Note to note: the question of reproduction of the old

I think it is useful to discuss, for note-to-note cooking, the question of reproduction.

Note-to-note cooking, to begin with, is that form of synthetic cooking that uses pure compounds rather than fruits, vegetables, meat or fish. These compounds that are used can be pure or simple mixtures as in oil, or starch. But let's keep the idea of pure compounds.

With our compounds, what to do?

Many people are tempted to reproduce old ingredients or dishes: coq au vin, sauerkraut, applesauce, etc. Their argument is that the guests will not feel the same way.

Their argument is that the guests will find it easier to find their way around, with preparations they know. That "the public does not want anything new". And other similar arguments. But... is all this true?

On the other hand, there is the essential pitfall that a copy is generally compared unfavorably to the original.

For example, let's imagine that we produce a system that reproduces an apple: we will almost systematically be told that this "apple" is not crunchy enough, or not juicy enough, etc. But this is pure bad faith.

But this is pure bad faith, because to which particular apple is our particular production compared? Not all apples are crisp like green apples, juicy and sweet like golden apples, etc.

Moreover, real apples, even of a particular variety, do not all have the same acidity, the same sweetness, the same fiber... More generally, all apples are different, not only in terms of variety but also in terms of maturity within the same variety and on the same tree.

In other words, if it is intellectually interesting to make such a reproduction of an apple, one should be aware of the limits of the exercise.

Yes, it is interesting to make a reproduction, because the particular consistency of a Granny Smith apple, for example, has virtues that are easy to identify, this noise that the teeth make when they bite into the apple, this particular juiciness that is released when one bites, etc. And then, do we really need to do what already exists?

There are many answers to this question, starting with the fact that, perhaps, our synthetic productions will one day become more durable than natural ones.

On the other hand, our reproduction work leads us to explore particular characteristics of traditional products, which imposes specific work, and therefore specific, unexpected results.

Beauty is certainly in the way.

Before the internet site of the International Centre of Molecular and Physical Gastronomy

 

10th International Contest of Note by Note Cooking


Organized by the Inrae-AgroParisTech International Centre for Molecular and Physical Gastronomy (https://icmpg.hub.inrae.fr)
 Roisin Burke (TU Dublin), Yolanda Rigault (Paris), Heinz Wuth (Chile)Hervé This vo Kientza  (Inrae-AgroParisTech)

With the support of the compagnies Pour la Science, Belin, Louis François, Iqemusu.com.





The theme of the 10th International Note-to-Note Cooking Competition (of "synthesis cooking") was "Salty dice with fibre (no Rubik's cube).
The competitors worked for a year and a jury made a pre-selection of 10 entries.
This international jury was composed of :

    Jean-Pierre Lepeltier, International Club Toques Blanches
    Philippe Clergue, Le Cordon bleu, Paris
    Yolanda Rigault, Paris
    Heinz Wuth, Chili
    Sandrine Kault-Perrin,  Louis François Inc.





The 9 September 2022, the jury met both on the new AgroParisTech-Inrae campus and by videoconference, and after the presentations of the shortlisted candidates, the jury met and announced the prizes for this 10th International Note to Note Cooking Competition:



First Prize  ex aequo :
Dao Nguyen and Pasquale Altomonte  (Kitchen Lab), Switzerland  : Duck Dice à l’Orange








First Prize ex aequo :
Douglas Yokomi Fornari, Brazil : Over the edges


Second Prize
Maria Grazia Pena-Niebuhr, Peru :  3D Savory Present



Third Prize :
Eléonore Boisseau, France : An ocean breeze






Prizes were offered by the companies  Louis François, Iqemusu, Belin/Pour la Science, BPI.

Dois-je donner des références ?

 Dois-je donner des références ?

J'observe que, chez certains auteurs dont je doute de la compétence parfaite, je déplore l'absence de références... mais, me souvenant de la paille dans l'oeil du voisin et la poutre dans le mien, je me dis que je ne donne pas moi-même les références de tout ce que j'avance. Bien sûr, souvent (notamment pour mes conférences), je signale à mes amis que j'ai ces références absentes, que je les tiens à leur disposition, et je leur donne mon adresse email afin qu'ils puissent m'interroger, recevoir ces références et engager un dialogue, mais... au fond, pourquoi ne pas donner immédiament les références que j'ai, que j'utilise pour asseoir mes dires ?

Et la réponse est celle de la vulgarisation tout entière : parce que cela gène la lecture. Pendant 20 ans, à la revue Pour la Science, nous avons tout faire pour faciliter le confort de lecture : pas de notes en marge, pas de notes de bas de page qui interrompent la lecture (on est toujours tenté d'aller voir le renvoi)...
Mais est-ce exact ? Ne pouvons nous pas être discret, comme l'est d'ailleurs Wikipedia ? Et ne pouvons pas, comme cela est fait, avoir des références qui nous conduisent directement aux références, en préparant la remontée ?

