,
but it is important
that I make sure that I
hold the line on the
quality of the experience.
So it's a lot of marble, a lot
of crystal, a lot of silver.
Much more of a
traditional expression
of fine dining than you're
finding throughout the world
right now.
So some of these
techniques. that we're
going to be showing you today
are not exactly my wheelhouse,
but we thought we'd give it a
go in the pursuit of science.
You don't eat M&M's?
What's that?
You don't eat M&M's?
I do, I love M&Ms. But I'm
actually fascinated to excited
to hear about this
packing theory.
The M&M's.
Lot of packing going on today.
OK so and then, I just
wanted to say a little bit
about how I got into this.
So as Joe said, I'm
just a mathematician.
For most of my career,
I taught classes
that people fell asleep in.
You go to the blackboard,
you can imagine.
Some of you have experienced
this yourself, having tried it.
But anyway, in
2008, Ferran Adria
visited Harvard
and gave a lecture
called Cooking in Science.
And it so happened
that when he delivered
this lecture literally
at that exact day,
Harvard was reinventing their
program in general education.
Which is the idea that every
student, no matter whether they
study science or not, should
learn something about science
as part of their education.
And we were being
pressured to invent
ways of connecting
with the students
to learn about science
in different ways.
And Ferran expressed interest
in continuing to work with us,
and so we pointed
out them that it
would be perhaps possible
to teach a class together.
At that point, I should say,
it's still roughly true.
I couldn't cook.
I didn't really know
anything about cooking.
Nor did my colleague,
Dave Weitz,
for whom we did this with.
But we both were very interested
in the properties of materials
that people cook with.
And so we launched
with [? her ?]
on this class, which ended up we
inverted, it was very creative.
We changed it from Cooking in
Science to Science and Cooking.
And now today, it's changed
to Mathematics and Cooking,
and it's all basically
the same thing.
And that's basically
how I got into this.
And the idea of the class
was that every week,
we discussed a recipe.
We're going to discuss
this recipe a little while.
Some films, yes.
But we would get a world
famous chef like Mark
to come and lecture.
For example, Mark came and
lectured a couple months ago.
That's right,
yeah, in September.
And the chef would
lecture, and the students
were fascinated by
the chef's lecture.
Then we would explain
what was going on,
and they would fall asleep.
But we would declare
a partial victory.
And then we had this
thing that we had a lab,
and the students
would make recipes
in the lab to discover
the scientific principles,
and then they would
eat their lab.
And actually, so this is
just a little bit of history.
The first day the
class was offered,
actually, Emily was
your TF in the class.
So you might remember this.
I walked into the
science center,
which was the analog of this.
And the entire ground
floor was densely
packed with people trying
to get in the room.
Harvard's newspaper,
The Crimson then
ran an interview about this.
I just want to
show you one thing.
Why did you decide to
shop Science and Cooking?
I'm a freshman, and
I'd heard about this
I think even before I applied.
There were many other reasons.
Because it's
something different,
and it's something
that's common,
like cooking and
stuff like that.
It's like something
fun, but it's
related to something
that's usually
possibly boring, like physics.
What was your first
experience in the class?
First experience in the class.
I came on time.
Not Harvard time, like on time.
And I was all the
way in the back.
Because the first day that
I tried to go to class,
I got suffocated and trampled.
Anyway, we started
from there, and then we
made this whole thing
up as we went along.
And we invented all of
these odd traditions, which
I don't know if you
want to follow today,
but they're sometimes fun.
So it was a science
class, and then it
was the students who
weren't scientists.
And so we made this
rule, which was,
every week, we would
introduce a single equation.
Now actually, Mark
is wearing an apron,
and I brought several of
these aprons in which we
put all of the equations.
So we had like 12 equations.
We call them
equations of the week.
And the deal was, whenever
we put up an equation,
everyone had to clap.
And so here's the first
instance that this occurred.
Where's the sound?
It must be the case where
motion and sticking are
an exact balance.
That's our equation of the week.
You're all supposed to clap.
[APPLAUSE]
And then we had another rule,
which will happen today.
Where we said whenever
a remarkable dessert is
presented, you
also have to clap.
This is a dessert that was
presented by Joan Roca,
from El Celler de Can Roca,
which is one of the best
restaurants in the world.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
And this is the water
still in liquid state,
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
[AUDIENCE IMPRESSED]
So now the scientist in the
room does a [? golf ?] clap.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [APPLAUSE]
Now, we're not going
to do that today.
We're not going
to do that today.
We have M&M's, though.
We have M&M's, right.
Clap.
There's our dessert.
So then, if anyone is interested
in this in more detail,
this whole thing is
now online on Harvardx.
Actually, the second version
is about to come out,
and we taught it last year, and
there were about 100,000 people
in the end.
OK, so now this is tonight.
So tonight, what we're
going to do is this.
What we want to do is show
you the spirit of this, right?
Yes.
And what we've done is we've
picked a couple of concepts.
Since this is a
mathematics lecture,
we've picked a couple
of mathematical concepts
that we're going
to dance around.
I'm going to try.
And then the highlight is
going to be that you're
going to talk about food.
OK.
And then I'm going to
try to convince you
that it has something
to do with mathematics.
And we should tell them
what the concepts are.
So this is just in case
we get through this.
So the first is packings.
Because that's what the meeting
that's happening at ICERM right
now, is on packings, right?
So we wanted to
be true to ICERM.
Then we're going to talk about
phase transitions, elasticity,
and diffusion.
And these are all
mathematical concepts
that are critical to cooking.
At least, that's the idea.
And packing to be found
in many of these--
In all of these ideas.
These demonstrations
as well, yes.
And that's what
we're going to do.
And so first, we're going
to start with packing.
OK.
So here we go.
Packing.
So OK.
These are gumballs.
And so notice, are we ready?
Yeah.
So those are the gumballs
behaving like a liquid,
because they're not packed.
But you see, when they're all
in the jar, they're packed.
These are M&M's.
Notice, are M&M's more densely
packed, or less densely
packed than gumballs?
More.
More densely.
Why do you think?
Less space.
Ready?
You like to eat M&M's.
Here's flour.
Is flour more dense-- [LAUGHING]
I'm trying to do some
gluten free over here later
Very, very cautious
of contamination.
So it turns out, if you
go to these people that
are sitting in front row who are
at this meeting, what they'll
tell you if you say, what
do you know about packing?
There's pretty much, you
guys are going to kill me.
There's pretty much only
one thing that they know.
Which is that it turns out
there's one thing that matters.
This is it.
This is an equation.
You all have to clap. [APPLAUSE]
So the equation is, the equation
of this thing, for some reason
we talk in Greek.
I don't know why.
It's called phi, it's
a volume fraction.
It's basically
the total fraction
of the jar which is
filled with gumballs.
So I don't know if you've
ever entered an M&M contest,
there's M&M-- no, they're
jelly bean contests.
