Molecular gastronomy where you least expect it

[Fat Guy]

I've recently been twice to a Dongbei (Northeastern) Chinese restaurant in Queens, NY, where they serve a pretty interesting dessert. Chunks of apple, taro and sweet potato are coated in a hot sugar syrup. Alongside, they serve a bowl of cold water. You take a chunk with your chopsticks, dip it in the cold water, and the sugar seizes up and becomes a crunchy-chewy candy shell. As I was dipping yet another piece, watching in amazement, it occurred to me that if you brought out those same chunks of sweet potato -- say, just three of them -- on a black granite slab and presented the whole thing with great ceremony you'd have a dish that could feel at home at El Bulli.

This got me thinking about the continuum of non-modernist foods that lean heavily on food science, consciously or not. I kept thinking of examples: bread, Jell-O, Hollandaise, marshmallows... And then I thought, hey, there's this online community of food lovers who might like to discuss this point.

[percival]

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Growing up, the only restaurants my dad ever took us to were either diners or Chinese. The Great Wall of China was literally down the street from us, so we went often. The food was typical, but the dessert -- those very apples of which you wrote -- was delish, free, and always served with every meal. Basically candied apples, cut in chunks, and then dipped in molten sugar and hardened. They never were hardened right there at the table, but that does give it a a cool kitsch factor, along the lines of Szechuan beef on a sizzling plate.

To fancify, I'd make it more than just water. Add color. From something expensive and endangered. Locally organically harvested distilled rarified... water.

[Kent Wang]

In Chinese it's called ba si, literally "pulling threads". I prefer the taro version.

I think it's best when you have a whole lot of the syrup so you get a lot of threads and then you dip it in the water so you get a bunch of hardened threads. Hard to do, and the dish can't have sat around for too long.

[Carlovski]

Good point, it's like the saying goes 'there is nothing new under the sun'.

Of course, if you look in detail, at even the most banal of cooking methods and culinary dogma, there is a surprising amount of science. How does a few teaspoons of cornstarch thicken that whole stew? Why do we salt the cooking water etc.

I think one of the most radical 'modernist' foods, or at least it would be if invented by a modern chef is the traditional Indian practice of Paan. They put what you would normally consider as chemicals in it for starters!

Edited September 24, 2010 by heidih
fix link (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Paan reminds me that I'm about to dump a bunch of lime into water for nixtamal this weekend.

[Chris Hennes]

I generally treat "modernism" as more of a thought process than an actual technique or procedure. All of cooking is chemistry and physics, of course: it's only when we start thinking about it in those terms that it becomes "modernism." One person's normal ingredient is another's "crazy chemical additive." One culture's outlandish technique is another's normal cooking procedure.

[jk1002]

I love a modernist dinner every now and then ... Yet obviously this is not an every day meal.

There are pieces yet coming out of it that truely bridge the gap to every day meals.

Wylies soy bean pasta made with activa is just one example. Basil caviar in a tuna or beef tatar another where the herb doesnt mess up the texture of the dish.

The sugar thing just sounds like one of these bridge dishes .... Not over the top but incorporated into an every day meal.

To me, this is one nut to crack for wylie, adrian and achatz. Make it accesible.

[percival]

Wait, wait. How are candied apples not possible for an every day meal, or not accessible? I mentioned that this dessert did come with every meal, every day, as a freebie at the local Chinese joint. Take your sweet root vegetable or hard fruit of choice, stir fry medium with some sugar till it softens up a bit. In a separate pan, add lots of sugar and a little bit of water. Cook on high till it melts, but not till it browns. The ratio of sugar to water will determine how hard it gets when cooled. Experiment. Coat food, shove a stick in it, and serve with a bowl of cold water. Dip and serve, or instruct your diners that eating the food w/o dipping in water first would be an extremely painful experience. And that's not accessible? The only showy part is having diners do it themselves. The normal way would be just to let the sugar cool off on a pan in the kitchen.

[paulraphael]

This got me thinking about the continuum of non-modernist foods that lean heavily on food science, consciously or not. I kept thinking of examples: bread, Jell-O, Hollandaise, marshmallows... And then I thought, hey, there's this online community of food lovers who might like to discuss this point.

Sure, it's always been there ... and I think this is one of the reasons people most associated with molecular gastronomy have disowned the term. I have to agree with them. It really doesn't mean anything, if you try to apply it to a style, or even just to techniques. There is no one style (or even ten), and new techniques have been introduced all through culinary history. An immersion circulator is no more hi-tech today than an oven with a thermostat was 70 years ago.

Today we have chefs and food technologists who are informed directly by science. This is new ... but the discoveries are applied to old techniques as well as new ones. When Hervé This and his partner first coined the term, they were referring to the research, not to the results. I believe their working definition was "the science of deliciousness." And their first lectures focussed (I believe) on the science of decidedly un-modern cooking techniques.

I think it's hard to find any modern techniques that are more dependent on complex scienctific principles than wine, bread, cake ...

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but it seems to me that the most technically complex food, even taking into acount the post-modern pyrotechnics of Adria and Achatz and Dufresne, is ice cream.

[scott123]

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but it seems to me that the most technically complex food, even taking into acount the post-modern pyrotechnics of Adria and Achatz and Dufresne, is ice cream.

I agree. To me, ice cream is science while these guys are sort of mad scientists/tinkerers. If you had the head of Breyer's R&D give a talk to every chef/food personality on the planet, I don't think there would be a single person who'd understand what he/she was talking about. Same thing for the head of R&D at Pepperidge Farm bread. Bread is unbelievably technically complex.

Edited September 25, 2010 by scott123 (log)

[janeer]

As soon as I started reading this I thought: cotton candy

[mkayahara]

I've often wondered whether Achatz got the inspiration for his black truffle explosion from eating Chinese soup dumplings.

[Kent Wang]

I thought this technique I came up with for trapping shrimp tomalley to make a shrimp "butter" was a bit molecular.

I've often wondered whether Achatz got the inspiration for his black truffle explosion from eating Chinese soup dumplings.

How could I forget soup dumplings. Bo Innovation in Hong Kong even makes a molecular version using spherification (the method for El Bulli's olive sphere).

[annachan]

Cooking itself is a science, a series of chemical reactions. We've just been cooking a lot longer than we've known about science behind it. As we understand science more, we're able to produce results without as much trials and errors. We've been manipulating sugar for a long time to make a multitude of sweets. All the different textures that sugar can turn into by using different methods are amazing.

Those apples! I was first introduced to them during a trip to Chinese as a kid. Just enjoyed them last week when we're in Hong Kong. It used to be such a "mystery". Now that I'm a lot more familiar with sugar through candy making, all I have to do is figure out what temp to get the sugar to and it won't be hard to make this dish at home.

[annachan]

This has prompted me to think about tofu. Many years ago, my dad discovered a dish in China made with tofu. He said to put regular tofu in the freezer. Once frozen and defrosted, cut into cubes and put into a vege/meat type stew. By freezing the tofu, the texture changed from being creamy and silky to somewhat spongy. I'm sure there's a science to it, maybe to do with the water molecules. But no doubt it was most likely discovered accidentally.