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Pierre Gagnaire and Herve This
Pushing the boundries of food innovation…
Herve This (excuse the missing accent) who is regarded as the founder of molecular gastronomy and not Ferran Adria or Heston Blumenthal as many think has joined forces with legendary three michelin starred chef Pierre Gagnaire in taking this unique art form further into the realms of the unimaginable.
The pair of them have been working on a new dish made entirely from chemical compounds entitled le note a note, if that sounds a little pretentious then it is! The dish is an amuse bouche of apple and lemon flavoured jelly balls, soft and creamy inside with a crunchy casing. Served up at the five star Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong they have also devised a sauce for a lobster fricassee made from glucose, tartaric acid and polyphenols called, intriguingly; ‘polyphenol sauce’. Sounds wonderful!
Now these guys want to take the concept of molecular gastronomy to another level using pure compounds, so that vegetables and animal products would heve their structures broken down into individual compounds which I imagine would give you the taste of each foodstuff in its purest form. So what’s your take on all of this? Do you think it will take off? Personally I don’t. I think we need to have people such as Gagnaire who are willing to experiment and open up new frontiers but it will never truly convince me as a realistic form of cuisine.
So the next time you marvel at what Heston has come up with you can now imagine two guys over in Hong Kong looking at it and saying ‘child’s play’ 
Miles,
I’m not going to dismiss these guys out of hand. I quite like the theatre of MG, but essentially they are using the same transglutaminases and hydrocolloids that McDonalds and Tescos are using. I appreciate the work and skill that goes into MG, but for Hervé, Heston and Ferran to claim that this is the future of cooking is maybe a little premature. I think I’m more in the Harold McGee camp on this topic.
… I mean, what’s next? Curry Foam?
GDave
April 21, 2009 @ 12:17 am
GDave,
Like it! Good old Harold, he gets more than a tip of the hat from Heston doesn’t he?
There should be a place for the mad scientists of this world as long as we all keep our feet firmly on the ground.
Miles
April 21, 2009 @ 8:14 am
Miles,
If I’d been Herve then I would certainly want to team up with someone like Pierre… it makes sense to get an acclaimed chef on board. Perhaps together they will write something into the gastronomy textbooks to influence future dishes and future cooks/chefs? The recent tv series with Heston will cement his popularity in this country…. kids will love it because it’s exciting and involves test tubes. Whether this will mean more youngsters being drawn into cooking for themselves, only time will tell. So will MG take off to such a degree that we’re all at it…. no, most people out there are quite content with whatever the local chippie or pizza house serves up.
The marketing of Ferran as the leading light in MG was unbeatable in my view…. he has a restaurant which is, by all accounts quite modest to look at but is remote and booked up a year or so ahead and only opens its doors for a few months a year. It shouts mystery and exclusivity. I should add that recently in a local restaurant, I had a dessert which was topped with ‘popping’ sugar crystals…. they snap, crackled and popped and everyone wanted to try it. Will they be so interested next time, probably not, bread and butter pudding proved the most popular choice from what I could tell, being delicious and inexpensive.
Miles we could open a cafe on the east coast which is only accessible via a mud hopping, converted rickshaw….
Cid
April 21, 2009 @ 9:35 am
Miles,
Yeah, Harold is ace! I received his, ‘On Food & Cooking,’ encyclopedia for my birthday a few years ago. You can open it anywhere and learn something fascinating that could potentially win your next pub quiz! His New York Times column is also very engaging.
My perception as a consumer is that MG is the ‘present’ of cooking, rather than the ‘future.’ Cid’s right, we’re going to get bored of pea spheres formed in a calcium bath, and thermoreversible gels, aren’t we? Of course, innovation and experimentation is important, but if a maître d’ sprayed me with an almond atomizer while I was trying to eat, he’d be on his backside.!
GDave
April 21, 2009 @ 10:28 am
I can’t comment with cooking and chef knowledge like the rest of you, but I’ll throw my two cents worth in as a nutritionist. I support real food. Whole food. When you fractionalize food you lose the health benefits of substances working in tandem with each other.
GDave mentioned transglutaminase, which caught my eye. Tissue transglutaminase is an enzyme found in every cell of the human body and elevated levels can indicate celiac disease (thought I’d throw that in as anti-tTG blood levels are used as a diagnostic tool). tTG is just a naturally occurring enzyme, but it’s odd to think of it in culinary terms. Very weird, in my opinion.
Tranglutaminases are resistant to proteases, which are enzymes that break down proteins into amino acids so our bodies can utilize them. What happens in your gut if your food (food?) is more resistant to digestion? The natural enzymes in whole foods also help the digestive process. Seems like we might end up with some bloated and uncomfortable diners.
:-)
Plus, don’t you lose some of the visual impact of the beauty of whole foods on a plate. Isn’t an almond more appealing than a spray gun? Or a fig more appetizing than a glob of gel? And what additives are needed to keep things from spoiling or losing color (oxidating). Once you start taking the food apart, it diminishes in nutritional value.
Frankenfood! Ugh! I’ll pass.
Melissa
April 21, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
MIles
I’m all for it, if people didn’t experiment with food then where would we be ?
It’s worth remembering that once upon a time somebody thought I’ll chop these leaves up and chuck it in with the meat and see what happens - herbs were introduced into cookery.
Will it take off . . . well it won’t be going on it professional kitchens and homes throughout the land but as an idea I think it will spread with a new generatiopn of chefs.
It’s a dining experience rather than simply a meal as I see it.
You don’t go to the Fta Duck for example because you’re hungry or you want the health benefits of highly nutritional eating - you go for the experience.
One snail porridge and an egg and bacon ice cream for Table 5 please
Rod
April 21, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
Melissa,
I was with you all the way until the second paragraph then you lost me
Sure you’re right though!!
MIles
April 21, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Rod,
If I gave you snail porridge you’d disown me…maybe I will
Miles
April 21, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
Melissa,
Industrial transglutaminase (Activa, to cite a brand name) is used in the kitchen as a “meat glue.” It binds protein molecules together making an absolutely perfect bond. You could literally stick two steaks together or stick bacon to a chicken breast. A pretty useful bit of kit for an innovative MG chef. Wylie Dufresne used it to make noodles made entirely from shrimp on Iron Chef. (how’s that for American pop culture knowledge!!… he lost, btw)
Of course, Ronald McDonald also uses it to reconstitute reclaimed meat for his delicious “Happy” Meals. I wouldn’t have a clue what (if any) the long term effects of consumption would be, despite your best efforts to educate me. Frankly, I would love to have a mess around with it at home, but it’s only sold in industrial quantities and has quite a short shelf-life.
GDave
April 21, 2009 @ 6:26 pm
Miles, GDave and gang,
GDave — thanks for the culinary science lesson! I don’t know who any of these people are, but I find the science behind all this fascinating. However, I think I’ll pass on reclaimed meat that has been reconstituted (please don’t tell me what that means). I think of the two, I’ll take a serving of Rod’s snail porridge.
Melissa
April 21, 2009 @ 6:49 pm