They're jelly beans.
And you count them in a jar.
So if you know this number,
then you're in much better shape
than if you don't.
And it turns out that
this number for spheres,
it's about 64%, and
for M&M's it's 70%.
And at this point,
it becomes a solid.
So you should go
think about that when
you enter a jelly bean contest.
Now the thing is that the
remaining space, of course,
is filled with air.
Now flour, I don't know.
There's a lot of air in this.
Does anyone bake?
Do you measure by
volume, or by weight?
By weight.
Very good.
If you say by
volume, shame on you.
Right, Mark?
Shame on you.
Because you're not
eliminating the air.
Scientists even write
papers about these things.
Now, I notice, this is
a paper about M&M's.
And this is several people
who are here at the meeting.
Bob Connelly, are you here?
Paul Sagan?
There's several people here,
actually, that study this.
And this is the meeting.
And this is a
slides from Sharon,
she showed this about packing.
And there's just packings.
But OK.
So the deal is that
if it's packed, then
you can stand on it.
And people say that has
a finite elastic modulus.
And if it's not packed,
you can't stand on it,
it's like a liquid.
OK, so now we're going
to do a cup of flour.
So Mark, did you weigh
this cup of flour?
Yes.
So Mark weighed this
to be exactly a cup.
Yes.
So now we're going to measure
the volume of this cup.
OK This is my cooking.
It's 151 grams.
Does anybody know the volume
of a cup in milliliters?
It's 237 milliliters.
You should all remember that.
Did you know that?
I did know.
237 milliliters.
Do you know how much 237
milliliters of water weighs?
I don't.
237 grams.
So you know, actually,
that all matter
has the density of water.
It's pretty much true.
We can talk about that later.
So this is 150 grams.
So In Harvardx class,
we asked people
to please weigh a cup of flour.
And the mean was
about the same as what
we got with your cup of flour,
which is about 150 grams.
And that, remarkably,
corresponds
to a volume fraction of
63%, which is exactly
the number that I said.
So that's packing.
But less than M&M's.
It's less than M&M's.
Isn't that weird?
That's crazy.
I don't think that's understood.
This is the thing that
mathematicians work on.
OK, so now, packings occur,
though, in surprising places.
This is boring.
was that cooking?
Yeah.
You're a nice guy.
No, it was a
mathematician's version.
We need some volunteers.
We need some volunteers.
So we need three volunteers.
Three volunteers.
OK, here, you.
You, you, you.
OK, someone in the back,
one of you guys come up.
And someone from that side, we
need someone from that side.
We need to be democratic.
We just need three.
Just come up.
We need three volunteers.
OK, so here it is
OK, what's your name?
Iad.
Iad.
OK, Iad, you get that bowl.
What's your name?
[? Marki ?].
[? Marki, ?] you get that bowl.
And what's your name?
[? Shevan. ?]
[? Shevan, ?] you got that bowl.
OK, now [? Shevan, ?] you have
a bowl that looks like of water.
OK, now you have a
bowl of egg yolks.
And you have a
bowl of egg whites.
Are you ready?
And each of you, here the goal.
You get a whisk,
you get a whisk.
We want you to whisk as
furiously as possible.
We want you whisk
as hard as you can.
And we're going to watch to
see how well you can whisk.
And Mark, you should grade them.
Because you actually are
probably the only one
who knows how to whisk.
Remember, use your
wrist and not your arm.
Go.
That's good.
Back and forth is the best way.
Yeah, exactly.
This one's not going
anywhere, Michael.
This water is not--
He's not whisking hard enough.
Oh, you're not
whisking hard enough.
Come on, what's wrong with you?
Would you like to
take off your coat?
The egg yolk's not
doing very well, either.
Tiring.
Keep going.
You didn't think you were
going to get to rest.
That looks pretty good.
What do you think.
Have they whisked enough, Mark?
It's a valiant effort.
OK, we should declare a victory.
OK, that's enough.
OK, stop, stop, stop.
OK, but wait, you
all get a present.
I'm going to finish
the whites for you.
We should clap for them.
Oh yeah, you get an apron.
Come and get an apron.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Congratulations,
you get an apron.
You should wear it.
It's a mini skirt
with equations on it.
OK so now, so the deal is that
let's see what happened here.
So the water, well
basically, that's just water.
Look at that.
Nothing happened.
Damn it.
I can't stand it.
And the egg yolks.
Look at that.
Mark, does this person
know how to whisk?
No, it changed
color a little bit.
It changed color.
That's a good sign.
OK, what about those?
You like that one.
Marks' showing us how
to whisk, everybody.
Watch.
Both directions.
Twice as fast.
I'm only human.
That's what immersion
blenders are for now.
Are you done yet?
Yeah, we're really close, see?
Oh, he's getting better.
Ah, look, that's really great.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's amazing.
So did you see what happened?
This is amazing, you guys.
Do you have a spoon?
Oh, I got a spoon.
So great.
Oh, the water.
We were so excited.
So look at this.
So you took egg white, and
you turned it into a solid.
Is that packing?
Yeah.
So it turns out that there
are-- so what happens?
So it's a solid.
So you take a liquid, and you
took air, because you mixed
air in.
It Didn't work with
the water, and it
didn't work with the egg yolk.
That's really weird.
But it basically made a packing.
In fact, if Mark had
really been on his game.
Mark, if you'd really
been on your game,
it would've looked like that.
Yeah, I know.
I think you need sugar
as well for that.
I'm sure you could've
done that without sugar.
Do you want to put
some of this in there?
No, no, let's not bother.
I think that's just
a waste of time.
We're going to put that
in the other stuff, right?
Now it's slippery on the stage.
We didn't bank on that.
So it turns out that
what just happened
is that this is a
packing of bubbles.
So it's an amazing thing,
which I don't know if you knew.
But when you whisk
something, you're
actually making little bubbles.
These are like 10
micron sized bubbles,
and the whole thing is
filled with bubbles.
And that's a picture
under the microscope.
See all the bubbles?
It's actually a packing.
Does anybody know what the
volume fraction of the bubbles
is about?
Were they listening?
It's already falling.
It's about 63%.
maybe it's a little higher.
That's pretty cool.
OK.
So now we're going to
get to the culinary foam.
It's already done.
Oh, you already made it?
TJ already took care of it.
Oh, you took care of
the culinary foam.
OK, so here's the deal.
So Ferran Adria had
several, actually many,
really great inventions.
But one of them was
called the culinary foam.
And the story goes like this.
Suppose you wanted
to make a foam.
So you see, egg whites are
a good way to make a foam.
So suppose you
wanted-- what is this?
That's just beet juice.
Beet juice.
Suppose you want a foam
that tastes like beet juice.
So one way you
could do it is you
could pour egg whites
in the beet juice,
and then you could--
But then it would
taste like eggs.
But then it would
taste like eggs.
But you don't want it
to taste like eggs.
