Molecular Gastronomy

By Roland Piquepaille

The Art of Cooking is evolving fast in this 21st century. New food products are being designed with the help of molecular technology, genetic discoveries or space research before arriving in our kitchens. For example, here is a Pravda article which says that NASA is preparing sandwiches which still be good in seven years. And companies such as Kraft are using nanotechnology to create food products tailored to users' needs. This is a booming market and, according to Associated Press, dozens of universities in the U.S. are offering degrees in culinology, attracting creative students in their food and science programs. Read more...

Here are some excerpts from the Pravada article.

Molecular gastronomy has a flavor of the future in its name. In other words, molecular gastronomy is the analysis of physicochemical laws while cooking and the use of recent discoveries for creating unusual recipes. This is a new tendency, which appears in Europe mostly and has restaurant chefs, matter physicists and experts on chemistry among its participants.

The starting point was the notion that there is a surprising molecular linkage between different products (for example, chocolate and caviar, asparagus and liquorice). Its discovery can lead to invention of unexpected mixes.

And even renowned chefs and scientists are using technology to cook "molecular dishes."

Englishman Heston Blumenthal is considered to be the founder of molecular cuisine: he is the first youngest chef who has already 3 Michelin stars in his 39. In Italy the most famous representative of the new trend is Davide Cassi, specialist in matter physics at the University of Parma. "Except for some recipes all the technologies which are used in scientific gastronomy (such as liquid nitrogen freezing) will be applied at home kitchens. As a result, menu will be enriched thanks to "molecular dishes", Cassi says.

Some of these future "functional" food products might be edible, but will they look good? Let's turn to NASA's Advanced Food Technology (AFT), an element of the Advanced Human Support Technology (AHST) Program, which is responsible for is responsible for "developing food systems for space vehicles and long duration missions that use a combination of extended shelf life stored foods and raw food products produced from higher plants."

Below is a picture showing how AFT is handling spinach (Credit: NASA).

Hydrogen peroxide presents a viable and attractive alternative as a sanitizing agent during a long duration space mission. The effect of different hydrogen peroxide concentrations on microbial loads, shelf-life and product attributes are being observed on different vegetable crops -- such as spinach.

If you're tempted, here is a link to a larger version of this photograph.

Now, let's move to the Associated Press article about culinology, which by the way is a registered trademark of the Research Chefs Association since October 26, 2004. This association has even created a dedicated web site to it.

I've selected two links to the AP article because they carry different pictures: here are the versions from USA TODAY and the Berkshire Eagle, Massachusetts.

Universities and colleges around the country are offering degrees in culinology. The training blends the science and technology long associated with food production and preservation research with the cooking or culinary artistry of chefs who strive to create the quality taste, texture and visual appeal that consumers look for in food.

"It should help jump-start product development," said Harry Crane, executive chef and culinary manager at Kraft Foodservice, a division of Kraft Foods North America Inc. in suburban Chicago. "The traditional way of developing products such as lines of salad dressings has been to hire chefs to create the dressings and then have food scientists figure out how to manufacture them in large quantities."

And while we're mentioning Kraft, let's add a last excerpt from the Pravda article about nanotechnology.

It is not accidental that such multinational corporations as Kraft in collaboration with 15 universities of the world opened a nanotechnological laboratory a few years ago. The first goal was to tighten control over overall production chain. More pretentious goals are set for the future: manipulating the matter on molecular level can help in creating the products that will identify consumers' needs, his/her allergies, lack of any substances and will be able to supply those substances in amount needed - all this with the help of nanosensors.

So what do you think about the food of the future?

Sources: Pravda, Russia, August 16, 2005; Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press, August 14, 2005; and other web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Food
  
• Nanotechnology
  
• NASA
  
• Space
  

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