Dans les formations que je fais et dans les conférences que je donne, il y a des publics de types très différents.
Les pires, ce sont ceux qui sont braqués, butés et qui refusent de dialoguer ou dont les idées sont tellement fixées aucun argument ne pourra les ébranler... parce qu'ils ne veulent pas entendre ces arguments, et qu'ils ne les entendent pas.
Mais levons le nez, de la boue vers le ciel bleu : à l'inverse, il y a des gens merveilleux, qui se posent de vraies questions et qui attendent une discussion à partir de laquelle, avec intelligence, ils prendront des décisions pour eux-mêmes.
Hier, dans une formation à Strasbourg, j'ai eu le plaisir de rencontrer des gens de la deuxième sorte, des gens qui posaient des vraies questions et qui attendaient véritablement les réponses.
Des gens qui étaient dans le dialogue et que j'ai écoutés également, car je n'oublie pas que l'intelligence est très bien répartie, tout comme les connaissances, et que j'ai tout intérêt à profiter de ce que j'entends, pour essayer de m'améliorer.
C'est une attitude que j'ai au laboratoire avec les étudiants, quel que soit leur âge, quel que soit leur niveau de formation, mais c'est une attitude que j'essaie d'avoir aussi avec n'importe lequel de mes interlocuteurs : c'est en m'ouvrant sur le monde, en recueillant toutes les prémisses utiles, que j'aurai le plus de chance de bien comprendre, de bien raisonner, de bien penser. Ne dois-je pas douter sans cesse de mes propres certitudes ?
mardi 15 novembre 2022
Discutons-en, surtout si nous ne sommes pas du même avis
dimanche 13 novembre 2022
The 11th International Contest for Note by Note Cooking : "Food waste"
The topic is "Food Waste".
International Contest
for
Note by Note Cooking
N°11
Topic:
Food Waste
Organizers:
Roisin Burke (roisin.burke@TUDublin.ie), Yolanda Rigault (yolanda.rigault@wanadoo.fr), Hervé This (herve.this@inrae.fr) , Heinz Wuth ().
Introduction : Note by Note Cooking
Note by Note Cooking is indeed “synthetic cooking”, a culinary technique using pure compounds, in order to build food (i.e., dishes) and drinks.
The cook has to decide for the shapes, consistencies, tastes, odours, trigeminal sensations (pungencies, freshnesses…), temperatures, colours…
Of course, it deals with questions of nutrition, toxicity, and is part of the large “Note by Note Project” for sustainable development, important for feeding humankind in 2050, when the population of the Earth will perhaps reach 10 billion people. This project is an important contribution to the fight against spoilage, while sparing water, energy, foodstuffs, and taking care of the environment.
The goal of this 11th contest:
Food Waste
For this new contest, we invite competitors (in the three categories: chefs, students, amateurs) to create dishes that deal with the question of “waste”.
The closer to pure note by note, the better. And the flavour of the proposed dish is obviously important !
More details
According to the 2012 report of the study on the reduction of food waste by the Ministry of Ecology (D. Viel, September 2012), current demographic forecasts indicated that the major challenge of the coming decades will be to ensure that agricultural supply is better adapted to the growth in food demand, while guaranteeing more sustainable production.
The dynamics underway - the emergence of new production areas for agricultural and non-agricultural goods, and changes in food systems, particularly in emerging countries - have consequences for the global balance between supply and demand.
Managing to preserve the planet's resources while reducing poverty and inequality is a major challenge for sustainable development, as well as for global geopolitical balances and for relations between the countries of the North and the diversity of countries in the South.
According to the FAO, more than a third of the food produced in the world, i.e. about 1.3 billion tons, is lost or wasted, i.e. abandoned as waste between the field and the plate, even though it can still be consumed. This waste represents an unnecessary withdrawal of natural resources in terms of arable land and water, as agriculture uses 70% of the global water and energy resources. It represents avoidable CO² emissions and waste to be treated. Finally, it has a negative impact on household budgets.
In developing countries, waste is close to the field, due to the lack of adequate means of crop conservation and/or packaging. In developed countries, waste is more likely to occur at the processing, distribution and consumption stages. The percentage of food lost has doubled since 1974.