So what do you do?
So what Ferran realized
was that what you do is,
is that you look at the
science of why eggs make foams.
And it turns out
the reason it works
is that there are
these molecules in eggs
which protect the air bubbles.
That says oil, but it
should really say air.
They take the egg bubbles,
and they coat them like armor,
and make them so that when they
collide with other air bubbles,
they don't dissolve.
And those molecules, if you can
just figure out what those are,
you can just put
those in, and they
don't have to be the things
they taste like eggs.
Anyway, so this is what
Ferran figured out.
And so he started, and these
molecules they have pictures,
they have names, whatever.
And you can buy them.
And this is called lecithin.
And you guys have
lecithin, right?
Yep.
It's a soy product.
It's a natural soy product.
It's a natural product.
It is.
I mean, it's just like sugar.
It's just a powder.
They all look the same.
Did you put this into the foam?
You did.
And then you see, what
happens is that even
beets can be made into a foam.
So you should show that.
See that?
It looks nice.
Can I tilt it?
Well, it's just as
good as the other foam.
And there are lots of bubbles.
Can you see the bubbles?
If you look really closely.
Can you guys see the bubbles?
It's tons of bubbles.
You see how the
surface is shiny?
Those are bubbles.
If We had a microscope,
you could see it
under the microscope.
Was that good?
It's good.
This one's newer.
Packings.
OK now, packings actually
form throughout cooking.
There are many
things that you cook.
Can we go back to the
slide for a second?
So there are many things that
you cook which are packing.
So actually, mayonnaise is an
emulsion of little droplets.
So mayonnaise, if you put
it under a microscope,
you would see the same thing.
You see lots of little droplets.
Whipped cream, the same thing.
Cappuccino foam, the same thing.
And Mark, I think, is now
going to make us a sauce
that he serves in Del Posto.
Yes.
That's true.
We're doing this
foam thing, yeah?
Well, you're going to
make the Del Posto sauce.
The sauce first, OK.
So this is a balsamic
brown butter.
So I've taken 125
grams of whole butter
and browned it till the
milk solids have separated
and burnt, essentially.
And then this is just a
cheap, fake balsamic vinegar.
I put a little bit
of salt in that.
And now, what we're going to
do is whisk one into the other.
This is an increase
incredibly volatile sauce
that I'm not very good at.
And I actually struggled quite
a bit when I was a younger cook.
But you'll find that, if you
keep the two liquids at about
the same temperature, and
you had to slowly enough,
you can create an emulsion that
is temporary, and quite fickle.
But it tastes really delicious.
And it's a little bit Italian,
even though it's also French.
So there we have equal
parts butter, and balsamic.
Which I'll show you here.
But then, somebody showed
me this really cool trick,
my friend Wylie [? Dufresne ?],
which is if you add some water,
and then this is a little
bit of powder, the same--
Secret white powder.
This is [? anton. ?] But
you can add it to this,
and then look at
this, this is crazy.
And then it's just going
to come right together.
Or not.
I would say mostly not.
So here we go.
So now it's the same
sauce with the powder.
And it looks exactly the same.
No, it looks totally different.
Thank you.
Why do you want it
to be an emulsion?
Just so that it coats
food more evenly,
and for a longer period of
time so you can enjoy it.
You mean so it doesn't
drop off as fast.
Yeah.
So that means it
flows more slowly.
Yeah, exactly.
It flows more slowly.
So you mean, if
you take this thing
and you make-- you're making
bubbles with this thing.
At least in principle,
if it were to work.
If it were to work, yes.
Then there'd be lots of bubbles,
and then it flows more slowly.
So do you know why
it flows more slowly?
Because it's a packing.
I like pouring the M&M's.
OK.
We're going to make a mess.
I should have focused
more on the science
than just trying to
will it together, huh?
We didn't tell you we
were going to make a mess.
So actually, this
is the calculation.
I'm a mathematician, I'm
supposed to calculations.
So I calculated,
this is amazing,
you're not going to
believe it, the volume
fraction of your sauce.
And it turns out that
butter is 70% fat.
Just look it up.
So the volume fraction of fat
is 35%, which is less than 64%.
And that's not very much.
So your problem here,
Mark, is that you just
don't have enough
butter in this sauce.
You think so, yeah?
Yeah.
Because if you can increase
the volume fraction,
it'll get thicker.
I shouldn't have cooked
it so far in advance,
like before we left
Johnson & Wales.
[LAUGHTER]
Now we have a fancy interlude.
This is you.
You're going to do
something fancy.
Oh, god.
OK, here we go.
So this is something
that I invented recently.
And again, I'm
decidedly low tech,
and I don't really know how
to use these things very well.
This is something that
I call mockzarella.
So it's cream and
creme fraiche that
has been stabilized,
and chilled, and whipped
with some more powders.
And now it makes
the technique is
called reverse spherification.
So this is an alginate
bath, that Doctor Brenner
wanted to talk about also.
So
It's another white powder.
Again, this is not working.
TJ, what do you think?
Got to bring out the big guns.
All right.
So we're making like
a fake mozzarella ball
out of, obviously, super dairy.
But what you can do
is you can take this
and you can float it
in this alginate bath.
And then it creates this
really weird slimy coating,
which then contains the foam
and keeps it from deflating.
You can also
refrigerate this after.
And yeah, delicious.
Absolutely delicious.
So here you go.
Ta da!
[APPLAUSE]
It's actually quite good, and
there's another application
that I believe Doctor
Brenner's going to explain.
Well, I mean, it's great.
Because it's got bubbles
in it, you put bubbles in,
and then you've put it in this
weird white powder broth, which
we'll have to talk about later.
OK
Good so let's see, next thing.
So now we've gone
through our first thing.
So now we've done packing.
So now another idea that
mathematicians like is an idea
called phase transitions.
So all of you know
about phase transitions.
You learn about them
especially if you live here.
The snow is melting, and
that was a phase transition.
But you know that what
happens if you take ice
and you put on a hot pan,
has anyone ever done this?
Is going to work?
Probably not.
OK, watch this.
It's melting.
It's melting.
There's no steam.
There's no steam.
But it's pretty
cool, look at it.
It's making bubbles.
It's pretty cool anyway.
Watch it.
Cook.
It's becoming a gas.
So it's amazing.
If you take ice and you put it
on a hot pan, it becomes a gas.
Can I throw this away?
Yes.
So but now actually contrast
that, if you will, with an egg.
So I don't know if any of
you put an egg on a hot pan.
This is how I cook eggs, Mark.
Ready?
Oh, my god.
No, no, no, no.
But look what happened--
No, no, no.
But it became a solid.
So we took a liquid, and
we put it on a hot pan.
And look, it became a solid.
You see that?
That's amazing.
It's exactly the
opposite of the ice.
What are you so upset about?
It's a mess.
Look at it!
Maybe in the privacy
of your own home,
but you can't charge
money for that.
