Assessing the long-term impact of the molecular gastronomy movement on haute cuisine

Abstract

There is widespread agreement that what some of the most innovative chefs have been doing over the last quarter century or so in the west deserves a name that highlights how things have moved on in the kitchens and dining rooms from the nouvelle cuisine movement. However, what no one can seem to agree on is what name should be given to this movement. The scientists and press have been keen to label it as the science of 'molecular gastronomy'. However, many of the top chefs, after in some cases initially embracing the idea, have distanced themselves from that moniker. In their pronouncements and interviews, the latter have been keen to stress that while they are interested in the findings of scientific research, what they do is better conceptualized as the art and craft of cooking. Many of the top chefs have been inspired by the results of the scientific research much as they are inspired by what is happening in many other fields of endeavour, from painting to jazz etc. Given that it is mostly not what the chefs do, it becomes increasingly unclear whether 'molecular gastronomy' is itself anything more than a 'glorified' sub-discipline of food science. We believe, along with several other commentators, that the most appropriate name for what distinguishes contemporary culinary practice is what can be labelled 'experimental cooking'. It is defined as much by its innovativeness, its novelty, its creativity, and by the way in which it engages with the diner's intellect and emotions (with the diner's brain in other words), as with their gut.

Multisensory Flavour Perception: Blending, Mixing, Fusion, and Pairing within and between the Senses

“…However, above and beyond the mundane combining of different ingredients that one normally finds in everyday recipes [1], it is also a desirable practice insofar as it may help to deliver a novel result, as is the case in so many contemporary fusion foods, [2]. It would appear that many diners and consumers today, as previously [3][4][5][6], crave novelty in their cuisine. One of my favourite early quotes highlighting that the craving for novelty should not be considered solely a contemporary passion comes from the famous chef Auguste Escoffier (head cook of the Paris Ritz and London Savoy).…”

Magic on the Menu: Where Are All the Magical Food and Beverage Experiences?

“…Modernist/molecular cooking has certainly provided imaginative chefs with the opportunity to play with ingredients and deconstruct dishes in ways that many diners find surprising, at least initially [8,66,67]. Just take The Roca Brothers white-coloured dark-chocolate ice-cream, or Heston Blumenthal's Beetroot and Orange Jelly, for the playful/surprising disconnect between the colour or visual appearance and flavour in a dish.…”

“…Given the long history of magic as a form of popular entertainment [1], and given the public's growing interest in both playful [2,3] and theatrical food experiences [4][5][6], one would, a priori, have imagined that there would be plenty of magical food experiences out there. Indeed, as noted by Hanefors and Mossberg [7], no matter whether or not the restaurant staff are literally magicians, they should nevertheless still be aiming to generate surprise and to play with their diners' expectations, at least in the context of molecular/modernist cuisine [8]. Meanwhile, from the chef's perspective, emotional engagement is also key, with the delight/surprise that magic offers chefs providing a wonderful means of immersing guests further into the multisensory dining experience.…”

Book Review

“…For instance, the original discussion of the addition of a golden colour to margarine first appeared in Masurovsky (1939) rather than the secondary source (Packard, 1957), cited in the main text. Given my own interest in the Italian Futurists (Spence, 2017;Spence and Youssef, 2018), and the authors' base in Northern Italy, also the home of the Futurist movement, I was glad to see some discussion of their work, and even a dedicated box on the Futurist Dinner party (pp. 142-144).…”