After lecturing on Note by Note Cooking, I answer to questions

Here the message to which I am answering : 

 

"I really enjoyed the topics we learned and was fascinated where the direction of food is currently going.  

Given how unsustainable factory farming is and with the development of synthetic food, I wondered if you personally visualize a mostly vegan world in the near future?   There was a photo of a dish you posted of meat next to a fake meat, and you surprisingly seemed to indicate your preference for the fake meat (perhaps I misunderstood which one you preferred).  However, as a vegan myself, I have to say it truly gave me hope of a meatless world being a reality somewhat soon.

I look forward to hopefully hearing your views on this subject either in class or by email if you have a chance."

 

And this is my answer

 

Indeed, as you could see, I try avoiding having ideas, and rather stick to facts (and I have no crystal ball for divination):

 

1. there is a slow decline in meat consumption

 

2. the issue of proteins is difficult, because the human body being made of 20 % proteins, we need the building blocks...

 

3. but also because the iron of meat is much more bioavailable than for plants (and beware, population are sub deficient in iron, and we should not expose them to serious conditions such as iron deficiency

 

4. we can learn to synthesize new forms of iron that would be more available (such as artificial heme groups)

 

5. 2016 was made the international year of pulses for good reasons: these plants synthesize proteins, among other advantages, and there are big industries now extracting these proteins

 

6. the remnants, after extraction, can be given to insects... which can make proteins

 

7. about the picture of the real, ugly, meat and the "fibrés" (I insist that we don't speak of artificial meat, or fake meat, or in vitro meat, because words have to be loyal; as for plant based liquids instead of "milks", yes, the result was very interesting

 

8. but I did not had time to discuss what I called "diracs", except with the picture of the blue thing served in Montreal

 

9. more generally, as you could hear, I try to avoid "reproduction", because this is useless, and the copy is always poorly appreciated, or lets's say less appreciated than the original

 

10. by the way, why meat? I don't discuss here moral ideas, but only meat consumption ?

 

11. and note by note is much more interesting for creating new food, than sticking lazoly to the reproduction of old stuff, such as meat.

 

12. here the real question: which consistencies are "interesting", and why?

 

13. and also: when people change their diet, they need to know very well how to do, otherwise they can be very ill

 

14. and finally, about your first question of a future without meat, I would say no, but a redistribution (for example, mountains are best for raising cattle, because no agriculture is easy (hence the cheese such as reblochon, munster, and so many others) ; anyway, changes are slowly on the way... but they are slow : it took me 15 years before molecular cooking was accepted, and remember that I proposed NbN cooking in 1994 !

More questions, more answers about molecular gastronomy and note by note cooking

This morning, I should not answer, because indeed the answers are already given, but I found new ways of answering.
The questions are in italics. 


What does molecular gastronomy mean to you as a scientist, or as a chef if you cook?

Molecular gastronomy should mean someone to me in particular. It means the same for everybody: the scientific discipline looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during culinary processes. Nothing else.
The question is as strange as if I was asked: what does a cat mean for you, as a scientist, or as a chef if you cook.
And by the way, even when I cook (daily, at home, for all evening dinners plus meals of the week ends), I am not a chef, but I remain a scientist, and a scientist that cooks. The same when I am walking: I remain a scientist, and a scientist that walks.



How was your relationship with Nicholas Kurti( Kürti Miklós)?
 
It was a "love affair", immediate friendship that began as soon as we spoke on the phone, in 1986. After some seconds, he decided to come to Paris and see me, and we had this wonderful meal together, when we shared a "poule au vin jaune et aux morilles", at Maitre Paul, rue Racine, in the Quartier Latin of Paris. Immediately, we decided that we could share our results, thoughts, experiments... He was 50 years older than me, but we behaved as friends, and he was certainly not my tutor. Only a friend.
We shared everything: when I was invited as honoris causa in a university, I asked him to be along, and when he was proposed to write a text, we did it both (generally, I was writing the first draft, and he was improving it).
We did everything in a wonderful harmony, experiments on soufflés, on vinegar, organizing the Erice workshops... We spoke on the phone daily, and when I was making an experiment in Paris, he repeated it in London. He was a very good physicist, and I learned a lot from him in this regard, whereas he got much from me in chemistry, of which he did not know much.



