Totally Molecular, Dude

Have you been following the "molecular gastronomy" movement? It doesn't take a microscope but according to those who have sampled this phenomena it's worth it (and in the case of one the molecular hotspots, minibar in NYC, there's a one month waiting list for rezzies).

Check out the slide show of the Chef at Alinea's preparing a molecular dinner at Chow

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And here's how it all started:

Students in introductory chemistry courses are taught one important and seemingly obvious rule: Do not eat in the laboratory.

But for French chemist Hervé This, eating in the lab is the whole point.

This (pronounced "Teese") is one of the founders of the field of molecular gastronomy, the application of science to culinary knowledge and practice. Along with physicist Nicholas Kurti and science writer Harold McGee, This was among the first to use the tools of science to explore the methodology and mechanisms of the culinary arts.

This will speak at the Academy on April 10, as part of the Science of Food series. Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, his first book available in English, was published in September 2006.

It started with a soufflé

Molecular Dining Care to sample some molecular cooking? These international kitchens double as laboratories: France Pierre Gagnaire Chef Pierre Gagnaire La Maison de Marc Veyrat Chef Marc Veyrat Great Britain The Fat Duck Heston Blumenthal Spain Il Bulli Chef Ferran Adria Atlanta, GA One Midtown Kitchen Chef Richard Blais Boston, MA Louis Boston's Restaurant L Chef Pino Maffeo Chicago, IL Moto Chef Homaro Cantu New York, NY CRU Chef Shea Gallante Wd~50 Chef Wylie Dufresne Room 4 Desert Chef Will Goldfarb

While preparing a Roquefort cheese soufflé for friends one Sunday in March 1980, This—then an editor at Pour la Science, the French edition of Scientific American—stopped at a line in an ELLE magazine recipe that called for adding eggs two-by-two. Why two-by-two? This wondered. With his scientific curiosity piqued, This tempted the fate of the dinner by adding all the eggs at once—resulting in a dish that was "edible," but lacked the signature pouf of a perfectly prepared soufflé.

When another party of friends called the following Sunday, This repeated his informal experiment, this time adding the eggs one at a time. Pour la Science did without its editor the following day, as This stayed home to tinker with the recipe and postulate about the precisions, or old wives' tales, which peppered this, and many other recipes, of France's haute cuisine.

Since that day, This has collected more than 25,000 of these precisions, with the admittedly lofty goal of putting each one to the test. He continued experimenting in his home laboratory (otherwise known as his kitchen) and in 1986 met Kurti, a physicist at Oxford who shared the same passion for science and cooking. The two began collaborating almost immediately, writing papers and hosting a series of meetings in Erice, Sicily, which were attended by the few active researchers in the newly created field of molecular and physical gastronomy, including McGee and biochemist Shirley Corriher (who spoke at the Academy's first Science of Food event).

In 1995, This was awarded the first PhD in molecular and physical gastronomy ("physical" was dropped after Kurti's death in 1998), and he took a part-time position in Nobel Laureate Jean-Marie Lehn's chemistry lab at the Collège de France. Five years later, he quit his day job at Pour la Science to work as a full-time researcher at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).

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