The most iconic dish Spanish chef Ferran Adrià made at his restaurant El Bulli in Catalonia
was deceptively simple: a morsel resembling a green olive, served on a spoon. When guests put
that sphere in their mouths, it melted into a liquid explosion of concentrated olive flavor.
The dish was a trick of chemistry: Adria added olive juice—which contains calcium—to alginate.
The substance, typically found in seaweeds, can rearrange its structure to form strong chains
in the presence of certain chemicals. And when substances containing calcium are
submerged in a sodium alginate solution, a water insoluble, gel-like membrane
forms, and the substance maintains a round, droplet shape in a process known as reverse
spherification. When Adria dropped his olive puree into sodium alginate for a few minutes,
what came out were perfect, olive-shaped—and intensely olive-flavored—quasi-liquid olives.
El Bulli closed in 2011, but the shockwaves this edible science experiment sent through
the food world are still, in some ways, being felt today. Was molecular gastronomy a necessary
culinary breakthrough or an elitist misstep? What does "molecular gastronomy" even mean? Isn't all
gastronomy made up of, ya know...molecules? Break out your agar-agar and polish off your centrifuge,
because today we're looking at the controversial beginnings of molecular gastronomy,
and even speaking to Dr. Harold McGee about its surprisingly storied history.
Let’s get started.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. Molecular gastronomy is synonymous with modernist
cuisine today, but its origins date back centuries. According to food historian Gilly
Lehmann, medieval and renaissance chefs were scientists, of a sort. They often incorporated
contemporary medical beliefs into their dishes and were known to use the new science around them to
contribute to their culinary pyrotechnics. I’m not using that last word figuratively. The 15th
century manuscript The Vivendier has a well-nigh unmake-able and almost certainly deadly recipe to,
quote, “Make that Chicken Sing when it is dead and roasted.” It involves stuffing the chicken
with sulfur and mercury, heating it, and then further manipulating the bird so that
air escapes and somehow mimics the sound of a chicken. Ya know, like every diner wants.
In the 17th century French physicist Denis Papin created what was termed a digester.
A diner from the Royal Society, who had gone to check out the invention, wrote that it made
“the hardest bones of beef itself, and mutton . . . as soft as cheese.” Papin had invented
the ancestor of the modern pressure cooker. In the 1700s, exciting new discoveries from
the field of chemistry were applied to the culinary arts. French chemist Antoine Baumé
invented a method to measure the specific gravity of liquids now known as the Baumé scale.
Specific gravity is also called relative density, which is a good indication of its meaning:
it compares the density of substances to a reference material—which, when measuring liquids,
is usually water. For years, Baumé’s method was an important tool in many areas of food production,
from brewing beer to winemaking. It’s since been largely supplanted by the simplified Brix scale,
but even today there are vintners who will use a Baumé measurement to estimate the level of
dissolved solids in their grape juice. That gives them a good idea of the sugar content in the juice
and, by extension, the potential alcohol levels in their finished wine. If we think of winemaking as
half art and half science, Baumé helped push the science part of the equation forward.
Baume is also the namesake for the Baumé egg, which can be made by submerging a whole egg
in alcohol for about a month. Over time, the ethanol seeps through the pores of the shell
and coagulates the egg inside, effectively cooking it with no heat required.
Whether this single egg will get you properly buzzed, well that’s for you to find out.
Preparing a Baume egg feels closer to modern molecular gastronomy than simply frying one in
a pan, but it's a little bit hard to articulate why. After all, the change an egg goes through
when exposed to heat is a molecular one, too. For that matter, so is curing meat,
fermenting vegetables, and almost every other form of food preparation
humans have been practicing for millennia. This makes molecular gastronomy tricky to define.
Hervé This is a scientist and magazine editor and one of the pioneers of the field, as we’ll discuss
later in this video. This distinguishes between molecular cookery and molecular gastronomy.
In his understanding, molecular cookery involves using new techniques and science
to make better food and should be considered an art, rather than a science. Molecular gastronomy,
on the other hand, is the scientific discipline of understanding cooking. Even This admits, though,
that there isn’t any one universally accepted definition of the term.
When people think of molecular gastronomy, today, they’re usually thinking of the intersection
of food, science, and even theater that was exemplified at restaurants like El Bulli. And that
has its own antecedents in culinary history. French chef and cookbook author Marie-Antoine
Carême became famous for experimenting with a presentation-forward cooking style in the early
19th century. It didn't feature the chemical wizardry that's essential to modern molecular
gastronomy today, but it did bring together art and science in the form of edible architecture.
Creations he’s credited with, like the choux pastry puff tower known as croquembouche,
were meant to be a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.
Careme constructed other centerpiece desserts to resemble ancient structures
like temples and pyramids. He summed up his attitude in one of his cookbooks, writing,
“I want order and taste. A well-displayed meal is enhanced one hundred percent in my eyes."