I am not sure I understood this that’s why I am asking it.

Yes, but you make a load on me. Please read more carefully and use Google translate (or another one), because the explanations are clearly given. 


So is Note by Note for example when you deconstruct two material to their chemical structure and then construct it with another material with the same structure? 
 
Note by note does not mean deconstructing two materials to their chemical structure ! Indeed the sentence has no meaning: what is the "chemical structure, for example? And note by note cooking does not deconstruct. It means building a dish from pure compounds (let's say "chemical species" if you prefer). And what you build does not have the same chemical composition or chemical structure as... As what, by the way?


Or how is this going? I have read that for example the garlic and the coffee has the same structure so they can be combined to invent a new dish? 
 
By structure, you perhaps mean "composition". And no, garlic does not have the same chemical composition as coffee... otherwise they would be the same ! Please, also avoid the "I have read", and give precise references. By the way, only have good readings (can you recognize them?).
Finally, what you probably read is that coffee and garlic have one or more compounds in common, so that they would "pair". But this is a bad theory, that has nothing scientific as cooking is art, not a question of science.


I am sorry If I misunderstood this whole thing, it is a little hard for me to learn and write about such a hard theme in not my mother language.
 
Sorry for you, but I cannot help in this regard.


Can I do fruit caviars from agar-agar? Or is it just like gelatine but the vegetable matter of it?
 
You probably means "alginate pearls" with a liquid core, and for this, you need... sodium alginate. But it's true that I showed decades ago how to make it with gelatin: my solution is displayed on the internet site of Pierre Gagnaire. And I guess that I could also find a solution with agar-agar.





How can we invent totally new dishes with Note by Note?

Look at any recipe of the International Contest, or read my book Note by Note Cooking, at Columbia University Press.

Do you think that molecular gastronomy will be the future or not because it needs some hardly available items for it, or like liquid nitrogen. So will it be available in a normal kitchen or just for the best Restaurants?

You confuse molecular gastronomy (science) and note by note cooking. Molecular gastronomy is spreading in universities all over the world. And note by note is spreading in restaurants of all the world. But there are many answers about this elsewhere.
And note by note cooking will be able to used more and more common ingredients (remember this word: just as carrot and meat are ingredients of traditional cooking, pure compounds are the ingredients of note by note cooking).

Do you teach molecular gastronomy?
Yes,  in a lot of contexts.
- in the Erasmus Mundus Plus Master Programme "Food Innovation and Product Design"
- in the IPP Master Programme of AgroParisTech
- at the Ecoles des Mines de Paris
- at AgroParisTech, in the context of the Courses of Molecular Gastronomy
- and others

Many answers about note by note cooking

Today, a friendly lettre from a friend in Singapore. It begins by "Before you left I mentioned I had some questions to ask you, here they are (note I might be a bit neophobic)"

 Neophobia is the human behavior of being cautious about new food. This is a quality, otherwise the human species would not be here today: we would have been poisoned by the consumption of plants (remember that nature is very dangerous, and we eat only the fruits and vegetables that we can eat, either because we are manipulated by plants, for dispersing their seeds, or because we domesticated some dangerous species).


 I was thinking of the future and the use of Note by Note, and thought that, nutritionally, we could have a great gap between rich and pour when we separate components.  We know a vitamin or phytochemical will be inevitably more expensive than a starch, cellulose or sugar. 
Nowadays, we have more equality in this sense.  When buying a vegetable or fruit, it comes as whole and everyone has access to it.  It is, in a way, a more fair game.

