Is it time to lose the name "molecular gastronomy"?

[gfweb]

I never liked it. It describes nothing about the methods used or the product. The techniques are no more "molecular" than traditional cooking methods. Its all applied chemistry one way or the other anyway.

If the term didn't exist then nay-sayers would have nothing to attack and I wouldn't have to read inane comments by Alton Brown or Lorena Garcia.

[Mjx]

Who still uses this term?!

[Chris Hennes]

Herve This does, but to him it's a very specific thing. I think the argument for using "Modernist" put forth in Modernist Cuisine was persuasive.

[gfweb]

MG crops up all over the place. It is well-entrenched in the minds of food writers. eg http://eater.com/archives/2012/07/13/taco-bell-chef-lorena-garcia-breaks-her-legendary-silence-on-molecular-gastronomy.php

[laharre]

I don't really think that the name really matters as much as it represents the idea involved, and I believe both modernist and molecular gastronomy do the job there. It may be no more "molecular" than traditional cooking, but the thought process approaching it is very much more centered on the chemical reactions involved. From my perspective, the heart of modernist cooking or molecular gastronomy is the understanding of the chemical reactions that occur when we cook and eat, and practical applications of that knowledge to improve the eating experience. As far as giving ammo to the green junkies, "organic" is a far more inaccurate term.

[lesliec]

I think laharre put it very well - the name doesn't matter; it's all about what's happening to the food.

Having said that, next month sees the fourth annual Wellington on a Plate festival, about which more anon. Our new Cordon Bleu school is hosting several events as its first public occasion, and one of those is a panel discussion called Molecular Gastronomy: Future or Fad?. The panellists hadn't been finalised last time I talked to anybody, but we have a few good practitioners of modernist/MG/whatever around the place so I'm hoping for a good session. I'll report in due course.

[nickrey]

Things emerge. They get a new name to differentiate them from other approaches (eg. Nouvelle Cuisine). People accept the techniques into their cooking repertoire. Once it reaches critical mass, it is just "cooking." The name then becomes associated mainly with the more excessive expressions of the approach and subject to ridicule when new approaches emerge that are more attractive. As acceptance matures, everyone forgets where the new techniques came from when they become simply "techniques."

For some techniques in molecular gastronomy, we are at the critical mass stage. For others they are insufficiently adopted and the name lingers. Once they pass fully from the early adopters into the mainstream, we will see a natural demise of the term. It's a waiting game.