(Erlenmeyer flasks from the Argonne National Laboratory glass blowing shop. source)

Today’s article, “The Essence of Nearly Anything, Drop by Limpid Drop“, by Harold McGee in The New York Times, has me thinking on what what we might call “real food“, authenticity, essentialism, and molecular gastronomy.

You likely know that Harold McGee is a food science writer who’s book “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen” is a core primer on food science for non-food scientists.

In this article, McGee talks about a “new” method of making flavored liquids or essences by a “gelatin clarification” method.

The basic overview of this method is this:

• Prepare a liquid from desired food (lobster, peaches, carrots, spirulina, chicken, hog toenails, whale mesentary, simply anything at all)
• If the liquid was made without bones or some cartilage, add a small amount of gelatin, dissolve
• Freeze preparation
• Place frozen block in strainer (with cheese cloth?) in bowl in the fridge
• Allow ice crystals to slowly melt over days and release into bowl (be sure to seal up this assembly otherwise it will pick up other odors in the fridge)
• Use what drips from the matrix (gelatin, fats, proteins, etc) as an essence.

What is happening here is that the gelatin forms a matrix or net into which everything is bound. As is the wont with all things fluidic, upon freezing, the water portion of the fluid is excluded from the gelatin matrix as it freezes into crystals, leaving behind particulate matter. Water soluble components travel with the water.

When the frozen block is slowly thawed at temps that are too low for the gelatin and fats to become fluid, the ice crystals melt and water and water soluble fractions drip away from the matrix.

The molecular gastronomists like to call this an “essence”. With this, you have purified the water soluble flavors. You have also left behind fat soluble flavors which can be extraordinary.

The “novelty” here is that the water soluble essence may deliver a different and perhaps more intense flavor because it is no longer combined with what ever flavors may have been in the fat soluble fraction.

Those fats may have served to mask, dampen or modify the water soluble flavors.

Fat and water soluble favors have become uncoupled in an “un-natural” or not naturally occurring way that will usually not be present in legacy preparations, recipes, foods, or cuisines.

These clarified essences have become faddish. (Actually, I think they were “conceived” in such a way that faddism was a foregone conclusion.)

Chefs who strive for “fame” and profit jump on the essence bandwagon and deliver victual conceits such as lamb loin flavored with pretzel elixir, a creation by Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 in NYC. I have not had this dish but I suppose I would consider trying it if I were in a “gee wiz” mood.

I think I would know I have lost my way if I had to start a $500 meal (gratuity, alcohol, parking, and bathroom usage not included) by signing a non-disclosure agreement, be frisked for a prohibited camera, and eat crappy photos of sushi printed on oddly favored “food product” paper sheets while sniffing aerosolized “ocean” and watching hypodermic needles being used to extrude lyophylized clam deoxyribonucleic acid noodles that are then infused with cotton candy essence, incubated in fluorescein dye and all the lights doused while I am spoon fed the glowing concoction while being irradiated with a UV light by an unpaid intern wearing UV safe goggles and a meat jerky flavored gel bodysuit.

(Fluorescein dye)

I would much prefer to try such a meal prepared by a passionate food hacker (for a modest fee and at an ad hock food hacking party – all in the spirit of fun, experimentation and “science”) than as a status meal in an expensive restaurant served with considerable self-importance.

With respect to “authentic” food and whether pretzel essence infused lamb loin is authentic in any way, I think we need to stick a definition on that word.

From Merriam-Webster Online:

“Main Entry: au·then·tic
Pronunciation: &-'then-tik, o-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English autentik, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos, from authentEs perpetrator, master, from aut- + -hentEs (akin to Greek anyein to accomplish, Sanskrit sanoti he gains)
1 obsolete : AUTHORITATIVE
2 a : worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact <paints an authentic picture of our society> b : conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features <an authentic reproduction of a colonial farmhouse> c : made or done the same way as an original <authentic Mexican fare>
3 : not false or imitation : REAL, ACTUAL <based on authentic documents> <an authentic cockney accent>
4 a of a church mode : ranging upward from the keynote — compare PLAGAL 1 b of a cadence : progressing from the dominant chord to the tonic — compare PLAGAL 2
5 : true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character “

Authenticity is not the impetus or motivation in “gee wiz” victual conceit molecular gastronomy. Innovation may be a motivator but I think that the vagaries of ego and business capsize that noble though misplaced ambition.

No, I fear that most of the commercial molecular gastronomy pablum we are “fed” would be better defined as “derivative”:

“Main Entry: ²derivative
Function: adjective
1 : formed by derivation <a derivative word>
2 : made up of or marked by derived elements
3 : lacking originality : BANAL“

I would prefer unadorned roasted marrow bones or a slice of headcheese with a side of just picked calabash tomatoes sprinkled with chunky sea salt to some expensive overwrought pseudo-imaginative and derivative essence delivered with pomp and circumstance.