This is really true : the compounds that makes up the majority of food ingredients (water, protides, glucides, lipids) are much more abundant than vitamins, for example, and this explain why they are cheaper. This is also part of the explanation of obesity in the world: when you eat too much fat and sugars, you gain weight and sick. And it is not a surprise that the poorest populations are the most obese in developed countries... But this last observation also shows that there is not much equality, even today.


My question is: what are the advantages of separating, at the farm, produce in its pure components besides increasing food creation possibilities?  Why not just dry a whole carrot?

Indeed, forget about note by note cooking as a new art as a start, and let's start from facts :
1. we will have to feed 10 billion people in 2050, and the sole solution today is to fight spoilage. Why spoilage? In part because we consume fresh products: hence the idea to fractionate at the farm (by the way remember that the milk and wheat industries are already fractionating).
2. if we fractionate at the farm, we make the prices more level, and this is good for everybody, because if the efficiency of agriculture is increased, the price of products is not hampered by the price of spoilage.
3. imagine that someone would be able to pay for a fruit, why would he pay more for the fractions ?

Now, drying is very energy consuming, and membrane techniques are much more powerful. In France, il particular, they are already applied for making drinkable water as well as for milk fractionation.

Moreover, having the fractions of carrots (including vitamins and phytochemicals) has the advantage that :
- we would not transport water
- we would probably save energy for cooking
- we decide for the nutritional properties of food
 - we decide for the toxicology of food (including managing questions  of allergies).


We have quite a few studies and line of thoughts suggesting that highly processed food can be detrimental to our health. 
One example from the book Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, T. Colin Campbell
“Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn’t nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences.”

This question of transformed food being detrimental to health is not correctly managed in the public debate. For example, recently, there were articles about a certain (and bad) "Nova" categorization of food... but one forget to say that if you eat too much salt, sugar and fat, you get sick ! And remember that smoking is the worst... and main cause ! Drinking alcohol as well, is bad. And driving too fast. And, etc.
This is exactly the topic of my last book: bad faith! Because we all say that we want healthy food, but we forget that dietetics knows ONLY ONE rule: we have to eat of everything in small quantities, and make exercise. Do we apply this rule? No, certainly no... and this is why we are too fat, and sick.


I understand you classify process food/artificial food as any food that was, in some way, modified from its natural status.  Example: boiled potato, scramble egg, etc.  But when drying, coping (color or flavor compounds additions) and extracting pure components, we made those dishes much more artificial than boiling a potato. 
 
Is it true ? For years, I tried to tackle this question without finding an answer. Consider a choucroute, for example: the cabbage was selected, cultivated, fermented, cooking for hours. The sausage was produced from meat that was destroyed, added with ingredients, processed... About spicy crab? The sauce seems to be important, and you know perfectly how it is made, with spices addition. Indeed I could not find an "index of naturality".
And to finish about the potato:
- the potato that we have today is the result of MANY selections, like apples are certainly not wild apples
- is boiling more or less "natural" (indeed we should say artificial) than frying ?


I am thinking of ingredients’ natural “chemical balance” or proportions and level of processes.
I don’t think, eating Note by Note, or highly process food once in a while will kill you, but if Note by Note is the future of food, how much are we looking into its health impact when consumed daily?

When you speak of "natural balance", may I tell you that you are going too far ? There is no proof that there is any balance at all ! And the proof was given by elementary nutritional studies: when you give meat stock only to dogs, they die. I remind you the sole rule in dietetics: we have to eat of everything in small quantities and make moderate exercise.
By the way, all compounds from  fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, etc. are toxic at various levels. And this is why we have to vary, to change, otherwise we would get over the toxicity level. For example, one whole nutmeg would kill you; or basil, or tarragon, or the phenolics of grapes; or lycopene from carrots; or beta carotene from carrots...
This is why I am promoting the idea that we now have 30 years in front of us in order to work scientifically so that we get ready when note by note cooking will be the main way of feeding people. I don't say that I have THE solution; I simply say that we have to work fast in order to be ready. And this calls for a lot of nutrition, toxicology,  but also culinary work in order to be able to produce the needed dishes (I make a difference between a bunch of compounds and a dish, for many reasons, including questions of satiety and pleasure, but here I would be too long explaining).