The European Commission, which conducted an EU-wide study, estimates food waste throughout the chain at about 190 kg per year per European. At the two extremes, the Netherlands is at about 580 kg, Greece at 50 kg, and Germany at about 130 kg, all of these figures being estimates.
Many actors are concerned by food waste: central and local governments, farmers, fishermen, food processing and distribution companies, restaurants, non-governmental organizations and households.
For more recent data, see Monika van den Bos Verma, Linda de Vreede , Thom Achterbosch, Martine Rutten. 2019. Consumers discard a lot more food than widely believed: Estimates of global
food waste using an energy gap approach and affluence elasticity of food waste, PLoS ONE, 15(2): e0228369. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228369
In the kitchen, the issue of fighting waste is not simple, as there are many different reasons for this waste. For example, peeling potatoes is certainly creating waste, but the discarded parts contain glycoalkaloids such as solanine, solanidine, chaconine, which are toxic over a quite low limit (Kaltner F .2022. Fate of food-relevant toxic plant alkaloids during food processing or storing and analytical strategies to unveil potential transformation products, Journal of Agricultural and food chemistry, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.2c01489). And most plant tissues, also, contain "natural pesticides" in their outer parts (Ames BN, Profet M, Swirsky Gold L. 1990. Dietary pesticides (99.99 % all natural), Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 87, 7777-7781.
Accordingly, this new contest having the topic “Food Waste” is very important, as it will encourage competitors to find innovative ways of dealing with a world important issue.
For the criteria, the first goal of competitors is to produce dishes that :
1. deal with food waste
2. are as close as possible to pure note by note cooking (i.e., using pure compounds)
3. are good!
3. are original.
About the first criterion, one has to make a difference between “pure note by note cooking”, and “practical note by note cooking.
- the “pure note by note cooking” technique means using only perfectly pure compounds,
- “practical note by note cooking” technique allows the use of mostly pure fractions: for example, oil is a mixture of triglycerides, or corn starch is only 80 % pure amylopectin, but it would not change much if one particular triglyceride were used, on pure amylopectin. And, of course, why not mix the new ingredients and old ones (meat, fish, egg, vegetable and fruits)… but the closest to the pure note by note technique the better.
The participants will be free to purchase the ingredients or to product them by themselves. For example, lixiviation of flour can product gluten and starch, and storing oils in the fridge or in the deep freeze can make various fat fractions, with different properties.
For odours, they can be extracted by various means (storing a raw material in oil, distillation, etc.), but odorant compounds can now be found on line, in companies such as Iqemusu (www.iqemusu.com).
For the contest, participants have to apply in various categories
(1) Professional chefs: they will be judged on their skills to produce a recipe using pure compounds or a mixture of pure compounds and designing the shape, colour, texture etc. This group have access to specific note by note ingredients and specialized equipment in professional kitchens and should have a good skills level.
(2) Students: depending on the applications, there can be two groups, those that are culinary arts students and those that are science students.
Like the professional chefs, the former most likely have access to specific note by note ingredients and special equipment. The other students may or may not have access to these ingredients or equipment. In the case of the culinary student the judging criteria is similar to that for the professional chefs but the level of skills of culinary arts students may be less. If the other students have a science background, the judging criteria could include the use of scientific knowledge to maximize the use of ingredients which were available.
(3) Amateurs - the best use of ingredients which were available.
Where can you find the ingredients?
For cooking Note by Note, you simply need your kitchen, kitchen cupboards and supermarket. Below, you can find pure compounds e.g. water, sugar, salt, xanthan gum, lecithin etc.
Some can be extracted. For example, if you acidify milk and extract curds (mostly casein), you prepare the whey. Or from wheat flour, if you make a dough and wash starch off to, you can separate gluten (that can also be bought at bakers).
There are other cheap ways to get ingredients:
- look for deals on the internet through companies such as Amazon
- email suppliers and ask for free samples (small amounts)
- ask supplier companies for free samples.