The haute cuisine pioneered by Carême was a hit in the dining rooms of the wealthy,
but he didn’t intend for his style of cooking to be exclusive. In the several cookbooks he
authored in his lifetime, he shared instructions for pulling off complicated cooking techniques
in a home kitchen. According to Eater, his were the first cookbooks to use the phrase
"you can try this for yourself at home.” Carême may have inadvertently laid the groundwork
for one strand of what would become molecular gastronomy, but it would take a long time for
the term itself to arise. In 1988, cooking school instructor Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas
and physics professor Ugo Valdrè met in Italy and agreed on the potential value of a workshop
focused on the science of food. At that time, new scientific advancements in the culinary arts
were generally the domain of industrial food manufacturers; they weren’t viewed as tools
for home or restaurant chefs. The idea sparked by Cawdry Thomas eventually became the Erice
Workshops, which began in Sicily in 1992. This is where the term molecular gastronomy
first appeared publicly, according to Dr. Harold McGee, who eventually became one of the workshop's
co-organizers. The original posters publicizing the event advertised an “International Workshop
on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy,” but the blend of science and cooking discussed at these
conferences was different from the theatrical, innovative style of fine dining that rose to
prominence in the coming years.
The purpose was really to understand traditional cooking. The science of foods that have been traditionally prepared in restaurants,
and were considered the height of the art of cooking.
As for why the word 'molecular' was chosen in the first place,
it was all about timing; molecular biology was a trendy field in the early 1990s—even
people outside the scientific community were hearing about it.
Cawdry Thomas recruited Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti to be the workshop’s director.
Hervé This also signed on. Cawdry Thomas’s contributions didn’t stop at the conception stage.
Once the event was up-and-running she led several workshops, including a blind tasting of tomatoes
with various kinds of salts and another blind tasting comparing foods prepared in a microwave
versus conventional cooking methods. Though she was integral to the endeavor, her role has often
been overlooked, with media highlighting This’s and Kurti’s contributions instead.
We asked Dr. McGee to reflect on why that is.
There was the professional hierarchy. There are professors of physics and then there are cooking school teachers.
And the hierarchy back then, and still now I'm sure, was pretty clear. And then also the world of cooking back then,
and the world of science back then, were still dominated by men. There were, to my recollection, no women cooks,
no women chefs invited to this meeting. Elizabeth was always there to make things happen. To introduce people to each other.
Just a wonderfully warm, welcoming presence. I think, actually, probably felt more comfortable behind the scenes than on the stage.
But that doesn't excuse the fact that all along her contribution was really neglected.
I don't think the workshop would have taken place without her.
The goal of that initial workshop was to bring together chefs, writers, and scientists
to discuss four areas of interest: what was already understood about the science of =
cooking; how a better understanding of science could improve existing cooking methods; the
benefits of developing new kinds of cooking techniques and ingredients; and whether approaches
used in industrial food processing could be adapted to smaller kitchens. Though these summits
are sometimes thought of as the birthplace of modern molecular gastronomy, they weren’t a forum
for chefs to brainstorm whimsical dishes for $300 tasting menus. Rather, the participants were
more concerned with the practical applications of science on the broader culinary scene.
Around the same time as the Erice workshops, Ferran Adrià was pioneering the foam and
eye-dropper style of cooking that’s more commonly thought of as molecular gastronomy today.
What we were doing in the Erice meetings was along the same lines, part of the zeitgeist in the culinary world.
Classic French cooking that became standard international hotel cooking. You just followed a book. The Escofie playbook.
In the 1960s in France, along with the Nuveoa Romande, the new novel, the new movies, there was also a movement for the new cooking.
Nouveau Cuisine. I see what happened in Spain as kind of the explosive outgrowth of something that really began in the 60s in France.
And in particular with this one guy Ferran Adria who was just, he was the Gaudi of cooking. He just had a completely new way of thinking
about things. An approach that would, in the end, really benefit from a scientific understanding of food and cooking.
Which is, I think, why the science of food and cooking, or one of the reasons that the science of food and cooking, became such a general interest.
What he had done, was to take an ingredient and completely transform them physically.
And that just changes the experience of eating, because you look at a leaf of lettuce, and you know what it's going to taste like,
but you look at a green blob, you have no idea until you put it in your mouth.
Those flavored foams—made with whipped cream canisters—were so sensational that they led to a spate of knockoffs, often perceived
to be covering up for sub-par cooking. In a piece by Jeremy Repanich for Robb Report,
the chef Alex Stupak likened the use of once-daring techniques by lesser chefs to
the “ … pyrotechnics at a Kiss concert. Take that away, take your face paint away and you suck.”
Wow. Shots absolutely fired at Kiss, and at my high-concept restaurant, Detroit Rock Sous Vide.