I was thinking of the peach pie/tart you’ve mentioned in one of your lectures.  You told us it was more sour (acidic) once was cooked.  During that session I thought: maybe it was just perceived as more sour.  Maybe before cooked its natural shape does not let our taste buds capture the acidic flavour or sensation, but once its cooked and the shape it’s changed or released your taste buds than can perceive the flavour.   I’ve imagined the acid component being “trapped” in some structure which changes once cooked.  In its natural form not anatomically suitable to our taste buds. 
The time I was working with salt crystals and its different shapes and how salty we perceive a product depending on the salt crystal used.

Indeed I did not discuss peach by apricots. For sure, the issue of perceiving is important, but why would the perception so much changed ? This calls for interpreting the chemical and physical environment of the various acids in the fruit. And yes, perceived acidity is not the same as pH, as shows the experiment of drinking vinegar vs vinegar with a lot of sugar: whereas the pH does not change with the addition of sugar, there is certainly a difference in perception.  But anyway I am smiling because this question about apricots is only one of the thousands of questions that I have... and I shall not spend too much on this one in particular, but I find it useful for the discussion of scientific strategy ;-).
For salt, yes, the various salts give various salt perceptions, but this is only when the crystals are present (and crunchiness  or ions release is then to be considered); when the different crystals are put in solution, we did not observe any difference, when the chemical composition of the crystals are the same.

Answers to questions

This morning, an email that I have to answer !


Dear Hervé This,
Hi, my name is xxxxx xxxxx, and I am 11 years old, and in 5th grade in the U.S. In my school district, as an end of elementary school project, all of 5th grade is doing a project called xxxxxx. For xxxxx, students are allowed to pick any topic of choice to study and create a presentation on; to present to younger grades. My topic of choice is molecular gastronomy. I chose this topic since it seemed really interesting to me and I wanted to learn about it. One of the requirements for xxxxxx is; after researching your topic, you need to interview an expert on your topic of choice (in this case for me it’s molecular gastronomy), and I thought there would be no better person to interview other than you!
    I was wondering if I could ask you a list of questions for my project? If so, here they are:
    How did you come up with the idea of molecular gastronomy?
    What do you think is the purpose of molecular gastronomy?
    Why has molecular gastronomy become so popular?
    What is your favorite part about making molecular gastronomy?
    Has molecular gastronomy impacted your life in any way? If so, how?
Also, do you recommend any books or articles I could read (in English) to find out more about molecular gastronomy? If so, it would be great if you could send me some sources of information, as well as the answers to my questions.
Thank you for taking your time to read this, and I hope you can get back to be soon.

Here are my answers: 

How did you come up with the idea of molecular gastronomy?








The answer was given many times, and in particular on my internet site https://sites.google.com/site/travauxdehervethis/. 
Go to "questions and answers" : https://sites.google.com/site/travauxdehervethis/Home/et-plus-encore/pour-en-savoir-plus/questions-and-answers
Indeed all began because I was cooking a cheese soufflé the 16th of March 1980 : the recipe was advising to add the yolks two by two... and I realized at that time that this was non sense... and I decided to collect such "culinary precisions" in order to test them experimentally. This led to the creation of molecular gastronomy, but also to molecular cooking, molecular cuisine, and more recently to note by note cooking (have a look on this !)

What do you think is the purpose of molecular gastronomy?The purpose is very clear and simple, and it is given by the definition of molecular gastronomy: it is looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during culinary professes.

