Loyauté

 
Quand on veut aider les amis à bien comprendre, il s'agit d'être clair et d'utiliser des mots loyaux, sans ambiguïté.

Dans un tweet récent, j'avais signalé que la terminologie "levure chimique" me semblait déloyale ou fautive, et je proposais de l'interdire, mais mon message a suscité une discussion avec des correspondants qui disaient en substance que, au fond ce n'était pas si grave.

Je n'ai pas dit que c'était très grave, mais j'ai observé que
1. cela n'aidait pas mieux comprendre
2. quand il y a des possibilités de confusion, nos amis confondent et rencontrent des difficultés
3. les commerçants sans scrupule utilisent les confusions pour leurs agissements répréhensibles.

D'aillerus,  je vois dans le milieu culinaire des confusions d'un genre tout à fait analogue à propos de gélatine et d'agents gélifiants.
La gélatine, c'est un agent gélifiant parmi d'autres, d'origine animale exclusivement. Il y a d'autres agents gélifiants extraits des plantes ou des algue,s mais ce ne sont pas des gélatine  : ce sont des agents gélifiants.

J'insiste :  chaque fois qu'il y a une confusion, il y a des malhonnêtes qui s'en empare pour tromper ceux à qui ils vendent leurs produits, et voilà pourquoi je crois tout à fait importante la loi de 1905 qui revendique que les produits soient loyaux   : si c'est du bœuf, ce n'est pas du cheval.

Les confusions précédentes, entre levures, levure de boulanger et poudre levante,  ou entre gélatine et agents gélifiants sont en réalité tout à fait analogues à la confusion entre boeuf et cheval  :  il s'agit de viande dans les deux cas, mais le prix n'est pas le même !

Bref,  on n'aura  jamais raison de supporter des confusions quand on est capable de pas les faire, et nous avons un devoir, si nous comprenons bien, d'éclairer nos amis.

Some explanations about science, technology, molecular gastronomy, food pairing (bad theory), honesty in general

I was recently invited in a programme mixing science and... I don't understand exactly what, but it included "food pairing". 

I am publishing again and again that the theory of food pairing is not scientific, and I also observe that this "theory" is promoted by people selling advices to chefs, often trying to convince that there is science behind.
You will see why I am strongly opposed to this way of doing on other posts of this blog, but it's enough to know that "good" means "beautiful to eat", and this is not a question of technique, but of art... and art escapes the rules : the Diabolus in musica is appreciated today ; no science about that. 

 

So that I don't  want to participate to something where this wrong theory is promoted.

By the way, in the proposed programme, I could see that there is question of "aromas", and frequently, there is a confusion between aromas and odors.

But more generally, I see too often people speaking of science, when indeed they are doing technology or technique, and this is not fair. 

Engineers are engineers, technologists are technologists, technicians are technicians, and scientists are scientists. All these people are different, with different goals and different methods.

Another point: since the creation of molecular gastronomy, by me and Nicholas Kurti, there has been many people

- confusing molecular gastronomy and molecular cooking/ molecular cuisine (and this is bad for the public)

- confusing science and technology (and this is bad for students)

- confusing everything about "science and cooking" (and this is bad for everybody

- giving ( or trying to give) new names to the science called molecular and physical gastronomy (and this not very honest)

 

Here are some explanations : 

1. molecular and physical gastronomy is sometimes named " molecular gastronomy" for short ; it is a scientific activity, done in laboratories, by chemists or physicists, or biologists. This is science, not technology, and not technique

2. molecular cooking is the technique of cooking with modern tools that were transferred from laboratories to kitchens (thermocirculators, liquid nitrogen, siphons, pumps, centrifuge, rotary evaportaors...)

3. molecular cuisine is a culinary trend (chefs using molecular cooking for making new kind of dishes)

4. science (sciences of nature) is an activity of "looking for the mechanisms of phenomena using a specific method using experiments and calculation"; it has nothing to do with technique and technology

5. technique means "to do something". For example, cooking includes a technical component

6. technology means using the results of science for improving technique

7. and finally, there is art, and one of my book explains well that cooking includes a social component, an art component, a technical component.

 

By the way, I hope that my friends know about "note by note cooking"? This IS the future, the next new technique, and already some "note by note cuisine" is appearing all over the world.