After taking over El Bulli as head chef, Adrià launched his own series of culinary
workshops centered around developing new menus. The restaurant was open for six months out of the
year, and for the other six months, he led his team of chefs in experimenting with new cooking
techniques and translating them into finished dishes. This combination of meticulous, empirical
experimentation and total artistic freedom may be at the heart of molecular gastronomy,
and it led to El Bulli being named Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant
Magazine five times throughout the 2000s. At the same time, a new class of chefs were
expounding the bounds of cooking in their own restaurants. At the Fat Duck in Bray,
England, British chef Heston Blumenthal—who actually attended the last two Erice workshops—
put a mad scientist spin on haute cuisine. One of his influential trademarks was the use of liquid
nitrogen in cooking. With a boiling point of -321 degrees Fahrenheit, the substance allows chefs to
bring ingredients to freezing cold temperatures in seconds. One reason frozen food gets a bad rap
is the propensity for ice crystals to form and disrupt an item’s cellular structure. The bigger
the crystals are, the more the texture of the food changes. But when food freezes quickly,
these crystals are smaller and the structure of the ingredients remain intact. Blumenthal used
this principle when developing Nitro-Poached Green Tea and Lime Mousse, a palate cleanser
served at the Fat Duck, flash-frozen tableside. American chef Wylie Dufresne is considered another
pioneer of molecular gastronomy. At his New York restaurant wd~50, which closed in 2014,
one of the signature dishes was a deconstructed eggs benedict. It consisted of sous-vide
egg yolks, Canadian bacon wisps, and fried hollandaise. That last component was apparently
the trickiest to perfect. Dufresne and his team pulled it off by adding gelatin to the sauce
so it could be cut into portions and adding starch to protect the egg yolks in the hollandaise from
high heat, thus preventing them from scrambling. Today, Dufresne's passion for tinkering has taken
him in a seemingly different direction, running his own doughnut shop and pop-up pizzeria here
in New York City. But these humble foods are, in the end, no less the products of food science than
noodles made with methylcellulose—or, indeed, "pizza pebbles," a deconstructed dish that was
once on the menu of wd~50. Dufresne even gave a lecture at Harvard in 2021 about his quest
for pizza dough perfection, touching on topics like gluten levels, cold fermentation,
and manipulating carbon dioxide. Man, these chefs are so much smarter than I am.
Perhaps the other American chef most commonly associated with molecular cuisine is Grant Achatz.
It’s not hard to see the influence of chemistry in the menu of his Chicago restaurant Alinea.
The famous translucent pumpkin pie is made by setting concentrated pumpkin pie stock
in clear gelatin. And perhaps even more so than some of his peers, Achatz celebrates
the artistic side of molecular cooking as well. Like Careme two centuries before him,
he prioritizes serving a "well-displayed meal" that takes heavy inspiration from the art world.
A famous dessert course at Alinea is literally painted onto the table to resemble an abstract art
piece. A different dessert features edible invert sugar balloons filled with actual helium guests
are encouraged to inhale—calling to mind Careme’s whimsical pastry towers, but cranked up to 11.
In a 2021 article for InsideHook, Achatz explains the emotional part of molecular gastronomy
that balances out the cold science, writing, “I like to say that this
style of cooking uses emotions as seasoning: intimidation, confusion, intrigue, happiness,
magic and nostalgia are layered over delicious food by using newly developed techniques,
ideas and equipment to manipulate the food in unexpected ways.”
These chefs are credited with shaping molecular gastronomy, but they haven’t all embraced the
label. Some of them have outright rejected it. When discussing the phrase, Heston Blumenthal
told The Guardian, “Molecular makes it sound complicated...and gastronomy makes it sound
elitist.” Ferran Adrià has expressed similar sentiments, and instead refers to his style of
cooking as “deconstructivist.” Achatz prefers “progressive American.” Other names that have
been tossed around to describe a science-based approach to fine dining include avant-garde,
modernist, and experimental cuisine. I suggested “funky yummy time” but this was rejected.
None of these terms have succeeded in replacing molecular gastronomy in the cultural lexicon.
Sure, the phrase originated with a workshop that had nothing to do with liquid olives or
sugar balloons, and maybe the word molecular is both too broad and too specific to describe the
cuisine it’s associated with. But it’s apt in its own way. The futuristic name points to the crucial
role science plays in creating deliciousness, and to the possibilities unlocked by experimentation.
Ingredients are physical and chemical materials, and when we cook we transform them from one state into another.
And those transformations are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. So anytime you cook an egg,
you're doing physics and chemistry both. And the more we understand about what it is we are doing
when we cook in the kitchen, the better we can control those processes and come up with the results we want.
The label may be a little over-the-top, but in a fun and sometimes frustrating way,
that was the case with much of the food served at the most innovative restaurants of the 2000s.
Thanks for watching Food History, and a special thanks to Dr. Harold McGee—getting
the chance to hear his thoughts on this moment in culinary history
is one of the coolest things we’ve gotten to do while making this series so far.
If you have an idea for a future episode of the series, or a bucket list-level food world
luminary we should talk to, drop us a suggestion in the comments below. Thanks for watching!