In other words, when one cooks (i.e. makes a dish), there are transformations : expansion, browning, sizzling, water evaporation, odor appearing, taste changing... and all these are phenomena. Being a scientific discipline, molecular gastronomy is trying to understand why and how these phenomena occur.
And because molecular gastronomy is a scientific activity (contrary to molecular cuisine or molecular cooking, or note by note cooking), the method for looking for the mechanisms is :
1. identify clearly the phenomenon that you want to study
2. characterize it quantitatively (you "measure")
3. make "laws" (i.e. equations from data of measurements)
4. find mechanisms (theory)
5. look for a testable consequence of the theory
6. test this consequence experimentally
and over and over.

Why has molecular gastronomy become so popular?For many reasons, but in particular because there was a confusion between cooking and science.
For molecular cooking, the success was certain, because it was obvious that a modernization of culinary activities was needed. Oh, yes, I have to tell you the definition of molecular cooking: cooking using modern tools coming from chemistry labs (such as thermocirculators, etc.).
After 1992, some chefs began using the tools that I was proposing since 1980, and the became famous... because the dishes that they were producing were new. And for any new activity, the journalists are willing to advertize it, so that molecular cooking developped rapidly.
At the same time, because populations had enough to eat, media began developing programs such as top chef, iron chef, etc. And molecular cooking became very popular.
Since the beginning, there was in the public a confusion between molecular cooking and molecular gastronomy... but molecular gastronomy developped as well... for many reasons, and in particular because it was helpful for education: students were more willing to study science when linked with such as a wonderful activity as cooking.
Also, and I should have said this first, molecular gastronomy introduced many new scientific ideas (DSF, dynagels, etc.).
 

What is your favorite part about making molecular gastronomy?
I don't know: I love maths, but I love also well done experiments.

Has molecular gastronomy impacted your life in any way? If so, how?
Tremendously. Indeed it is my life. I work with passion at the lab, but I also lecture all over the world. How could I say...

Also, do you recommend any books or articles I could read (in English) to find out more about molecular gastronomy? If so, it would be great if you could send me some sources of information, as well as the answers to my questions.
I published many books in English (Molecular Gastronomy, Building a Meal, Note by Note Cooking, Cooking, a quintessential art), and even more in French, and there hundreds of podcasts on the AgroParis Tech site : http://www2.agroparistech.fr/podcast/ 
But there are also on line courses, both in English https://tice.agroparistech.fr/coursenligne/main/document/document.php?cidReq=FIPDESMOLECULARGASTR or in French

Indeed, don't miss the next Note by Note Contest !

Questions About Note by Note Cooking

How does note by note cooking work?
To say it in one sentence: note by note cooking means making dishes from ingredients that are pure compounds (such as water, triglycerides, proteins, lipids, phenolics, colorants, odorants compounds, taste compounds, vitamins, oligo-elements).

In order to understand better, a comparison with synthetic music is helpful.
Indeed, two centuries ago, music was performed using traditional instruments, and cooking was using traditional ingredients. Then one century ago, physicists began analyzing sounds into pure waves, as chemists were analyzing food into pure compounds. About 50 years ago, one room full of computers was used to synthesize music from pure waves, but today a synthesizer costs only 20 euros in a shop for children. For food? Pure compounds are cheap, and it's easy to make synthetic food. This is note by note cooking.


You have said in the future we won't cook with fruit, vegetables or meat, but note by note with pure compounds. Why?
I am not sure that I would say that exactly... and I don't have crystal ball!
But I say that fruits and vegetables are fragile physical-chemical systems, full of water, so that they are expansive to transport (transporting water!), and they are easily damaged.
In order to reduce spoilage, it would be useful to extract water from plant tissues at the farm, so that only "dry" nutrients would be transported, without cold systems (expansive, energy consuming, bad gases for the climate).
This would also have the advantage of making the prices more regular, because of the possibility of storage.
And of course, the plants needed to produce sugars, lipids, amino-acids and proteins, etc.  would not be the traditional ones.
But instead of saying that there would be no carrots, I would say that as for music, there will  probably be traditional as well as new food ingredients.