(yawn)

Related posts:

• Molecular Gastronomy for the masses? (A Rant)
• Molecular Gastronomy 101: Biology Basics – Part 1
• Molecular Gastronomy 101: Part 2 – The Nose and receptors

Technorati Tags: The New York Times, real food, authenticity, essentialism, molecular gastronomy, Harold McGee, food science, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, food, science, gelatin clarification, method, Freeze, ice, crystal, matrix, essence, soluble, water soluble, fat soluble, legacy, clarified, faddish, victual conceits, pretzel, elixir, Wylie Dufresne, WD-50, pablum, marrow, bone, headcheese, calabash, sea salt

You may have read recently in the New York Times an article, “China’s True Dash of Flavor” by Fuchsia Dunlop, that tries to sooth readers into a laconic gullibility around the use and consumption of MSG or monosodium glutamate.

This article is so substatially unfortunate on various levels.

It suggests that, as many “good” chinese cooks use MSG, this highly processed industrial agent is good enough for you.

Tomorrow, I will be posting an article that gives you the facts about monosodium glutamate without insulting your intelligence or taste.

You can decide if you want to eat a neurotoxin, gain weight while eating even less, and whether you want to be feeding your babies formula with MSG, baby food with MSG, and snack and prepared foods with MSG.

Stay Tuned.

Technorati Tags: New York Times, article, China’s True Dash of Flavor, gullibility, MSG, monosodium glutamate, chinese, cooks, processed, industrial, facts, monosodium, glutamate

Today I read the article “He Cooks. She Stews. It’s Love” in the New York Times (online edition) and it had me thinking. The premise of the article is that often times a couple will have an Alpha cook and a Beta cook.

We all know what alpha means, its a play off of the concept of the primary or alpha animal in a pack. For example, the alpha female wolf does most of the hunting while the lower cast females care for her offspring and never have any of their own.

Its a simple equation: Alpha = enforced dominance.

The author of this New York Times article, Katherine Wheelock, seems to have bought into this concept and interviews several couples as examples in support of this idea.

Her couples, high speed New Yorkers, married and divorced/separated, are heavily weighted with dysfunction in the kitchen.

Regarding the ideal we are “suppose” to reach for and how we fall short of it, Wheelock writes:

It was a nice fantasy while it lasted: rather than letting the lady of the house bear the constant burden of cooking dinner, the modern couple would share the work. Husbands would take an interest in casseroles. Wives would slap slabs of meat on the grill. They would read cookbooks and watch the Food Network together. The kitchen would be a peaceful domain equally ruled by two people.

For many couples, this never happened. Instead, wedged there in the kitchen together, they fell into a power dynamic just as unequal and emotionally fraught as the arrangement that puts the female half in a frilly apron. Instead of a partnership, some couples say that their relationship in the kitchen more closely resembles a tiny dictatorship.

This sounds so sad to me. I think that this dysfunctional dynamic may be a good barometer for a relationship that is headed in a difficult direction. The article goes on to say:

“If there’s a power struggle, it will come out in cooking together,” said Dr. Marion F. Solomon, a couples therapist in Los Angeles. “If a person feels that they’re not recognized for their abilities in other areas, they can start to resent the partner who takes control in the kitchen.”

Yikes, thats major life and interpersonal issues being projected onto the act of cooking.

If this happened instead to the act of cleaning toilets or flushing out the gutters or taking out the trash, it would not be so sad.

Cooking and feeding your family is an activity that is fundamental to the family unit. Power play around that is reckless and quite regretable.

So, yeah, the idea of lording it over your partner in the kitchen is loathesome to me. My first reaction was to say “I would never do that and my husband doesnt either”. My husband does most of the cooking because for years I commuted 4 hours a day and by the time I got home every day I simply could not stand up to cook let alone want to cook.

He has always done a wonderful job of whipping together what was available in the fridge and serving it up without it being a major “voila” moment. Our own special sort of discord has always been about the cleaning, ancillary to cooking but also important.

Hey, I never said I was perfect!

In our kitchen, if either of us start a cooking project, like making stock or that night’s supper, the other stays out of the way and leaves it to the initiating party. There is gratitude that food is made and appreciation of it’s value. I think I would be quite miserable if it were all about power and dominance.

How is it for you? I have put up a poll at the bottom of this post.

Vote if you like (its anonymous!) and lets see how others feel about the power in their kitchens.

I suspect that most of us normal-speed foodies are not so parsimonious with our cooking “power” and, lord, who has time for all of that anyways!

Technorati Tags: New York Times, Alpha cook, Beta cook, primary, animal, dominance, Katherine Wheelock, married, kitchen, relationship, dictatorship, power struggle, issues