What are you doing?
This is another version
that we're going to make.
So we used your favorite device
again, this emulsion blender.
And we tore apart
all of the albumin,
and the connective
tissues in the egg,
so that we can make a
smooth scrambled eggs here.
Does anyone have a whisk
that's not too soiled?
Awesome.
So we're going to cook this
gently over a water bath,
and we're going to produce
scrambled eggs that
are smooth as silk.
So you take product, you fix it
up, and you sell it for profit.
That's what they taught
me at Johnson & Wales.
You know, Mark, they also
taught you to make bubbles.
A lot.
Everywhere there are bubbles.
Everything we spoke about so
far has involved bubbles So
what's the next principle?
Is this going to work?
Unlikely.
I want to see it.
So I want to see
these smooth as silk
eggs you claim you can make.
TJ, can you do this so
we can move on to gluten?
So just stir, but don't
whip additional air into it.
Is he going to cook?
Yeah.
It's just a double boiler
with the [? bermixed ?] eggs.
We added some butter, and some
olive oil in And it cooks,
generally it takes
time obviously,
because there's a lot of
space between the heating
element and the actual bowl.
But it comes out,
try it at home.
I highly recommend this version.
Well, I don't know, this
is what I make at home.
[? Nastasia ?] hates it.
I thought you were a vegetarian.
I guess that eggs
are OK sometimes.
OK.
Should we go to the next slide?
Back to the slides?
Yeah.
OK.
Eggs.
Mark's favorite egg recipe.
OK, now we're on elasticity.
OK, so now, elasticity
is another idea.
We already talked
about elasticity,
because we talked about the fact
that you can stand on M&M's.
But notice there's one thing you
can't do with M&M's that I like
to demonstrate, which is
they don't hang together
when you turn it upside down.
That's true.
Now Mark, maybe you should talk
a little bit about Pasta Flyer.
Pasta Flyer.
So this is a new
concept I've been
working on, which
is quick service,
decidedly gluten free pasta.
Which you'll see in a
moment is quite a challenge.
But we felt that this
is the inspiration.
There's Nona Farina,
our matriarchal heroine
in the hills of
Abruzzo, if you will.
She gets whisked
away by some aliens.
She was sitting in
her empty restaurant.
People weren't interested
in her slow food.
So the aliens
brought her to Japan,
showed her the efficiency
of the Japanese ramen model.
Brings her to Manhattan,
and here you go.
Nona Farina, kicking
ass in Big City,
USA with gluten free
pasta thanks to some
extraterrestrials
with some vision.
Thank you, Nona.
So we're going to talk
about some of doughs here.
One of which is--
But before we do it,
I should show them
how a mathematician
thinks about elasticity.
Yes.
It's terribly boring.
Basically, we think of
elasticity as springs.
And actually, the thing
to tell you about this
dough that we're
about to talk about.
Oh, those eggs look--
I would eat my eggs.
Yeah.
Me, too.
Disaster.
Although my eggs
are now burning.
So anyway, the thing
that's amazing about bread.
Has anyone made bread?
You should all go
home and make bread.
But if you make bread,
there's this molecule
in wheat, which is gluten.
Actually, it's two molecules.
It's glutenin and gliadin.
And basically,
these are proteins
that form cross links
with each other.
They stick to each
other to form a gel.
And then what happens
is when you need them,
they tend to line
up the molecules.
And the molecules,
they're very long
and they like to
stick to each other
by short range interactions.
And that basically gives
bread dough its strength.
I bet no one wants your eggs.
You're giving out food.
What?
What's that?
What happened?
I gave out some scrambled eggs.
Oh, cool.
Are they good?
Anybody want these
scrambled eggs?
We'll put them
top of the cheese.
There we go.
Well, at least it's
got the cheese.
Anyway.
So if any of you
have baked, what
you learn is that if you want
to make the dough stronger,
then you either add salt, or
you use high protein flour,
which gives it more gluten.
And there are also ways
of making it weaker.
You can add fats or oil,
sugar, or add acidity.
And I think Mark and our
friends at Johnson & Wales
have made for us
three types of dough.
Right, Mark?
Yeah.
Courtesy of the baking
department at Johnson & Wales,
we have this one.
they're all the same recipe.
One is made with
comfort cup, which
is a gluten free
flour, also developed
by a graduate of
Johnson & Wales.
This is a high
protein bread flour,
which is around 13% protein.
And then this is
vital wheat gluten,
which is used often in the
processed food industry.
It's 75% gluten.
This is not why people allegedly
have celiac disease, which
is an immune deficiency disease,
but perhaps gluten intolerance
could potentially
stem from this stuff.
But this stuff is amazing.
We were playing
with this before.
You guys all have to make this
and go home and play this.
Imagine that in your
lower intestine, huh?
But now let's try
the bread flour.
The normal bread flour.
So this is like regular--
This is regular, but this
is high protein, though.
You guys didn't even use--
This was set overnight, too, so.
Ah, that's pretty good.
Check that out, that's cool.
Aw, you let go.
Go do that again.
That's pretty cool.
OK, now, this is the
most amazing thing.
This is the gluten free flour.
And by all appearances,
it looks the same.
Do you see?
Doesn't it look like flour?
Allowed to develop overnight.
Overnight, even longer
than the regular flour.
OK, so shall we do it?
OK, ready?
You guys have to
watch this fast.
Ready?
One, two, oh my god.
It's like ricotta cheese.
how do you make
anything from this?
You make pasta out of this?
Yeah.
What was I thinking?
How do you do that?
But yeah, I mean, it's a
challenge, as you can imagine.
I mean, gluten is
really amazing.
It's magic.
It's magic.
And the amount of ingredients
necessary in this dough
to poorly simulate--
So you might be
curious about what's
in the gluten-free flour.
So actually, Mark gave
me the ingredients
in this gluten free power
flour for you all to admire.
So it has cornstarch,
which doesn't have gluten.
It has white rice flour,
brown rice flour, no gluten.
Milk powder.
Tapioca flour, no gluten.
Potato starch, no gluten.
But then at the end,
there's this ingredient.
It's a white powder.
The one that made this
lovely sauce over here.
It's the white powder that
was used in the lovely sauce.
It's called xanthan gum.
And xanthan gum, as you saw
in the sauce, sort of crappy.
Yeah.
It does bind things
together a bit,
but that's basically
the only thing in there
that binds things together.
And that's decidedly the best
version of a gluten free flour
available on the market.
And you compare that
with this stuff,
and it's just unbelievable.
I mean, this stuff
basically has the property
that air doesn't get out.
I don't know if you've
ever baked bread--
This is what makes Wonder
Bread so delicious right here,
this stuff.
They put this in Wonder Bread?
Yeah.
Well, because they don't
want to take the time
to allow it to ferment
and rise naturally.
So they just put that stuff in.
Yeah, it's easy.