Examples of suppliers
Iqemusu (2017). The 24 Notes. [online]. Available at: https://iqemusu.com/en/the-24-notes-note-by-note-cooking/
Louis François (2019). Louis François- Food Ingredients Since 1908. Available at: http://www.louisfrancois.com/index_en.html
MSK (2019), MSK catalogue. [online] Available at: http://msk-ingredients.com/msk-catalogue-2019/?page=1.
Sosa (2019). Sosa Catalogue. Available at: https://www.sosa.cat/
Texturas (2012). Texturas Albert y Ferran Adria. Available at: http://albertyferranadria.com/eng/texturas.html
Each proposed dish will have to be :
described in a .doc file by a recipe (Roman 12) giving
the ingredients, including quantities
the process
shown by photographs.
The candidates will have to accept that their recipes and pictures can be used (with their name) by the organizers and the partners of the contest (see authorization of use in the bottom of this document).
Evaluation:
Respect of the topic “food waste”
Feasibility, reproducibility
Originality of the work.
Using pure compounds will be preferred to using fractions.
Of course, the productions should not be toxic.
The flavour complexity will be appreciated: dishes have a shape, consistency, odor, taste, trigeminal sensation, temperature…
Who
can participate?
The
contest is free, open to all. But there will be different categories:
- culinary professionals (chefs),
- students,
- amateurs.
How to participate?
For applying, it is enough to send an email to icmg@agroparistech.fr with post address, phone number, signed authorization of diffusion of the contest material.
Then, for proposing the result, one has to send a file (fichier .doc) to icmg@agroparistech.fr describing the recipe in details, with a powerpoint document (fichier .ppt) showing the various steps and the final result, with high resolution pictures 300 dpi.
Dates :
- application at any time before 20th of August 2022.
- document being sent before the 25th of August 2022.
Evaluation:
The evaluation will be performed in two stages:
1. display of all recipes, and preselection by a jury, with possible votes by the public
2. evaluation between preselected recipes by a Jury composed of:
Yolanda Rigault (organizer)
Pierre Gagnaire
Pierre-Dominique Cécillon (Toques Blanches Internationales)
Jean-Pierre Lepeltier (Toques Blanches Internationales)
Patrick Terrien (Toques Blanches Internationales)
Sandrine Kault-Perring (Louis François Inc)
Michael Pontif (www.iqemusu.com)
Eric Briffard (Cordon bleu)
Philippe Clergue (Cordon bleu)
Heinz Wuth (Chile)
Prize Event:
AgroParisTech, Paris (Second week of September 2023, to be defined later)
Prizes will be given by the partners. The best results will be displayed on various internet sites (Forum Note à Note d'AgroParisTech...). They will be shown on posters during itinerary exhibitions.
Thanks to our partners
Iqemusu, Louis François, Belin, Pour la Science
Autorisation of diffusion
I ……………….. living ……………………….. authorises the organizers and their partners of the 11th International Contest for Note by Note Cooking to distribute freely the recipes and the pictures that I am submitting to the contest.
Done in ………………………….. the …………………………………..
Signature :
Annexe :
From Molecular Gastronomy to its applications :
« Molecular Cuisine » (it is over)
and « Note by Note Cuisine» (don't miss this next world
culinary trend!)
Hervé This
1. The scientific work
In 1988 Nicholas Kurti and I created the scientific discipline that we called « Molecular
gastronomy» (remember that the word « gastronomy » means « knowledge », and not cuisine, even haute cuisine ; in the same way, Molecular Gastronomy does not stand for cooking!).
The aim of Molecular Gastronomy was, is and will be forever : looking for the mechanisms of
phenomena occcuring during dish preparation and consumption.
2. An application in the kitchen
In the beginning of the 80's, we introduced also «Molecular Cuisine », whose definition is :
« Producing food (this is cuisine) using « new » tools, ingredients, methods ».
In this definition, the word « new » stands for what was not in kitchens of the western countries in 1980.
