Comments on: The End of Molecular Gastronomy?

By: veron

veron — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Lucky you to feast at Alinea. I agree,calling it Molecular Gastronomy is not at all appetizing and makes the cuisine look sterile. I cannot wait to sample this kind of food.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I ate at Alinea last year, and also Homaru Cantu’s Moto, and while Alinea was great, Moto freakin’ blew me away. It was the best meal I have ever eaten (and I have been to some top top places)

I agree with you, the comparison to nouvelle is apt. You even get the same kind of complaints (It’s pretentious! The plates are tiny! Just gimme a ribeye!) and I do get the impression that these techniques will become part of the basic repertoire by 2025 or so.

I kind of like the term molecular gastronomy, I think a shorter term is needed though. Food 2.0!

By: Nick Kokonas

Nick Kokonas — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

In the early 20th century a bunch of scientists came forward and said, basically, that mankind had discovered all there is to be discovered and that the pace of scientific discovery would slow since so much had been accomplished in the past 50 years to formalize the scientific method and make new, fundamental discoveries. Of course, then Einstein came along a short time later and completely rewrote all of the theories on space, time, energy and magnetism…. really fundamental stuff that had been all wrong.

As soon as an innovator says they are done, the ideas are used up and it is time to look backward, I look for the 10 year old who will be on the scene in 12 years kicking their ass.

And I expect that while it may be disheartening to hear chef Adria say that it is time to look back, Grant ultimately will not buy into that. He is still too young and too full of energy.

It seems to me that what is really being said in the letter you cite, and by Grant and you during your talk at Steppenwolf, is that Molecular Gastronomy, a term that we can all agree is a gangly misnomer, is now accepted. It is the end of the beginning of the movement that embraced rapid and radical innovation in haute cuisine.

The idea that a chef or a restaurant can or should present innovative techniques, dishes and surprising flavors is no longer viewed negatively. A restaurant can take chances, so long as the end result is satisfying and delicious, in part (a single dish) or in whole (the entire dining experience).

As Grant said in the talk, this is all cyclical. I will be looking forward to further innovation from Grant and others precisely when we least expect it.

By: Bob delG

Bob delG — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Gee, I don’t know. I can’t imagine that too many of the people who prepare this kind of food can pull it off without paying attention to the food’s molecular composition and the physics that comes into play during preparation and cooking.

Sounds to me like Chefs Acahtz and Adria may just be getting sick of hearing the term “molecular gastronomy” applied to what they do and having to explain it ad nauseum. Or perhaps they don’t want their work to be labeled by anyone but themselves.

In either case they are going to have to come up with a label that does a better job of representing what they do because this one is not going to go away just because they don’t like it.

I hope I don’t sound dismissive, I am sympathetic. But when you look at this food, it’s appearance does not tie it very firmly to any previously established culinary form. So it kind of makes sense to give it a unique name such as “MG.”

It’s a real problem.

By: Lori Skelton

Lori Skelton — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

If only there were a catchy, two-word phrase for “playing with your food!”

By: ruhlman

ruhlman — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

bob delG,

tell me how foam is anymore “molecular” than stock, how calcium chloride is any different from sodium chloride, kosher or otherwise. when i salt my food, am i practicing moleculuar gastronomy.

“molecular” is irrelavent. “gastronomy” is so general as to be meaningless.

By: rockandroller

rockandroller — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I would suggest that MG came about because it’s almost like science combined with cooking since you have to know the properties of everything you’re working with down to a very precise level. To make gels, foams, all these strange things is almost like a chemistry experiment, isn’t it?
I don’t know where the term originated (nor am I fan of it) so that’s just a guess, but I’m afraid that, like “foodie,” whether it’s an appreciated or even appropriate moniker isn’t the point, it’s one that is now branded in much of the public’s mind.

By: Grant

Grant — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

What strange things?

By: Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Lovely little edible vignettes, refined, sophisticated, ethereal. Beautiful to photograph. Food art. What philistine attached the odious appellation “molecular gastronomy” to this nouveau culinary preciosity?

