Intro to Molecular Gastronomy

Ian Rosoff

Last month the temple to molecular gastronomy, the world’s number one restaurant, closed its doors to the public. Nestled in a cove along the Gulf of Roses a few hours north of Barcelona sits more than just a restaurant, El Bulli is a laboratory, a place of unrivaled innovation and unbridled creativity. Ferran Adria is the chef who has turned molecular gastronomy from an amusing science trick to the most sophisticated and yet casual culinary art form. Adria is a real life Willy Wonka, complete with his own culinary factory, dedicated only to creating new techniques and dishes — think consommé pasta*, a dish that looks like traditional linguini, but is actually consommé contained within a thin shell of clear algin to reveal the viscous consommé center. For Adria, gastronomy is about pushing the limits of food and updating classics with modern ideas and a heavy dose of whimsy and humor. Each technique is tested endlessly as to reach the high level of execution needed to pull off these devilishly difficult dishes.
It’s important to realize that gastronomy is not a gimmick. It starts with fresh ingredients and faithfulness to flavor, and only then incorporates gadgetry and exotic powders. It does not attempt to hide flavor, in fact it seeks to produce bolder, stronger and truer flavors. It is sometimes unfairly called “fake food” and is often accused of being a means to show off, not showcase the food. While this is sometimes true it’s completely false for El Bulli. True molecular gastronomy is full of comforting and familiar flavors in unique textures and new presentations.
Even as Ferran Adria ends perhaps the greatest gastronomy experiment ever, the techniques he has pioneered, many of which were thought to be part of a brief fad, seem to be here to stay. Gastronomy has come to the United States in a big way. Chefs like Jose Andreas and Wily Dufrane have become mainstays on the Food Network and shows like “Top Chef.” New cooking innovations created by Adria have been adopted by many of the world’s best restaurants seeking to emulate the master who led El Bulli to be rated the world’s best eatery five times this decade. Anthony Bourdain has twice brought El Bulli to the U.S. on his show “No Reservations”, and, last year, Harvard University held a class taught by Adria, Andreas, and other gastronomy giants on the physics of food. Gastronomy has become unbelievably popular for an idea that even recently was thought to be neither cooking nor science.
The history of gastronomy is brief but tumultuous. The term was first coined by Oxford physicist Nicholar Kurti, who stunned chefs all over the world when he began a series of demonstrations that involved making meringue using a vacuum chamber and cooking sausages by running a current through them with the aid of a car battery. Gastronomy has come a long way. With the help of Adria, the father of modern gastronomy, now even home chef’s can use some of his complicated techniques and ingredients. I recently purchased a starter kit from Adria’s own line of home gastronomy products aptly named “Texturas.” The kit came with algin, xantham gum, and a litany of other exotic powders and products used for three basic gastronomy techniques: sferificacion, gelificacion, emulsificacion. With the right tools and a fair amount of determination anyone can now create foams, gelees, flavored caviar spheres and other staples of molecular gastronomy.
You’ll be hard pressed to find gastronomy in Ann Arbor, but look out for foams and emulsions at some of Ann Arbors top restaurants. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them incorporate more gastronomy techniques soon.
*Consommé is a soup made from stock or bouillon.