Science.
No no, science is about
letting things rise naturally.
OK.
So now we're-- oh, are you going
to make a balloon, by the way?
I think we skipped the balloon.
OK.
We were going to make a
balloon, but forget the balloon.
What's the next thing?
So the next thing is now
we're on to diffusion.
How we doing on time?
Let's see.
Oh, are we over?
No, we're still good.
We have time.
OK, so now we're
on to diffusion,
this is our last
scientific concept.
So what do all of these
foods have in common?
So here, there are
four different foods.
There's molten chocolate
cake, there's cevice,
there is a steak, and
this, what is this, Mark?
You gave me that picture.
Oh, that's a version of rigatoni
that is just prior to al dente.
So that's clearly undercooked,
you'll see the spirit,
or the soul of the
pasta there represented
in that opaque white ring.
That is how you can
identify your pasta
as being undercooked.
Huh.
You want it to be
firm and al dente,
which is the balance of
elasticity and plasticity,
and where they meet.
Which is difficult to represent
with that gluten free pasta.
That's obviously
a gluten version.
But you want to
cook it to the point
where it's completely cooked
through, but just barely.
And that would be considered al
dente, so that's actually less.
Undercooked.
So the amazing thing is that
all four of these processes,
as well as this-- that's
another picture of cevice.
As well as this
wonderful spherification
that Mark showed us with
this what did you call it?
The mozzarella--
Mockzarella.
Mockzarella ball.
All basically have illustrated
the same scientific principle,
which is called diffusion.
And so now, I want to explain
to you what diffusion is,
and then we'll try to
show you how this works.
This is the Searzall.
So we'll get to the Searzall.
Behold.
So diffusion is
the following idea.
So the question that you have
to ask-- oh, he's making steak.
So we're going to sear this
30 seconds on each side.
We're going to
flip it six times,
and we should come out
with something close
to a decent steak.
But you had other
things you want to show.
Oh, the cevice, right?
Isn't that a similar
example of this?
When did you start
cooking this cevice?
And this has lemon juice?
This is lime juice.
This is basically raw
tuna and lime juice.
And you have some raw-- no, not
raw tuna, raw salmon, I guess.
So here's some cooked salmon.
No, this is raw salmon.
He's so interested in
this-- we're going to wait.
I mean, Mark, this
is fascinating.
You think so?
Yeah.
I mean, we're riveted by it.
You're actually cooking
a steak this way?
Yeah, you could.
You can take it camping, you
can take it to the beach.
Is this how you cook
steaks at Del Posto?
This is actually just
an infomercial right
here, so buy a Searzall.
They kick ass, they're
portable, they're super fun,
because you get all
this cool flame stuff.
They have this
stuff called canthol
in them, which is
this diffuser that
takes away that torch taste
so it doesn't taste like crap.
Even though most of us
chefs have been taught never
to hold a flame this
close to the meat,
but it's starting to
brown pretty nice.
And hey, do have that cool
program that you made?
I think we should
watch this first.
We'll get to it.
There's a lot of science
in this, you guys.
So you don't even
really have to know
how to cook at all to
be able to do this.
You just need one of
these guys to tell you
when 30 seconds is up.
So did you plate
up the cevice, TJ?
No, we're going to
first cook the steak,
and then we'll do the cevice.
OK.
Don't you think?
Sure.
I'm just afraid it's
taking too long.
But this is going to be
like a kick ass char,
and it's going to be
completely raw inside for you
paleo enthusiasts.
So you can buy one of
these through Amazon.
I believe they cost $75
for one of the heads.
Make sure you use
the green canister,
or Dave Arnold
will kick your ass.
Imagine that as the weather gets
warmer out there, on the green,
I don't know if this law's
here at Brown University.
You can probably just
open your dorm window,
clamp a little sheet
tray to the side.
We used to use irons
in the old days.
At Johnson & Wales.
But don't tell the dean.
Is it cooked yet?
It's an impressive rare.
It's like going to
Capital Grill right here.
Are you ready to cut into this?
Yeah, I think we should cut it.
You going to show your--
I think we need to cut it.
Look at that.
It's really--
Do we have a knife?
Oh, you put salt on it.
We're going to salt it
after, so that it doesn't
draw too much moisture out.
Salt is crucial, for sure.
This is one of the
things that makes
cooking better than mathematics,
because you get to smell it.
Do you like the smell?
I was worried we were
going to set off the alarm.
Well, it could happen.
Are you going to cut it, though?
I want to see what
happens when you cut it.
It's going to be
really-- just trying
to make a nice for you, Michael.
I don't eat meat.
Disappointing
So wait, this is important.
This is the exciting part.
Look what happened, everybody.
Look at that.
No, but you got
to show them this.
No, that part.
So you see, look at that.
So do you see how around the
outside, I need my pointer.
You have to focus this.
Do you see, look.
There's this cooked
part around the outside,
and then there's the
raw part in the inside.
And so the question
for all of you
is, what made the
cooked part cook?
What happened?
Heat went into it, right?
So heat somehow made
it into the steak.
Look at that.
Check that out.
And you see, if Mark
had kept cooking it,
if I hadn't been so
impatient, this brown layer
would've gotten thicker.
And so if you were
mathematicians,
a natural question
for you to ask
is, if you waited a
factor of two longer,
how much thicker
would it have gotten?
That's a natural
question, isn't it?
[LAUGHTER] see?
Now--
I'm just admiring my work
over here, Doctor Brenner.
But wait, I want to
show something else.
He's admiring it, too.
Can you admire this instead?
This is salmon.
Do you see this?
It's uncooked.
Is it sushi-grade salmon?
Yeah.
Can I eat it?
Yeah, of course.
This is cevice.
So cevice is salmon in which
has been dunked in lime juice.
And notice the outside
has changed color.
Can we cut it open?
Sure.
Let's see what it looks like.
How long has it been sitting?
An hour.
An hour.
It's been sitting for an hour.
Oh look at that.
Oh, wow.
Check that out.
Here, I need my pointer again.
It's almost the
same as the steak.
There's a cooked layer.
Do you see that white thing?
It hasn't made it as
far in as the heat did.
Even though it's
an hour, you said.
As opposed to--
what was that, it
was about five
minutes for the steak?
At most.
Couple minutes.
That was only three.
Three minutes.
But this was an hour.
But it did, you see that a
little bit of cook thing came.
Now, does anybody
know why it cooked?
Yeah, the acid.
There's an acid.
So lime juice is an acid.
And you know what
acid has a lot of?
It has protons.
It doesn't have
that many, in fact.
But it has more than it
would if it were just water.
And what they do
is they move in,
and they cause this
color change to occur.
And if we had
waited longer, if we
had waited more than
an hour, then it
would've taken even longer.
OK.
This is fascinating, I know.
We should go to the slides.
This is fascinating.
So, OK, let me tell
you how this works.
So this is through a
process that mathematicians
call a random walk.