How can the industry prepare for note by note cooking? Particularly suppliers, manufacturers, supermarkets and chefs?
Today, we observe the creation of small companies selling products for note by note cooking, but indeed this is one of my old goals: selling additives, odorant compounds, etc. to anybody. Just as gelatin was introduced in supermarkets and vanillin preparations, pure compounds for note by note cooking can be sold there.
Indeed I am confident because having introduced gelling agents from algae in the food sector, I see them now in supermarkets. The same for some tools such as siphons or low temperature cooking.
For note by note cooking, it will follow the same process.


How can you see note by note cooking changing the way we make and sell food?
Indeed note by note cooking done as it is done today is probably too difficult for the public, just as the first synthesizers were to complex, and only for specialists. But music companies made simpler synthesizers for children, so that today anybody can use them.
I have the feeling that food companies have an opportunity to create tools for cooking (3D printing systems, for example), but also "kits", instead of pure compounds.


What new dishes could be created through this cooking?
Note by note cooking is cooking, not producing new ingredients. It creates new dishes (second part of the question). And here, the possibilities are infinite: using note by note cooking, you can create EVERYTHING! The shape you want, the consistencies you want, the colors you want, the odor you want, the number of calories you decide, etc.



Do you think more unusual ingredients could become more accepted (like algae for example) if note by note cooking is introduced?
It is a hope, and a goal. I hate the idea that additives are only for companies. Either such compounds are useful, and the public should have it, or they are not, and the industry should not use them. The same for odorant compounds, or "flavourings".
And I want to give the public the possibility to decide and innovate. Consider, for example, a flavourings with a "strawberry flavour". This steals from the chef the possibility to decide for the flavour of the dishes that he or she is creating. And this is why, for odors, I want pure odorant compounds being sold (dissolved in oil, for example), so that the creator can decide.
 By the way, I analyze that the public fear of additives and other products is partly due to the fact that it cannot buy it and use it in home kitchens.



What problems in the world could note by note cooking tackle? Is it expensive?
Food security, by fighting spoilage
Energy savings: transportation and cold techniques
Water savings in arid countries
Making prices even
Allergies
Quantity of calories
Making food from unedible plants (by fractionation, keeping only the good compounds)

No, it's not expensive: you can buy plant proteins by tons, for example, and odorant compounds are very cheap, because a pure bottle of one of them is about 10 euros... and you have to dissolve by one billion, often.

More questions and answers

Désolé, c'est en anglais... mais :
1. une fois n'est pas coutume
2.  il y a Google translate (ou d'autres) pour ceux qui veulent



Today, I have to answer to some questions, about Note by Note Cooking. I share the answers :


How did you come out to invent Note by Note Cooking ? 
It was in 1994, as I was writing the draft of an article to be published in Scientific American. The article was to be co-signed with Nicholas Kurti, but I did generally the first draft, and Nicholas was adding additions and making corrections. Indeed the text was finished, but the conclusion was missing, and we had a discussion with Nicholas. He said (and had wrote) that chemistry was already in the kitchen, and I told him that no, on the contrary, it was not there.
And indeed, at that time, I was playing by adding pure compounds in wine, whiskies, etc., so that I proposed to add this sentence in the text: "I dream of the time when recipe will include "add two drops of a dilute solution of mercaptan". Nicholas accepted my idea, but indeed I wanted more than simply adding kind of seasonings, and the years after, after Nicholas was dead, I proposed to make the whole dishes, compound by compound. And because I was unhappy of the confusion of molecular gastronomy with molecular cooking, I decided to create a name with a reference with art, not with chemistry of science.
I lectured for some years on it, between 1998 and 1999, but I stopped for a while, because the public was upset by the possibility of the Bug of the year 2000... and I resumed lecturing on it in 2004. In 2006, I asked Pierre Gagnaire to show a note by note dish, and this was shown to the press in Hong Kong in April 2006.