Bien sûr, derrière toute cette question, il y a d'abord -toujours d'abord- celle des objectifs. Et puis on pourrait objecter que le jeu des références est facilement détourné : certains donnent des références, mais ce sont de mauvaises références (de sorte qu'il y a là négligence ou malhonnêteté selon les cas).
Et puis, à quoi bon donner des références si personne ne les consulte ?

Inversement, ne pouvons-nous pas espérer conduire nos amis à dépasser nos propos, à aller à la découverte de champs que nous leur ouvrons ?

Finalement, je conclus que je vais donner mes références :
1. c'est une bonne pratique
2. cela conduit à s'interroger soi-même, à chaque phrase
3. cela conduit à s'interroger sur la qualité des références que l'on donne
4. si l'on fait bien, on ne gêne pas la lecture
5. et des amis pourront découvrir de nouveaux champs.

Et c'est ainsi que je change mon billet d'hier : https://scilogs.fr/vivelaconnaissance/cuisinier-technicien-ou-technologue-ou-artiste/

Are cooks technicians or technologists? Les cuisiniers sont ils des techniciens ou des technologues ?

 Pour la réponse en français, voir : https://scilogs.fr/vivelaconnaissance/cuisinier-technicien-ou-technologue-ou-artiste/

 

And now in English

 

An important observation is to recognize that doing something (techne) is a technical work, whereas trying to improve the technique is technology. 

Also, art had many definitions, but it has something to do with emotions. 

And this preliminary  observations can be summarized with : 

Rembrandt was an artist

A wall painter is a technician. 

 

With this in hands, it should be clar that, for cooks : 

-  some of them are craftpersons, as they do technique primarily (the repeat protocols, they do not innovate really) ; mind that, in this category, you have the "art craftperson", repeating but with more emphasis on beauty than others)

- some of them are artists (their dishes are for the mind, not the body)

Now, cooks who would try to improve the culinary technique would be technologists, but if a person is spending his/her time at improving culinary techniques, he/she is a technologist... and no longer a cook.

All this is discussed in my books :

1. Cooking, a quintessential art

2. Cours de gastronomie moléculaire N°1 : science, technologique techniques culinaires.

 

Questions about custard/ Questions à propos de crème anglaise

Pour la version en français : 

https://scilogs.fr/vivelaconnaissance/on-minterroge-a-propos-de-creme-anglaise/

 

This afternoon, a salvo of questions which are, in fact, all about cooking custards.
I have illustrated and (I hope) clear and detailed explanations in Mon histoire de cuisine (Belin, Paris), but here is something to understand.





The message:

I know that white starts to coagulate at 62°C, yellow at 68°C (I read your article on Pierre Gagnaire's website), but I think that some molecules coagulate at other temperatures; am I wrong?
A related question: why does it say to cook the custard at 85°C? Could it be for pasteurisation purposes? And why does it slice at boiling point and not at 85°C?
Is it possible to catch up with a turned custard to regain the emulsion? Will this have any effect on the molecular structure or texture?
I observed that the custard was more liquid after being "blended". Is this a destruction of the molecular structure during blending?



And my answer, question by question


Here, let's start with :

I know that the white starts to coagulate at 62°C, the yellow at 68°C (I read your article on Pierre Gagnaire's website), but I think that some molecules coagulate at other temperatures; am I wrong?


One can of course answer point by point to this first question, and I will do so, but I will also take it up differently, because I think one can be clearer.

First, the poor answer, point by point:
Yes, the egg white starts to coagulate at around 62°C.
Yes, egg yolk starts to coagulate at around 68°C.
And yes, some egg molecules coagulate at temperatures other than the two above.
But first I observe that the molecules that coagulate, in the white or in the yolk, are more precisely proteins. Each protein, each kind of protein-like molecule) coagulates at a particular temperature.

Now, as I said before, I know that the answer is not correctly given, that the explanation is not clear, so I'll take it up now.

Let's consider the egg white, since the yolk behaves in principle like it, but in a slightly more complicated way.
The egg white is 90% water and 10% protein, but several kinds of protein.
Each protein coagulates at a particular temperature.
And it is indeed at 61.8°C that the first protein in the white coagulates; the others remain in the form of balls in the white, barely caught by the coagulation of this first coagulating protein (we agree: when we say "a protein coagulates", it means that many molecules of the same type of protein "uncoil" and form a large network that traps the liquid in which they were dissolved).
Then, when the temperature is increased, a second protein coagulates, which reinforces the gel that is the coagulated blank. At this stage, there are two "nets" which trap the other molecules, and it is very soft.
And when the temperature is increased further, a third protein coagulates, reinforcing the gel that is the coagulated white, then a fourth coagulation will come, and so on, the coagulated white becoming harder and harder, until it becomes rubbery.