For example : siphon (to make foams), sodium alginate (to get pearls with a liquid core, spaghettis of vegetables, etc.) and other gelling agents (agar-agar, carraghenans, etc.), liquid nitrogen (to make sherbets and many other innovative preparations), rotary evaporator, and more generally, the whole set of lab's equipment when they can be useful. For methodes, you will easily find on line recipes for “chocolate chantilly, beaumés, gibbs, nollet, vauquelins, etc. ( Cours de gastronomie moléculaire n°1 : Science, technologie, technique (culinaires) : quelles relations ?, Ed Quae/Belin)
Of course all these items are not completely new (many gelling agents are used in Asia for millenia, and many tools are used daily in chemistry labs), but the goal was to modernize the technical component of cuisine.
Yes, the expression « Molecular Cuisine » is poorly chosen, but it had to be introduced at some time... and it is not within the Encyclopedia Britannica Dictionnary. And Molecular Cuisine will disappear... because of... see below !
3. The next culinary trend : Note by Note Cuisine !
The next proposal is much more exciting, and its name is NOTE BY NOTE CUISINE.
It was first proposed in 1994 (in the magazine Scientific American) at a time when I was playing at using compounds in food, such as paraethylphenol in wines and whiskeys, 1-octen-3-ol in dishes, limonene, tartaric acid, ascorbic acid, etc.
The initial proposal was to improve food... but the next idea was obvious, it is to make dishes
entirely from compounds.
Let's say it differently. Note by Note Cuisine is not using meat, fish, vegetable or fruits, but rather compounds, either pure compounds or mixtures, such as electronic music is not using trumpets or violins, but rather pure waves which are mixed in sounds and in music.
Here, for Note by Note Cuisine, the cook has to :
– design the shapes of the various parts of the dish
– design the colours
– design the tastes
– design the odours
– design the temperatures
– design the trigeminal stimulation
– design the consistencies
– design the nutritional aspects
– etc.
The feasability of this new cuisine was already shown by many meals :
– first Note by Note meal (called Note by Note N°1) shown to the international press in Hong
Kong by Pierre Gagnaire in April 2009
– two dishes shown at the French-Japanese Scientific Meeting (JSTS) in Strasbourg, in May
2010
– whole Note by Note Meal served by the chefs of the Cordon bleu School in Paris in
October 2010
– Note à Note meal served the 26th of January 2011, as a launching event of the International
Year of Chemistry, at UNESCO, Paris, by the team of Potel&Chabot
– Note by Note cocktail serve in April 2011 to 500 French chefs freshly starred at Michelin,
in Espace Cardin, Paris
– Note by Note Meal served in October 2011 by the team of the chefs of the Cordon bleu
Schools Paris
– Note by Note dishes made by chefs of the Toques Blanches International Association, in
Paris, 3 Decembre 2011
And many others !
Many questions arise from this new cuisine:
– land development
– economy
– sensorial
– technique
– art
– politics
– nutrition
– toxicology
– etc.
But:
1. humankind is facing an energy crisis : it is not sure that traditional cuisine is sustainable (it
is not!)
2. the New will always beat the Old
3. cracking products from agriculture and farming is already done for milk and wheat ; why
not carrots, apples, etc. ?
4. The objections made to Note by Note cuisine were done half a century ago against
electronic music, and guess what you hear at the radio today ?
In other words, are not we at the equivalent of 1947, when musicians such as Varèse and some
others were investigating electronic music ?
samedi 12 novembre 2022
I am grateful
Let's begin by saying that I did not get any money from the flavouring industry.
In 1994, I created synthetic cooking, now known as "note by note cooking".
Why the nickname? Because of the following musical analogy.
A couple of centuries ago, people played the violin or the flute. When you lay your bow on the strings of a violin, you get a note — the sound of the violin.
And a couple of centuries ago, people cooked with ingredients. They used carrots, turnips, meats, fish… When you put a carrot into a saucepan, what you get is the taste of the carrot. There is a direct analogy between the sound of a musical note and the taste of carrot.
One century ago, scientists analyzed sounds and broke them down into elementary sound waves, every sound being comprised of fundamental and harmonics.
At the same period, chemists analysed food ingredients and found out that they were comprised of compounds (water, lipids, proteins, etc.). The parallel is striking.