 What are the future plans for Note by Note Cooking ?  
Since 2006, I am lecturing all around the world about Note by Note Cooking, because I am sure that this new trend is the future of food, both because of art reasons and also because there will be 10 billions people to feed in 2050. Indeed, Note by Note Cooking is part the Note by Note Project, that includes rural development, regulation, technique for farmers, and more generally the whole chain from the farm to the plate. We have to convince farmers to accept fractionating and cracking raw products at the farm, or if they don't want to do this, we have to convince cooperative groupings to do it. We have to convince the public to cook Note by Note, and this will come after chefs have produced recipes. Indeed the new move at Senses will be internationally important, in this promotion of the food of the future. And of course, we have to develop education program around all this.


How do you see Note by Note Cooking now and where do you want to arrive ? 
 I see that :
- the idea is given
- we see clearly the works to be done, in the various aspects of the Project
- some chefs tested various possibilities for about 10 years
- a very important recent move was the new direction at Senses
- a startup was created for selling products for Note by Note Cooking
- more and more lectures, in profesional circles, are invited  on Note by Note Cooking
- a very important TV (Iron chef) in Japan included recently Note by Note Cooking
- etc.
But the goal is clear: I want the public to be able to cook note by note daily.


 What are the connections between  molecular gastronomy and Note by Note Cooking ? 
Indeed there are few. Of course, the fundamental studies of molecular gastronomy can help the chefs cooking note by note to make new textures, new colors, new tastes or new odors, etc. but the question is not there. Indeed I published a long time ago a book saying that cooking is love, art and technique. The Note by note technique is easy, and we have to develop the art. The  main barrier is the acceptability of the idea... but we have in front of us a whole continent of food that was never produced. The issue is: do we want to stay in the old world, or do we want to innovate really? This means crossing the ocean, i.e. working, making new recipes, testing new flavours.

A propos de cuisine note à note/ About note by note cooking

Souvent, ce sont des étrangers qui m'interrogent en anglais... et je leur réponds en anglais. Pour une fois, ce seront des francophones qui devront utiliser un logiciel de traduction pour me comprendre.



About note by note cooking, some questions today, with comments :

I searched some award-winning Note by Note dishes done by students.
Why only "by students" ? I don't see any difference between students, lay people, chefs... And remember that often, chef design recipes for others, who have simply to follow.

They look really high-end fine dining. 
I don't know what you where you looked at, but if you go on the site of the International Centre for molécular gastronomy AgroParisTech-Inra (hosted on AgroParisTech), you can see many recipes. Some are fine dining, and some are more simple. For example, the demonstration of the dirac, of the gibbs, etc. are very simple.

But the article only mentioned equipment like a siphon and alginate bath were used. 
You say "the article", but there are hundreds of pages, dozens of articles.
Siphons can be obtained in very popular supermarkets today. And "alginate bath" does not mean anything. A bath is a bath, which mean a vessel full of water. Alginate (generally sodium alginate) is something that you can find in supermarkets as well. It is a powder that you just need to put in water, in order to get a sodium alginate solution. But I don't see the relationship with note by note cooking in particular.

I'm wondering: is Note by Note cooking very difficult for common people? 
The answer is no. And the dirac and gibbs demonstrate this fully.
Indeed, the issue of note by note cooking is not to use modern tools (this was for molecular cuisine), but instead to have new ingredients. Making a "dirac" by mixing 25% proteins, 75% water, plus compounds for color, taste and odor is straightforward. And this is one goal: to make it easy!
 
What tools are they required?
Is it difficult? No! And I would even say that it will be even easier in the past. Remember the comparison with electronic music: at the beginning, one room full of computers was needed, but today a synthesiser for children costs only 20 euros.
At home, today, I don't have particular tools, only the traditional ones, as anybody.