And so here's the idea.
So you can either be a
proton, or a hot molecule.
Do you want to watch?
Do you want to do a random walk?
Let's make Mark
do a random walk.
Mark, stand right there.
OK, so here's the deal.
No, you better stand so
you're facing everybody.
OK, so here's the deal.
So we flip a coin, and Mark
moves either to the right
or the left.
Go right.
OK, now go left.
Right.
Left.
Left.
You're not doing it.
Left.
Left, left, left, left, left.
Right, right,
right, right, right.
Left, left left.
So it turns out that's what the
heat molecules and the protons
do.
They do exactly that.
And the point is, it's
not very efficient, right?
Because you see, he's
not going very far.
He's going right, right,
and he's going left.
Lose all that inertia.
So it doesn't take that long.
And so the point is that it
goes right, right, right, right,
left, left, left.
And so that leads
to this equation.
[APPLAUSE] You know,
if he only moved right,
it's a much more efficient
way to go someplace.
See, watch.
That was good.
That was good.
But this is not very efficient.
And so the length is equal
to the square root of 4 times
d, times t.
So if you double
the time, the length
increases by a factor
of the square root of 2,
which is only 40%.
So it's not very much.
And d is a number which
is called the diffusion
coefficient.
And the deal is that what
we learned from this demo
is that the diffusion
coefficient for heat
is much faster
than the diffusion
coefficient for protons.
And in fact, if we had done it
carefully, which we didn't do,
we could actually measure
the diffusion constant
of protons in water by
measuring the thickness
of the white layer here.
And we can measure the
diffusion constant of heat
by measuring the thickness
of the layer here.
Because do you know what the
major ingredient of this food
is?
Water.
It's basically all water.
It's not much.
[INAUDIBLE] Oh, and
molten chocolate cake,
it's the same thing.
Because the whole point of
molten chocolate cake is you
just don't let the
heat go all the way in,
so the middle is molten.
So it's all the same thing.
So Mark already showed us why
it's hard to cook a steak?
Yeah.
Right.
But the deal is, is that you
see in this that the problem is
you need the inside to be
at some low temperature,
like 60 degrees, and the
outside to be at 120 degrees.
So actually, in order
to help with this,
I'm going to just show
one little crazy thing.
We made this computer
program here.
I want to show you
our computer program.
This is really cool.
Well, they may not like it.
So here's a little
computer program.
This was made by a
bunch of undergraduates
at MIT two summers ago.
It's called Cook My Meat.
You can get it if you
sign up for the Edx class.
It's there.
And basically, what I did here
was I put in Mark's recipe.
So it's a three
centimeter steak,
it starts at 23 degrees Celsius.
And what Mark did was he seared
it with the Searzall thing
for 30 seconds on
each side, and I just
said that it was about
150 degrees Celsius.
You probably can't
contradict that, right?
I cannot.
So it's probably reasonable.
And I did it like 10 times,
I did it as many times
as you said.
You should keep flipping it back
and forth, 30 seconds, and then
at the end you let it rest.
And what this computer program
does, if you push cook,
here, I have to run it again.
You didn't hear the sound.
And you see.
So this is the heat
coming on each side.
And you see it comes out.
There's a brown bit, and
there's an uncooked bit.
And so if you had
this at home, you
would be a much better cook.
Because you could
calculate beforehand
how your steak was going
to be cooked, and then
you could cook it, as
opposed to doing it randomly.
Isn't that cool?
Unbelievable.
It doesn't actually work
very well, it turns out,
but that's a different
conversation.
I mean, in principle,
it's a great thing.
OK, so I think
we're almost done.
OK, so here are the equations.
You see there are
lots of equations,
we will only discuss
some of them.
But there aren't that
many, there are only 10.
Not bad for an hour.
No, that's that's
all of cooking.
[LAUGHING] OK.
That's it.
Only 10.
All of cooking captured
in 10 equations.
We only did like two.
You should feel gypped.
And here's the quote.
And then I thought
we were going to end
with this last cool
trick, right Mark?
Yeah, that's the low hanging
fruit of modernist cuisine.
What are these things?
These are-- yes.
In the Spirit of
St Patrick's Day,
we decided to find
some green peeps.
Does anyone know what these are?
And this is liquid nitrogen.
Don't try this at home,
kids, because It's dangerous.
So we're going to freeze
these, and then we're
going to eat them.
So liquid nitrogen makes things
that are very, very cold.
It makes them more
green, which is so cool.
St. Pat agrees.
If you were to eat
liquid nitrogen,
you would burn your mouth,
you shouldn't do that.
But there's this amazing thing.
Do we have a spoon?
Ah, that's so cool,
they're solid.
They're almost-- I
just burned my finger.
We're cooking with coal.
Is this cooking?
I think it is.
Oh, you're wearing gloves.
Do you serve this at Del Posto?
I do not.
I don't really do any
of this kind of stuff.
People might like it,
it is St. Patrick's day.
Do you want to try one?
Sure.
Has anyone ever
eaten one of these?
Who wants a peep?
Here you go.
Thanks for coming to our demo.
That's it, we're done.
We've made enough of a mess.
Keep making peeps, though.
OK, let's give them a round
of applause, that was great.
These are pretty good.
Yeah.
And I'll just grab some
of these M&M's while I
invite you to line
up behind the mics
if you'd like to ask Michael
or Chef Ladner a question.
So please, there's
two microphones
in the center aisle.
Please feel free to come up.
What's the main
ingredient in those peeps?
Air.
We didn't harm any green
chicken babies, did we?
No, it's mainly air.
After that, is it corn syrup?
Is that the next thing?
Absolutely.
But if it weren't
mainly air, you
couldn't put them in liquid
nitrogen and eat them.
Because you would
burn your mouth.
Or break your teeth, yeah.
Well, you would burn
your mouth, actually.
OK.
Next side.
You can even introduce
yourself before you
ask a question if you'd like.
I'm Hailey, I do a
double bachelor's
at Johnson & Wales for
culinary and baking,
with a minor in wine.
I was wondering,
do you guys still
do the classes at Harvard, and
can anyone outside of Harvard
take them?
So the question is, do we still
do the classes at Harvard,
and can anyone
outside take them?
So we still teach, it's
an undergraduate class
at Harvard College
that occurs every fall.
Like last fall, you came, right?
And Mark can verify
that it exists.
And that, people outside
Harvard can take.
There are two ways, though,
for people outside Harvard
to take the class.
One is there's the Harvardx
class, which ran last October,
but is about to
launch again in June.
There's a version two that will
launch in June, which we hope
is better.
And there's also we offer the
class through the Extension
School.
And so you can also
come take it there.
That's also online, although
we last month ran an on campus
weekend, where people came.
It was really fun.
And we basically
cooked for a weekend.
So you only do it online?
