Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (3 page)

for the development of chemistry. Already in 1821 Friedrich Christian Accum

(1769–1838) had brought out in London a very interesting book called
Culinary

Chemistry: Exhibiting the Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions

for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Mar-

malades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Econ-

omy, with Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of

Different Kinds of Food
. Here the question arises whether a distinction must be

made between chemistry as a science and chemistry as an application of sci-

ence, or technology. My own view is that the terms
chemistry
and
science
should

be reserved for the scientific exploration of chemical phenomena.

We now come to the strange case of Louis-Camille Maillard (1878–1936).

On completing studies in medicine and chemistry at the University of Nancy,

Maillard wrote his doctoral thesis in the latter field on the reaction of glycerol

and sugars with amino acids. These chemical processes, first explained in a

publication of 1912, are very important because they impart flavor to grilled

meats, bread crust, roasted chocolate and coffee, and many other things. After

World War I Maillard took up an appointment as professor of biochemistry and

Introduction
| 5

toxicology at the University of Algiers, where he taught until his sudden death

in Paris almost twenty years later. Curiously, Maillard was renowned for his

work throughout the world but not in France until a few years ago.

No brief survey of the prehistory of molecular gastronomy would be com-

plete without mentioning Édouard de Pomiane (1875–1964), a biologist at the

Institut Pasteur in Paris who was well known in the first half of the twentieth

century for a series of popular works on what he called
gastrotechnie
, or gastro-

technology, an attempt to rationalize cooking similar to ones also being made

in the United States and in some European countries. But these works were

full of elementary mistakes, based on insufficient experimental evidence. For

example, it was believed at the time that the bowl and whisk used to whip egg

whites had to be made of copper and galvanized iron, respectively, to promote

the formation of foam. But all this had to do with technology, not science.

Food science thus initially developed in close contact with cooking. But it

soon gave way to an interest in feeding people and making more efficient use

of ingredients. It is often forgotten that until recently the chief concern of

people in most countries, even in the West, was having enough to eat. Gradu-

ally scientific research came to concentrate more on foods themselves than on

their domestic preparation.

But what about the millions of people who cook every day in advanced in-

dustrial countries? We now have access to products that have benefited from

advances in food science, but do we know how to cook them? This question

has two parts. On one hand, how good are the products we use? On the other,

how competent are we as cooks?

First, the question of quality. Like so many others in France today who long

for the countryside they left in order to live and work in cities, I am not im-

mune to nostalgia for the good old days. I, too, miss the chickens running

freely about the courtyard; the asparagus picked just before the meal, with its

delicate milky juice running out from the stalk; the peas shelled just before

they are cooked; the strawberries served still warm from the sun—all this is

the stuff of literature. But the countryside is also the mud that comes when it

rains, the wild rabbits that visit at night to undo the gardener’s work during

the day, the mice that gnaw at the food he has stored away, the aching back that

rewards him for his toil.

By all means, then, let us fill our souls with such nostalgia, for they have

need of it. But let us also compare. The same Alsatian wine that thirty years ago

6 | introduc tion

produced migraine headaches and kept for only four years has now become

a nectar that no longer degrades so rapidly. Mediocre homemade yogurt has

been supplanted by commercial brands in various flavors that have a perfectly

regular texture. Should we reproach them for having a strawberry flavor too

unlike the flavor of strawberries from the orchard? Or should we reproach

ourselves instead for wanting to eat strawberries in winter? The same goes for

insipid year-round tomatoes: Wait for summer!

Enough of this facile apology for progress. We would do better to accept

products for what they are and recognize that the possibility of improving them

lies first and foremost in submitting them to the transformations of the culi-

nary art. If we want yogurt to be flavored, we should be prepared do it our-

selves. In other words, let’s go into the kitchen and start cooking.

This is why I raised the second question, concerning our culinary skills. To

answer this we need to ask ourselves how we cook, and we will have to admit

that by and large we repeat what we have seen done at home, by our parents

or grandparents. When we try out a new dish, one that does not belong to the

family culinary repertoire, we have the same feeling Christopher Columbus

had setting out to discover the New World. Why do most people find cooking

so difficult? Because for most people it is a matter of repetition and habit. In

Meditation 7, section 48 of the
Physiology of Taste
(best known in English in the

translation by M. F. K. Fisher, from whom I quote once again), Brillat-Savarin

gave a more detailed answer:

s e r m o n

“Maître la Planche,” said the Professor, in a tone grave enough to pierce the hardest

heart, “everyone who has sat at my table proclaims you as a
soup-cook
of the highest order,

which is indeed a fine thing, for soup is of primary concern to any hungry stomach; but I

observe with chagrin that so far you are but an
uncertain fryer
.

“Yesterday I heard you moan over that magnificent sole, when you served it to us pale,

flabby, and bleached. My friend R. … threw a disapproving look at you; Monsieur H. R. …

averted his gnomonic nose, and President S. … deplored the accident as if it were a public

calamity.