Is it possible to bring it to people's home? 
Yes. Remember that I succeeded in having siphons everywhere in the world, as well as agar-agar... even to the point that people speak today of "plant gelatin", which is meaningless, because gelatin is an animal product; indeed they want to say plant jelling agent.

And do you want to bring common people cook in Note by Note way?
Yes, for sure, otherwise I would not take one second answering your questions. Coming back to tools: they are not the difficulty for todays practitioners. The difficulty is that fact that I have, and they lack, the knowledge for deciding which compounds to mix. This means that, for the lay people in the future, already make "mixes" or kits will have to be designed and sold (remember that you find that already today, with ready to use custards, flours for bread, etc.
By the way, it is exactly as in the beginnings of synthetic music: a room full of computers was needed... and today it's simmle.

You mentioned "note by note cooking" is the key, in particular in regard to food 3D printing. Can you explain it in detail? 
In order to use the full potential of 3D printers, it's better to use products that have a very specific functionality, and this means pure compounds, hence note by note cooking.

How do you see the relationship between food 3D printing and Note by Note cooking?
Same answer than above.

Is it possible that food 3D printing combines and prints the compound for people?
This sentence has no meaning. A compound is a compound: sucrose, amylopectin, ovalbumin... You cannot "print a compound" (sorry, but you need to know more chemistry, and I cannot make a full course here).

I personally think that cooking with compounds make people lose the primary emotional attachment and memory to food (raw material). 
I don't care about personal opinions of people (and yours in particular, sorry). And all this is old stuff. What do you think about the "primary emotional attachment and memory" concerning sugar? Would you be ready to extract sugar from beetroot yourself?
And more generally do you still ride a horse or do you have trains, planes? And do you make your own ink, writing with feathers?
Such "attachment" is fantasy, and you can trust me that when people are hungry, they don't behave like well fed city dwellers. By the way, do you cultivate your vegetables yourself?
Finally, you should have a look to the history of potato introduction in France, at a time when the Faculty of medicine was publishing that this Solanacae was a cause of lepra. Don't forget, as well, to read about the times when it was said that trains would make the milk "turn" into cows, or about the "heavier than air" that would never fly.
Please stop being afraid.

As compounds don't have any shape, color, texture or smell, it cannot trigger people's memory to food. 
Why do you confuse compounds and dishes. By the way, compounds can have shape, and note by note dishes have a shape: this is even the first step of note by note cooking, i.e. deciding for a shape.
And finally, do we need to trigger people's memory to food? Really?

In this way, people cannot predict what this dish would be smell or taste in the end, and they think compounds cannot bring the cooking pleasure as meat & vegetable did. 
Wrong idea based on the previous wrong idea.
But yes, you can make a dish for which the guest have no idea of the flavour... but it's already the case with old cooking. Imagine that you make a pie: can you guess if the stuffing is sweet or not ? No.
About "cooking pleasure", perhaps you mean "the pleasure of cooking", or "the pleasure of eating".
When I am cooking note by note, I have the same pleasure than when I am cooking in the old way: I am doing my best, so that :
1. my friends are happy
2. it is "good", i.e. beautiful to eat.

What do you think about this? Note by Note cooking is a big leap, how do you think people can adapt it?
I don't care, because I have nothing to sell. Remember that I don't get one pence on note by note cooking, no investment in companies, no patent... and I don't care about being "famous" (what's the use when you are dead?).
Indeed, note by note cooking will be here soon for many reasons :
- 10 billions people in 2050
- spoilage to fight
- energy crisis
- water crisis
- high demand for proteins
- farmers to enrich (because they are in charge of environment, landscapes and primarily food security) (please don't confuse food security and food safety).
But finally, remember that I shall succeed, because:
1. I am using the right strategy (give it to the king, and the public will ask for it)
2. it is the only new culinary art trend
 3. it is new (and the media have to advertise new ideas, not old ones)
 4. it is already spreading.