A food fad or food of tomorrow

A food fad or food of tomorrow

“Molecular Gastronomy does not exist,” Brent Savage (being named the Sydney Morning Herald “chef of the year') said, the head chef of the Bentley Restaurant. Why would a cooking iconoclast, a master chef known for pushing culinary boundaries, an advocate of Molecular Gastronomy think his trademark culinary skill does not even exist?

Remarkable changes in cooking

The world of food has changed a great deal over the last two decades. Along with many other developments, a new approach to cooking has emerged in restaurants around the world. The concept of molecular gastronomy has been discussed with an emphasis on the relation to food science and technology. Science-based cooking is closely associated with significant technological developments. Traditional culinary techniques have been replaced by scientific approaches in modern times. Chefs have often worked with scientists to experiment and create dishes. Laboratory engineering is becoming much more important than traditional industrial processes. Food will be manufactured, processed and cooked in a different way.

Controversy of Molecular Gastronomy

Nearly two decades ago, the king of Molecular Gastronomy, Ferran Adri transformed modern cooking at his El Bulli Restaurant in Spain. “Taking a dish that is well known and transforming all its ingredients or part of them; then modifying the dish's texture, form and/or its temperature. Deconstructed, such a dish will preserve its essence... but its appearance will be radically different from the original's.” Ferran Adri said. Twenty years into Adri's revolution, El Bulli Restaurant became the No.1 restaurant on the world's 50 Best Restaurant list compiled by Britain's Restaurant magazine. However some critics still think Molecular Gastronomy has too much focus on technology. “Those lab experiments were turning cookery into a "media spectacle", Catalan chef Santi Santamara said. In traditional cooking, chefs use a knife to cut up the ingredients and mix them in various combinations. After that they could choose steaming, boiling, stir-frying, stewing to cook the ingredients into several dishes. In contrast, with scientific cooking in a lab, they may not have to understand those ingredients but they have to know how to operate machines. People work in lab like machinists work in factory. Cooking instructions indicate in detail, how to follow the instructions to operate machines. Once upon time machines made it possible for any home cook to do the once-labor-intensive work of finely minced meat with a touch of a button. Now a handy kit that includes attractively designed tins of chemicals will allow amateurs to solidify squid ink right in their own kitchen. Machines and technologies are playing the most important role in kitchen.

Santamaria also pointed out that the use of synthetic additives - gels, preservatives and thickening agents in Molecular Gastronomy is like an athlete who dopes. "It's really a debate about home-made versus industrial products, natural versus artificial. The public have the right to be informed about what they're eating," Santamara said. His criticizes questioned the methods and philosophy of Molecular Gastronomy. Some of the world's leading chefs disagree with his argument. "It's the biggest madness in the history of cuisine! Obviously, if you consume too much of anything it's bad for you - too much roast beef, sugar or salt is bad. But 80% of the products I use are ecological, and the additives under debate account for just 0.1% of my cooking." Adri said. The nutritionists agree, and stress that the additives used in those unusual cooking techniques have been approved through the European Union's system of E-numbers, while the quantities used are strictly regulated.

How foodies think about Molecular Gastronomy

I have talked to some customers in the Bentley Restaurant. Most of them think molecular gastronomy is interesting. Some think the taste of the dishes might be strange. And it's interesting that not many customers know that some of the dishes they ate in Sydney restaurants are described as `molecular gastronomy'.

“It sounds interesting, but I don't think it will become everyday food for me, people eat this kind of food for curiosity,” customer Ping Li says.

Customer Mike who knows molecular gastronomy says, “It can be called `experimental cooking'. I'm fascinated by the new techniques and clever presentation."

Another customer Daniel told me that he had been to a famous molecular gastronomy restaurant in the United State. “I enjoy something that's interesting but not necessary. It's fun to try cucumber-flavoured foam and tomato-flavoured disks of gelatine,” he says.

“In the West, where the problem of hunger has been solved, where obesity is now the issue, the trend has to be more and more about the pleasure of eating, the fun, rather than seeing it as simply a way of satisfying our appetites” master chef Ferran Adri says. Molecular gastronomy gives foodies more creations and fun in cooking.

The truth of Molecular Gastronomy

The fashionable term "molecular gastronomy" was introduced recently, but in fact chemists have been helping cooks for hundreds of years. In the past cooking was limited by the ways of transforming ingredients and understanding of cooking processes. Today there are fewer constraints, chefs can choose from the entire planet's ingredients and cooking methods. Cooking processes may involve all of human knowledge. Molecular Gastronomy is not a new idea, it is a new opportunity. The term "Molecular Gastronomy" does not describe any style of cooking. It does not matter if it will be a food fad or food of tomorrow. The most important thing about Molecular Gastronomy is not the fancy name. It is the way to explore the expressive potential of food and cooking.