Fifty years ago, in order to make synthetic music, you needed a big roomful of computers, whereas now you can buy a synthesiser for a child in a toy shop for a few euros.
But the equivalent for food was nowhere to be found!
So, in 1994, I decided to work on that analogy. Since food ingredients were made of compounds, I would use those compounds to prepare dishes.
It should really be called “synthetic cuisine”, but that would scare people away, so I brought forward the artistic side to name the concept, and Note to Note it was.
When I decided to organize an international competition around Note to Note Cuisine, I turned to Éric Angelini (Mane Company) for help. He proposed a partnership, awarding prizes…
Then a miracle happened, which I have never been able to explain. I received a box from Mane SA. It contained about fifteen preparations, each one a pure component in a food solvent, and they could be used like pepper, salt, or curry powder…
I got twenty of these boxes. I had to name the preparations, and just as there is Chanel n°5, there was Note to Note n°1, n°2, n°3…
Every other month, I went to various countries with the double aim of developing molecular gastronomy in universities and offering the box to the greatest chefs — Pierre Gagnaire, Philippe Conticini, Heston Blumenthal… — so that they could experiment with it.
Jean Mane gave away these boxes; he refused to sell them. That was amazing. Selling them wasn’t part of his plan, he only meant to help me to develop my project. So I am extremely grateful to him for having supported me at that crucial stage of the building of my Cuisine Note à Note.
Later Michael Pontif, a young French chemist, created a company called Iqemusu, in order to sell the same kind of products.
And Note by Note cooking is spreading, thanks to these people : thank you !
jeudi 10 novembre 2022
Note by note cuisine, odorants, and flavourings
I have been fighting the bad uses of the word “aroma” for thirty years!
Let me clarify: I have nothing againt the word aroma when it is used to designate the smell of a single aromatic herb or aromatic. Of course.
But I am agains using this word for a perception of any odor, of meat, of wine, etc.... because these ingredients are not aromatic herbes.
Now how to mane a preparation —as wonderful as it may be— used to bring flavor to a food product? In English, it is not a flavor, but a flavouring.
Alas, in French, it is called "arome", the same as aroma, and I fight this confusing use, because it is not sound. Such a product should be called "gustativant", or at least "aromatisant".
Why is "flavouring" right, and why should French people speak of "gustativants" ?
Flavourings bring smell, or taste, or both. As odor, taste and other perceptions are grouped to make the flavour, it is fair to call it a "flavouring. And in French, it should be a gustativant, because "goût" is the equivalent of flavour.
Alas, Idon’t think the word gustativant has much of a chance to make it through. There is more hope of success for aromatisant, an equivalent of the perfectly accepted English words “flavour” and “flavouring”.
I believe that this improper use of the term “aroma” has brought much misunderstanding throughout the scientific world. I have read mentions of “aromatic components”, and here, there is a confusion with benzene and phenols, for example.
But meat, for instance, is not an aromatic and has no aroma, so you cannot refer to the aroma of a piece of meat or of a glass of wine. For wine, besides, bouquet is the dedicated term.
Every time the meaning of words is twisted, there is a risk of abuse in the commercial world, and some companies can take advantage of the confusion.
If we want the larger public to feel comfortable with these interesting substances, we have to change their name. I may be close to succeeding: in public meetings and conferences, even my detractors now directly refer to aromatisants (in French), which I consider a victory, and the scientific world is beginning to use the word odorants for compounds that have an odor, a term that I endorse.
Of course, some will split hairs and bring up the distinction between antenasal odorants — the smell you experience from the front of your nose — and retronasal odorants — the smell that comes from the mouth through the back of the olfactory system.
My answer is that the same odorant compounds are involved in both cases, and my opponents are losing the game anyway, since odorant has now been adopted in the international scientific community.
We made it! Or just about. Still, for now, I propose aromatisant to replace aroma in the commercial use of the term.
mercredi 9 novembre 2022
Comment faire changer les habitudes alimentaires ? Il y a urgence
Oui, c'est la question que je me pose à propos de la cuisine de synthèse :
https://scilogs.fr/vivelaconnaissance/provoquer-des-changements-des-habitudes-alimentaires/