Upon the matter of molecular gastronomy

 

I tend to chafe against food movements and develop a serious case of snits whenever trends adopt names.  For example, I’ve spoken ill of “slow food” because a great cook I worked with once said “there are only two kinds of food, good food and bad food.  In twelve hours, both are poop”.  Granted he’s French so it sounded better when said it but the point was well taken.  Maybe I don’t like labels, or movements, or “schools” because they’re like clubs and I’ve never been able to get into the good ones.  Maybe it’s because labels make things exclusive and the people who welcome them…special.

Thus it is with me and “molecular gastronomy”.  Although there is indeed value in learning the ways of the white powders (xanthan gum makes it in to most of my dressings), so much emphasis has been put into and on it in the last few years that many young cooks are attempting to jump over the basics and go straight to methylcellulose, sodium alginate, various polysaccharides, gums, and even transglutaminase, which can make some very interesting sausage when properly applied.   But ask them to sauté a mushroom or bake a meringue and many turn up their noses or simply lose interest.

Does this mean that chefs who are heavily invested in culinary chemicals bad cooks?  Heck no.  Great chefs tend to be great because they are great and most have a skill set that is as wide as it is deep.   The molecular way has allowed several of these craftsmen and artists to express themselves in new and flat out amazing ways.  They are blazing new frontiers in taste and flavor and I admire and applaud their bright rising stars.

But please remember food fans…all food is molecular and there is as much magic (and science) in a properly poached egg as there is in an edible paper pouch full of lavender smoke, powdered goat butter, and licorice caviar.  With saffron foam no less.

Some…such as myself would argue there is even more magic in that simple egg.

But then, I’m old school and I know it.  I just want my food to taste, smell, and feel like food.

AB out.