Well, there's the
online, and then there's
the Harvard Extension one,
where you can actually
get college credit, and
then you can come to campus
and hang out with
us for a weekend.
Which we did that once.
I don't know, maybe it wasn't
fun hanging out with us.
But we made a lot of things.
I don't believe that to be true.
I was wondering if I
could have an apron.
Who asked that?
We have one more apron.
Oh, you can have one, yeah.
Here's the last apron.
Good question.
They're a little short.
Go ahead, please.
Hi, I'm Rick [? Theonjay, ?]
I'm a graduate student from
the [? solar ?] mechanics
group and so being a graduate
student, my motto is that
when I do get time to cook,
I cook tons of food.
But the only thing
I've noticed is,
and maybe you'll be able to
comment much better on that.
If I take a recipe
for one serving,
and then I decided to make
four to five servings of that,
almost all the time it
doesn't scale linearly.
Like it almost always
gets messed up.
Is there some
principle behind that?
Go back to this thing.
Where is the slide?
We need the slide.
Look.
Slide?
Where is it?
This is very important.
This is an excellent question.
Look.
You said it doesn't
scale linearly.
You see that?
It's a square root.
Thank you.
Hi there.
Craig Jones, I'm a staff
member and graduate
student at Johnson & Wales.
This question is
for Chef Ladner.
I was wondering if
you could comment
on Dan Barber's pop
up restaurant, Wasted
that's happening in
New York right now.
I have not been, but it
sounds incredibly interesting.
I think it's a really compelling
subject, obviously, to address.
Dan Barber recently closed
his Blue Hill restaurant
on Washington
Place in Manhattan,
and started a pop
up, which I believe
is supposed to run
for a couple weeks.
Where he invited
fellow chefs, and I
know that he also made a
menu utilizing only scrap.
So a lot of the
items that we maybe
discard within the course
of a day of prepping.
Especially in fine
dining, a lot of times
when you're trying to go for
specific shapes and stuff,
there's a lot of product that
gets unfortunately wasted.
Chef mentality in general
teaches us very early on
to try to utilize as much
of this product as possible.
I believe there's
a statistic that
says 30% of the food
produced in the world
is discarded before
it's consumed.
So he's just
addressing this issue,
and trying to come up with
creative ways for people
to think more about these off,
compostable, or trash bits.
And using creativity, try to
make really interesting food
with it.
I think it's amazing.
I can't wait to see what
the overall impression is.
It's only been in
service a couple days.
But I think that's a
really important subject
to address and bring
to the attention.
Do you feel that the science
behind cooking that we're now
coming into as an
industry might help lead
to more sustainable efforts by
chefs for their understanding
what we can be utilizing
in creative ways?
I think that there's absolutely
no discussion that knowledge,
obviously, is power.
And if you can practice
any of these equations
in the course of
your a normal day,
you're only going to
improve your food.
I don't understand most of it,
but I'm interested in learning.
So a lot of these
modernist techniques
have caught on in especially
high end restaurants.
But when people hear
about them, especially
with the white powders,
it's intimidating to a lot
of home cooks.
I'm curious what your
thoughts are on that,
and what it might take
for modernist techniques
to catch on on a larget scale.
Well, I mean, you cook
with white powder.
I mean, sugar's a white powder.
So is flour, for that matter.
From what I can tell, right?
I mean, you're just not
used to xantham gum.
It's a perfectly
natural product,
you can buy it in Whole Foods.
It's in all of your food anyway.
Go look at the food
labels on your shelf.
Go look at the canned things.
There's xantham gum everywhere.
This is just about using
it in creative ways.
I'm not bothered by it, but
I'm not a foodie, either,
and I'm not bothered by it.
Are you bothered by it?
No.
It allows food to
perform in ways
that you can produce
more consistent results
with potentially less
knowledgeable individuals.
But certainly, you
have to be responsible.
And I don't often use powder.
As you can tell from the
success rate of my experiments
here today.
But yeah.
I mean, they're flavorless, in
many cases they're odorless.
Most of them are derived
from seaweed and other
naturally occurring
gelling agents.
There's really
nothing wrong with it.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jennifer.
I'm a home cook, and I'm
wondering if we could go back
to the flour.
I have two questions.
So I'm one of those bad
home cooks, in that I
don't have a scale yet.
And I'm wondering if you could
explain to us how off you
were-- were you off?
You did your measurement
of the flour in a cup,
and then you weighed it.
Was he off, or was it accurate?
And the reason for my question
is I just baked some chocolate
chip cookies last night.
So of course, I sifted my
flour, and I spooned it
into the one cup measuring,
and they're flat.
And I'm wondering, if I had a
scale and I was more accurate,
would my cookies--
they're still delicious,
I think, but would they
have come out differently?
Fluffier, taller,
not flat and crispy.
I mean when you're talking about
packing, taking a dry substance
and weighing it by
volume is difficult.
Because maybe the M&M's
are a poor example.
But the flour you could
compact and push down,
which is obviously going
to throw off the weight.
In general, I recommend that
everyone buy a gram scale
and convert all
of their recipes.
But you have to convert your
recipe, this is the thing.
So the problem is,
your recipe says,
whatever, three cups of flour.
Right.
So that's because your recipe
was produced in America,
and you found it
on the internet.
But you really need a recipe
that basically gives you
the amount of
ingredients by weight,
because that's
actually accurate.
So if you weigh a
cup, the definition
of the weight of
a cup is variable.
Actually, I'll tell you
something else, which
maybe this will scare you.
So we in the Harvardx
thing, we made everybody
do three experiments as
their first experiment.
One was to calibrate
their ovens, which we did
by having people melt sugar.
Because that was a universal
way to calibrate your oven.
Just find out at what
temperature your sugar melts.
The second is we asked everyone
to weigh a cup of flour,
and we also asked everyone
to weigh a cup of water.
So it turns out, all of your
ovens, I could show you,
somewhere on my
computer I have it.
Ovens are off by about
20 to 30 degrees.
Your oven is off.
In fact, if you go and
you call up-- how often do
you calibrate the
ovens at Del Posto?
I think hardly ever.
Really?
We're just that good.
OK.
I'm surprised, actually.
So your oven is off,
but probably, you
know how far it's off.
But it also drifts over time.
For sure.
So the general thing
is off by 30 degrees.
So your cookies
that you cooked, you
thought it was at 350
degrees, it could've
been anywhere
between 320 and 380.
So that's statement number one.
Statement number two, the flour
measurements, you saw that.
Statement number three,
which surprised me.
We told people to weigh a cup of
water, just as a bit of a joke.
Because we figure,
it's a cup of water.
Everyone's good.
Because water, there's
no packing problem.
It's water.
It should weigh 237 grams.
And there was a huge
width of a distribution.
The range was enormous.
And so we made a
little movie back
to the class
analyzing the results.
And I made a joke, and
I said, you guys just
don't know how to use a scale.
And anyway, people got offended.