By: rockandroller

rockandroller — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

By “strange,” I mean, stuff that doesn’t look like normal food that you’d see prepared in an average person’s home, or anything you could easily buy or prepare at home without a lot of special equipment and extremely specialized cooking knowledge. Eating something off a pin, for example, isn’t something I would call “normal.” I don’t mean strange with a negative connotation, I mean it with an innovative, different and positive connotation. But, I mean, foams and gels and eating off sticks and pins, it’s kind of strange to the average person. I wouldn’t even know how to begin eating most of the things presented at these types of restaurants without specific instruction, never mind not being able to recognize what the foods are that make up what’s in front of me. Before actually tasting even the couple of items pictured above, if one didn’t have a menu or a description, would the average person, even a smarter than average person with a decent palate be able to accurately guess at what exactly is in each item? They’re not easily recognizable. That’s what I mean by strange.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Molecular gastronomy is just a modern word for cooking. Simple as that. We’ve been exercising molecular gastronomy ever since Lady Elinor Fettiplace (for example) separated an egg, whipped the white, dropped in some sugar and created the Meringue! How bizarre would that texture have been when it was first created!! Was Lady Elinor Fettiplace (c. 1570 – c. 1647) a ye olden day molecular gastronomist…too right.

http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/FOOD_IS_ART/meringue2.html

By: Martin Lersch

Martin Lersch — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Beef ribs with a translucent sheet of Guinness beer – great idea! Think I’ll try that some time!

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Speaking of weird looking eating instruments, I’d say a few asian or islander peoples would have a bit of a giggle at us westerners using our funny looking 3-4 pronged metal things to eat with. What’s wrong with your bloody fingers, they’d say! Did anyone ever see the episode of Red Dwarf when they went to an alien guests for dinner. The eating implements (magically) made the food hover in front of the diner, who then had to guide the morsal into their mouth. Needless to say, the food went everywhere!
The pin idea is just a variation of ‘fondue’.

By: Tags

Tags — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

How about tightrope cuisine?

Taking risks, planning assiduously, executing flawlessly. Oohs and Aahs for dessert.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Here’s the link to the Memosian anti-matter chop sticks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB5izV79nps

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Indeed — we certainly knew the term was dead after listening to Marcel blather on about it on Top Chef 2.

By: rockandroller

rockandroller — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Exactly my point – whether or not Asians would giggle at us (I think most of them know what a fork and knife look like unless we’re talking REALLY rural here), I understand what you’re saying. And yes, Lady Elior and the Asians giggling at us are good examples, and also both speak to my point. By strange I mean “unusual, extraordinary, curious,” which is the dictionary definition of strange. I never said strange was bad, but what’s being done in MG is surely not just to serve “normal” food, but to be different, that is, to be strange, no? And while I think it’s a bit of a stretch to liken eating off of a pin as a cousin to fondue, who knows what will be “normal” 50, 100 years from now, right? I’m all about innovation and trying some new things, but Lady Elinor was indeed probably looked at as strange the first time she made a meringue if that genesis is true, and ergo I think the whole MG thing is strange too. As Bob said above, “…its appearance does not tie it very firmly to any previously established culinary form.”

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I think the desire to give this particular style of cooking and presentation a name like “molecular gastronomy” may come from the effect the dishes may have upon the lay people who get to experience them. You have to admit that between the use of various gelling agents, “anti-griddles” and high concept dishware the completed items look a bit like something out of a science fiction story. The unknown being a bit frightening, we want to name the demon – so we give it a “tech-y” name, hence the “molecular gastronomy”. Is the name necessarily apt? No. But naming the unknown to feel in control is part of human nature, I think.

I wonder, now that you can get things like the Texturas line from La Tienda and home cooks can experiment with these sorts of preparations at home, if that will help ease the term out of the general lexicon and make it easier to for everyone to just call it “good food”.

By: sorcha

sorcha — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I think “molecular gastronomy” makes it sound like the people working in this particular culinary discipline are more concerned with the science and the “weirdness” (for lack of a better word) than they are with the food itself. Maybe that’s why so many of the top progressive chefs don’t like the term. The food *is* still the focus; they’re just finding new ways to prepare and serve it. Nothing wrong with that at all. If you’re a good chef, then you’re going to be producing good food, whether you prepare it on a traditional stove or in a vat of liquid nitrogen.

By: Dan McGurn

Dan McGurn — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

What, maybe shorten it to MoGas?