Molecular Gastronomy at Le Cordon Bleu
Thursday, February 28, 2008I’ve always wondered what culinary school is really like and what goes on there. For years, one of my fantasies has been to spend a day in Le Cordon Bleu Program. Well, I get to check this fantasy off my list. Yesterday, I was invited to visit the California School of Culinary Arts (CSCA) in Pasadena to attend a demonstration by Hervé This, who co-founded the term molecular gastronomy. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry and for the past 20 years has been looking at food from a scientific perspective.
So what exactly is molecular gastronomy? What it comes down to is examining how food changes and understanding why. Molecular gastronomy seems to get confused for cooking, but This stresses repeatedly that it is a science, not cooking. “Science looks for the mechanisms of phenomena,” and it is “not useful except for producing new knowledge.” Once you apply that knowledge, it is no longer science. Now you might be wondering if molecular gastronomy is a science, why is there a demonstration at a culinary school. Chef Lachlan Sands, one of the CSCA instructors, explains it is important to learn and understand what is happening to the food during the cooking process so that if a mistake happens, it’ll be easier to fix. In addition CSCA does apply scientific knowledge. For instance, Chef Matthew Zboray shares that for a Valentine’s dessert, he used methylcellulose, which acts like a gelatin except it solidifies in heat instead of cold. I think it’s fantastic that CSCA provides not only traditional culinary training but also exposes students to new techniques.
This shares with the class some of his experiments. Now I will be forthcoming and admit that I didn’t really comprehend everything he said. I haven’t thought about chemistry since high school, so please forgive me if there are any atrocious inaccuracies in what I report because quite a lot of what he said went over my head. Things I did understand include how different parts of a carrot stalk hold different sugars. Cooking a carrot for a particular length of time will affect the levels of sucrose, glucose, and fructose. This has these intricate graphs that show exactly how much sugar and which type of these 3 sugars are released based on how long they have been cooking. He also talks about why culinary treatments have an effect on the color of green beans and green vegetables in general. The photo on the right is of This grinding a leafy green to show us how there are pigment molecules in the leaves. For me, the most interesting part is when This talks about whipping versus shaking/swirling to make a wine sauce. He shows us super magnified versions of a wine sauces identical in every way except that one was whipped, the other shaken. The whipped one has very tiny oil bubbles and will give more of a wine taste. The shaken one in contrast has larger oil bubbles and will give more of a buttery taste. (Personally, I will be whipping my wine sauces from now on.)
After the demonstration, I enjoyed a very lovely lunch with This and about a dozen chefs. During this time, I had the opportunity to ask This, who is known for debunking old wives tales in the kitchen, if he wants to do the same for foods of other cultures, as different regions have different old wives tales in regards to cooking. His response was yes, he wants to, but he currently has 25,000 books he’s trying to get through, and it takes him about a month to test a myth and 10 years to complete. It would be “inefficient” for him to decipher a book on Japanese cuisine and then run those experiments when he has so much left undone. Thus it is his hope that molecular gastronomy will take off in other regions so there will be others who will conduct similar experiments. Then in about 10 yrs, they can all convene and share their findings together for the different cultures of foods. I would love to see that happen and attend that conference.
By Pauline (see more of her posts).
We started off with Katie ‘n’ Megan’s Mac & Cheese Bites ($9). In addition to just being fans of mac and cheese, one of the friends’ names happen to be Katie, so we had to order it. Her name is in the dish! It turned out to be quite good. Basically, imagine your typical macaroni and cheese scooped up in a ball, rolled around in a light batter and breadcrumbs, and then deep fried. I had previously heard that this dish was way too greasy and unappealing. All I can say is anything deep fried probably will be a little greasy and won’t be good for you, but it sure tasted great going down. That was all we cared about. We also liked that there was a little dish of marinara sauce for us to dip the “bites” in. 
For our main entrees, I went with the BBQ Pork Sandwich ($12.50), Katie opted for the Pasta Pomodoro with Grilled Chicken ($15.50), and our friend, Deanna, chose the Liberty Grill’s Sloppy Joe ($11.50). We all agreed that our food tasted good, but it just didn’t seem like they were anything to rave about. The pulled pork tasted similar to others I’ve had. As I was eating it, I did realize that Liberty Grill gave a hearty portion of pork even though it didn’t really look any different from pork sandwiches at other restaurants. Liberty Grill also gave a very generous portion of angel hair pasta in the pasta pomodoro, topped with halved chicken breasts. Of all of our entrees, Deanna’s turned out to be the most surprising one. Her sloppy joe was made with Liberty Grill’s Denver Chili. This was clearly noted in the menu. Nevertheless, we were still shocked that there were beans in her sloppy joe. None of us had ever heard of beans in sloppy joes before, so this was a first for us. On the plus side, Deanna did say she enjoyed her meal.