“This misfortune happened because you have neglected the theory of frying, whose

importance you do not recognize. You are somewhat opinionated, and I have had a little

trouble in making you understand that the phenomena which occur in your laboratory

are nothing more than the execution of the eternal laws of nature, and that certain things

Introduction
| 7

which you do inattentively, and only because you have seen others do them, are nonethe-

less based on the highest and most abstruse scientific principles.

“Listen to me with attention, then, and learn, so that you will have no more reason to

blush for your creations.”

i . c h e m i s t r y

“Liquids which you expose to the action of fire cannot all absorb an equal quantity of

heat; nature has made them receptive to it in varying degrees: it is a system whose secret

rests with her, and which we call caloric capacity.

“For instance, you could dip your finger with impunity into boiling spirits-of-wine, but

you would pull it out as fast as you could from boiling brandy, faster yet if it was water, and

a rapid immersion in boiling oil would give you a cruel injury, for oil can become at least

three times as hot as plain water.

“It is because of this fact that hot liquids react in differing ways upon the edible bodies

which are plunged into them. Food which is treated in water becomes softer, and then dis-

solves and is reduced to a bouilli; from it comes soup-stock or various essences: whereas

food which is treated in oil grows more solid, takes on a more or less deep color, and ends

by burning.

“In the first case, the water dissolves and pulls out the inner juices of the food which

is plunged into it; in the second, these juices are saved, since the oil cannot dissolve them;

and if the food becomes dry, it is only because the continuation of the heat ends in vapor-

izing their moistness.

“These two methods also have different names, and
frying
is the one for boiling in oil or

grease something which is meant to be eaten. I believe that I have already explained that, in

the culinary definition,
oil
and
grease
are almost synonymous, grease being nothing more

than solid oil, while oil is liquid grease.”

i i . a p p l i c a t i o n o f t h e o r y

“Fried things are highly popular at any celebration: they add a piquant variety to the

menu; they are nice to look at, possess all of their original flavor, and can be eaten with the

fingers, which is always pleasing to the ladies.

“Frying also furnishes cooks with many ways of hiding what has already been served

the day before, and comes to their aid in emergencies; for it takes no longer to fry a four-

pound carp than it does to boil an egg.

8 | introduc tion

“The whole secret of good frying comes from the surprise; for such is called the action

of the boiling liquid which chars or browns, at the very instant of immersion, the outside

surfaces of whatever is being fried.

“By means of this surprise, a kind of glove is formed, which contains the body of food,

keeps the grease from penetrating, and concentrates the inner juices, which themselves

undergo an interior cooking which gives to the food all the flavor it is capable of produc-

ing.

“In order to assure that the surprise will occur, the burning liquid must be hot enough

to make its action rapid and instantaneous; but it cannot arrive at this point until it has

been exposed for a considerable time to a high and lively fire.

“The following method will always tell you when the fat is at a proper heat: Cut a finger

of bread, and dip it into the pot for five or six seconds; if it comes out crisp and browned do

your frying immediately, and if not you must add to the fire and make the test again.

“Once the surprise has occurred, moderate the fire, so that the cooking will not be too

rapid and the juices which you have imprisoned will undergo, by means of a prolonged

heating, the changes which unite them and thus heighten the flavor.

“You have doubtless noticed that the surface of well-fried foods will not melt either salt

or sugar, which they still call for according to their different natures. Therefore you must

not neglect to reduce these two substances to the finest powder, so that they will be as easy

as possible to make adhere to the food, and so that by means of a shaker you can properly

season what you have prepared.

“I shall not speak to you of the choice of oils and greases; the various manuals which I

have provided for your pantry bookshelf have already shed sufficient light for you on this

subject.

“However, do not forget, when you are confronted with one of those trout weighing

barely a quarter-pound, the kind which come from murmuring brooks far from our capital,

do not forget, I say, to fry it in your very finest olive oil: this simple dish, properly sprinkled

with salt and decorated with slices of lemon, is worthy to be served to a Personage!

“In the same way treat smelts, which are so highly prized by the gastronomers. The

smelt is the figpecker of the seas: the same tiny size, the same delicate flavor, the same

subtle superiority.

“My two prescriptions are founded, again, on the nature of things. Experience has

taught us that olive oil must be used only for operations which take very little time or which

do not demand great heat, because prolonged boiling of it develops a choking and disagree-

able taste which comes from certain particles of olive tissue which it is very difficult to get

rid of, and which are easily burned.

Introduction
| 9

“You have charge of my domestic regions, and you were the first to have the glory of

producing for an astonished gathering an immense turbot. There was, on that occasion,

great rejoicing among the chosen few.

“Get along with you: continue to make everything with the greatest possible care, and

never forget that from the instant when my guests have set foot in my house, it is we who

are responsible for their well-being.”

The dissertation of the Professor (as Brillat-Savarin styled himself) is full of er-

rors from the scientific point of view. First of all, there is a difference between

boiling temperature and heat capacity. Boiling temperature is the temperature

at which a liquid boils. Oil, which begins to decompose before coming to a boil,

has a higher boiling point than that of water (100°C [212°F]), which in turn is

higher than that of ethanol, the alcohol found in liquor (78°C [172°F]). Heat

capacity is something quite different: the quantity of energy needed to increase