And someone wrote in and
pointed out to me that actually,
that how did I know that the
measuring cups are calibrated?
Because you actually
have a measuring cup.
And you know they have those
grader markers on them?
And the measuring cups have the
property that they go outwards,
have you noticed that?
So that means the last
little bit that you put in,
the error in that, you're
totally-- so basically,
you think you're
measuring a cup,
you don't know what the
hell you're measuring.
Yeah.
It's really true.
So you really
should use a scale.
It's really bad.
Like you can't even get
the water right, basically.
You're not even getting
the amount of water right.
I'm going to go
get one tomorrow.
Yeah, so you should.
For me
It's absolutely worth it.
And I can't believe the American
cook book industry still
insists on standard forms
of measurement in recipes.
I mean you guys, OK.
So I failed on the scale,
but you guys at Del Posto.
Do you do recipes by
volume, or by weight?
We use a gram scale, and
we-- yeah, of course.
Everybody does.
Everybody.
I don't know a chef that
doesn't at this point.
Next question, please.
Hi, my name is [? Shivum, ?]
and I'm from Brown University.
When we use sous-vide
machines, we're
able to cook meat evenly from
the outside to the inside,
it's very even.
So does heat diffusion
work in a different manner
in that process?
Or could you tell us some more
about how heat diffusion works
in that context?
I don't use any
sous-vide at all,
so I don't even really
know how to do it.
So we have this thing.
Can I show you this?
I know that the
Seazall, for example,
was created with the purpose of
using it with low temperature
cooking.
The thing is, a
sous-vide machine
will cook the steak to
whatever temperature
that you put it in the bath.
This is a hot water bath that is
controlled to some temperature.
And if you leave it in, it'll
just cook to that temperature.
So doesn't the outside
cook more than the inside?
Well, no, because you
just leave it there,
and the whole thing
will be cooked.
But the problem is that,
in order to cook a steak,
you need to sear the outside.
Because otherwise, there's
no browning reactions,
and it tastes terrible.
I mean, go boil your
steak, and try it.
See how that works out for you.
But anyway, on this little
program that we have.
So the best way, I don't know
if you'll appreciate this, Mark.
So we took lots of different
recipes for cooking steak
that we found, and
we program them in.
So yours we'll have to
program in for next year.
But we had flip every
15 seconds, that
was Heston Blumenthal's method.
But the best method, it
turns out, is sous-vide.
But then, what you do, this
is Nathan Myhrvold's method.
You basically cook it
in a sous-vide bath.
You then take it, and you
dunk it in liquid nitrogen.
And then you sear it.
And this is what happens.
Because, see, then, see?
And look at the
end, look at that.
Do you see that at the end?
And so you can compare this.
Watch this.
You can compare two recipes.
We can compare sear sous-vide
and liquid nitrogen,
that's final one till like,
flip every 15 seconds.
And that's terrible, right?
I mean, compared to that.
So.
Hi.
My name is Rosina.
Do you have any
book recommendations
about mathematics and cooking,
or science and cooking,
or on this topic in general?
And a question for the
chef, what, in your opinion,
is a cookbook that needs
to be there in every house?
A cookbook that what?
That needs to be there
in every kitchen.
Oh, in every kitchen.
Oh, god.
I don't know.
You want to answer the
first question first?
I can say for science,
by far the best book.
I don't know if you'll
agree with this.
But the best book that I
think I don't want to say
has ever been
written, but probably
has ever been written
on the subject,
is Harold McGee's book,
On Food and Cooking.
Which is just spectacular.
Which, if you don't own it, you
should go to Amazon and own it.
And actually, it's amazing.
I mean, one thing we were proud
of with the Harvardx classes.
When the class started,
the sales of the book
actually started
peaking on Amazon.
So that's number one.
The other thing is,
Nathan Myhrvold has really
done extraordinary things.
I don't know if you
agree with this.
For understanding the
science of cooking.
And his books are
extraordinarily expensive,
but there's a lot of
information in them.
He's starting to release
them in smaller volumes.
But they're still
pretty expensive.
And the other thing I
would say is there's book
that America's
Test Kitchen wrote,
which is called The
Science of Good Cooking.
Have you seen this one?
Yeah.
It's really a good book.
It's really practical, as well.
It's really practical.
It's a good book.
It's got a lot of
stuff, that's right.
But now, what about for a chef?
I just didn't want to
let you off the hook.
There's a number of textbooks
from Johnson & Wales university
that I'm sure you could
find really helpful.
Some people pay good
money for those.
There's always The
Joy of Cooking.
There's Mark Bittman's
How to Cook Everything.
I mean, I'm thinking about stuff
that's more practical that you
would actually be able to use,
for example, on a school night.
I don't know, yeah.
Cooking school textbooks.
My friend, [? Chaz ?] [? Ray ?]
[? Cosel ?] recently did
a really good book on the
fundamentals and techniques
of Italian cuisine for the
International Culinary Academy
that I really like.
Yeah, I guess at
this point, it really
depends on what sort of food
you're interested in exploring.
Because there are
thousands of books
that are coming
out every year now.
So compounded over the
last several decades,
there's something for everyone.
Yes?
My name's Nina Rooks-Cast, I
teach physics and chemistry
at Mount Pleasant High School.
And I would really
like it if you
would explain that video
clip with the instant freeze.
Oh, the instant freeze.
Supercooling.
That super-- yeah.
So it turns out that
if you-- let's see,
how to explain this simply.
So technically,
if you take water,
according to the
textbooks, if you cool it
below zero degrees Celsius,
it's supposed to freeze, right?
And it does freeze.
If you take it and put it
below zero degrees, it freezes.
But it turns out that
in order to freeze,
there's a process that has
to happen in which an ice
crystal has to form, and then
that ice crystal has to grow
to basically fill up the jar.
If you prepare water
very, very carefully,
it has to be very,
very clean, and has
to be in a jar which has no
impurities on the outside.
And you also use a freezer
which is very well temperature
controlled, so it's not like
the freezers you have at home.
It's actually a good--
Like medical, cryogenic.
Yeah, good freezer.
It turns out you
can get water, you
can cool it to below the
freezing point of water,
and have it sit there in a
state which is not stable,
but it will be in liquid state.
And if you then take
it out of the freezer
and you pour it on anything,
as soon as it touches anything,
it freezes.
And that's what you were seeing.
And scientists call
that super cooled water.
And actually, this
is a topic that
is more or less a topic in
ICERM's workshop this week,
at least in some abstract
way, I think this appears,
and so it's a good
question to end with,
since ICERM sponsors with
Johnson & Wales this lecture.
Thank you all for coming.
Safe travels home, and let's
give these chef scientists
another round of applause.
I'd like to thank Chef TJ
Delle Donna, and his staff,
and all the support
of the culinary campus
today, helping us get
all this together.
Super organized, it made
it really easy for us all.
Yeah, you guys were amazing.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