The same applies to the egg yolk, but with different proteins, which have different coagulation temperatures.


The rest almost follows from this


A related question: why do we say to cook custard at 85°C? Could it be for pasteurisation purposes? And why does it boil and not boil at 85°C?

First of all, let's observe that you can cook custard at any temperature you want, and I don't know where my interlocutor is getting it from: 85°C.
I am not a specialist in microbiological issues, but I know that there is above all the question of the "time-temperature couple". For example, if you cook a whole egg, in its shell, at 59°C for 15 minutes, you destroy salmonella; when you cook at a temperature higher than 59°C, you can reduce the time needed for microbiological sanitation. On the other hand, care must be taken not to go too low, because when micro-organisms are at a high but not lethal temperature, they proliferate.
This is why I so often warn my cooking friends against keeping temperatures too low for a long time.

That said, yes, you can make a custard froth when you bring it to high temperature... For a reason that I will now explain, by saying first of all that a custard that is macroscopically successful, i.e. visible to the naked eye, is actually microscopically frothy.
And I would add that, contrary to what has often been wrongly taught, a custard is not an emulsion but a suspension: it is not like in a mayonnaise, where the stacking

See also : 

Le diable est tapi dans les laboratoires

1. Introduction

Je sais bien que des amis m'ont dit qu'il ne fallait pas dire "C'est simple", à des étudiants, mais :
1. je crois que ce conseil est mauvais
2. j'ai analysé ma position et je l'ai publiée
3. je crois que, si c'est un encouragement, alors c'est utile
4. quand on avance pas à pas, le plus long des chemins n'est qu'une succession de pas (qui veut voyager loin ménage sa monture, en quelque sorte).

Voir :

https://seafile.agroparistech.fr/f/f32e0e619cf340eaabbe/?dl=1

 

En l'occurrence, je propose de voir, avec un nouveau texte, qu'un mélange de calculs simples, formel et numérique, permet d'analyser des cas analytiques pathologiques (en rappelant qu'analyse et synthèse sont indissociables, en chimie et en physico-chimie.


2. La question posée : l'intégration des signaux

Le texte complet est téléchargeable ici :

https://seafile.agroparistech.fr/f/45c58d531d69407aa33d/?dl=1

In English: Atoms, elements, compounds, substances...

It's a mess.
In the Encyclopedia britannica (https://www.britannica.com/science/chemical-compound), I looked for the definition of "chemical compound", and I found a very messy and wrong text.
Indeed, here it is: "chemical compound, any substance composed of identical molecules consisting of atoms of two or more chemical elements".

And immediately, you see the mistake, as a "substance" is a material object: water is a liquid substance, in the ambiant conditions, and iron is a solid substance, with metallic aspect. But water (the substance) is made of identical objects, i.e., molecules ("water molecules"), which are made of atoms of different kinds, such as hydrogen (the element, not to be confused with dihydrogen) or oxygen. And "water" is also the name of the compound "water", i.e. the chemical category of all molecules made of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms.

For sure, the fact that "water" applies to a substance  and a compound creates confusion. Moreover, the word "water" applies to the chemical pure water (substance) as any tap water, or water in the river, or sea water, which are rather aqueous solutions containing a lot of solutes, such as ions, molecules, etc.

Let's read more: "All the matter in the universe is composed of the atoms of more than 100 different chemical elements, which are found both in pure form and combined in chemical compounds."
Yes, no, the matter of the universe is not composed of the atoms of etc."... because there are a lot of subatomic particles, not considering dark matter.

More : " A sample of any given pure element is composed only of the atoms characteristic of that element, and the atoms of each element are unique". No, again : a "pure element" does not exist : an element is an element, a category of atoms, and the question of purity has no meaning here. Purity can only apply to substances, to materials.
And no again, the atoms of an element are not all the same, because some can have more neutrons than others. Wrong again: don't you think it's too much?

More :
"For example, the atoms that constitute carbon are different from those that make up iron, which are in turn different from those of gold." : here, the mistake in the "make up". Stricto sensu, objects don't "make up" a category.

" Every element is designated by a unique symbol consisting of one, two, or three letters arising from either the current element name or its original (often Latin) name." : yes.

"For example, the symbols for carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are simply C, H, and O, respectively. The symbol for iron is Fe, from its original Latin name ferrum.  : yes.

" The fundamental principle of the science of chemistry is that the atoms of different elements can combine with one another to form chemical compounds." : here, there is a pleonasm, was chemistry being a science, expressions such as "the science of chemistry" is too much.

And here, I have enough, but shouldn't EB make corrections?