How Molecular Gastronomy Works

what's Josh got for me? Obvioush you hadn't just built that up because this is it's not really a particularly special We've done three d s and I'd say three hundred or more of them have been very interesting that many. Huh sure, well, and to heck with it. Um, I'm just gonna wrap on this one. Okay, alright, Chuck. You remember when we went to flip Burger Yeah, okay, Central Blaze. Yes, Richard Blade. Um, he is an excellent chef. He has

not only flipped Burger boutique here in Atlanta. I think he's got a second one that just opened, was about to open. Yeah. And he's a Richard's a top chef guy. He's a winner. Right. No, he actually, um, he's head a winning personality. Yeah, he and he will admit that he choked on his season because he's clearly the best chef and he just kind of choked at the end, which is not a very blazing thing to do because he's pretty money. Well, we know a lot about choking.

People send us emails about them choking. Yeah, and he's now on which I'm watching now, the Top Chef All Stars and as well as of now he is will probably resolved by the time this comes out. But now he's one of the top three. Okay, he's in the final three. Well, who else is on there? Uh, it's it's a lot of the second place finishers from all the years. Yeah, I mean tough competition. Um okay. Well, I should also say to anybody out there whoever is thinking of coming to Atlanta, UM, a lot of the

stuff you should know. Listeners email us right and they say where should I go eat? Every single time we recommend Flip. Yeah, it's fun place, it's awesome, but the food is just amazing. I also strongly recommend the Awsobuco Burger. Right, awesome stuff. Anyway, Chuck, you've had the crispy cream milkshake. I know you have. I've watched you drink it. Right. Did you notice when it came out it was steaming.

Although it was piping cold, it was steaming. And the reason it was steaming is because Richard Blaze, as his way, had just injected a bunch of nitrous oxide into it. And he did that to basically fluff it and I believe to also chill it very quickly, which are both very um their hallmarkian of molecular gastronomy, which coincidentally is what we're podcasting about today. That's right, Josh, molecular gastronomy, which is Uh, let's go ahead and just give a

quick history here. Uh, there was a guy name while there still is. A guy's name is her Vats. Yeah, he's very active still. He still has a has a blog into website going. In the nineteen eighties, he was a physical chemist and he was working on a soufle in his kitchen and it was a cheese souffle and the recipe um had very strict instruction said to yolks, egg yolks at a time. He said, yeah, we'll put in for egg yolks. I'm a I'm a chemist chemist and it failed big time, as this souffle is apt

to do. And he said, you know what, this is really interesting. I've been follow those instructions even though they're the right ingredients were we're put in the recipe and it flopped. So let me start studying this. And he started doing this with more dishes. The scientific study of food preparation very systematic. He said, I think I'm onto something here. Uh. Partnered with a guy named Nicholas Curtie who was an emeritus professor. Did that too or is

that a mistake? And atist professor emeritus? Is that a title? I could see it being a title at Oxford? Okay, So he was at Oxford and he was another physical scientists and they launched together molecular gastronomy. They originally called it molecular and Physical gastronomy, and that was a very new thing at the time. This is very new discipline in cooking, it was, and and basically the the there's kind of two bases of molecular gastronomy. It's number one.

It's debunking myths, like there's so many Old wives tales surrounding cooking, right which like, for example, um adding olive oil to boiling water that you're cooking pasta and that still separated. It's just bunk. It is bunk. The reason why it's bunk is because oil and water don't mix. Even when you're boiling at the oil floats at top, the noodles are down below that, and it's doing absolutely nothing.

What you should actually do is that a little bit of vinegar, like white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, just a little bit, because that at actually does keep posta from sticking to itself. And one of the points of molecular gastronomy is getting to the actual truth of does something work, yes or no. If it doesn't, we should broadcast that it doesn't work with people you know, don't feel like chumps, right, that's right, or waste time and money and effort. And if it does work, why and

why is explained on a scientific level. That's molecular gastronomy. It's right. He began looking at the physics and chemistry of the preparation of food, and he organized the first international Workshop on Molecular and Physical gastronomy and presented the first doctorate in that field at the University of palis In. Yeah, which is pretty huge because he created a brand new field and within like a decade or so, they're handing

out PhDs in it. Yeah. Well it didn't substantial. It was substantial, but it didn't catch on like wildfire wasn't super popular at first. No, and actually it was very

um um shunned conversial. Yeah. Well, because chefs are all about cooking with the soul and cooking with love, and all of a sudden there was a sky these two guys that were breaking it down to the molecular level and kind of taking all the fun out of it to some people's in some people's opinion, right, And and as you said, it's soulful, it's artistic cooking is when you apply science to art, it loses something intangible but very important. Um. But on the other hand, molecular gastronomy

has been able to produce things like snail porridge. You want to read the quote, Actually I don't have that to you. I do. Um one one eater of the snail porridge. Wow, what just happened to me? And um of snail porridge described it as quote successively savory sweet snailey crunchy and tart ellips nothing less than magical. That's

pretty substantial for for snail porridge. And with snail porridge or with molecular gastronomy, you can come up with dishes like snail porridge which no one would ever have thought of creating. Um, and you can also make it perfect nothing less than magical every single time. Yeah, which is that kind of precision is good when you're a chef because one of the keys to a successful restaurant is consistency.

But early on it got a lot of criticism because a lot of chefs didn't find it was accessible to your average home chef and they think not yeah, they think to be a successful uh discipline then because Julia Child, for instance, she was a talented cook and chef, but she didn't really hit it big until she put out

that book. She was nothing that everyone wanted in their kitchen, right and Chuck, while we're talking about books, we should probably give a shout out to Liz Um, who's the stuff you should know a listener um and who runs a little bit sweets l I D D A B I T S W E E T S dot com. Yeah, we plugged her before in her awesome. Cha. Yes, and I think it's been a little since we've got some chocolates. Frankly, yeah, I think it's about time for a little uh what's

it called pala? Yeah? Um. She gave us her Ve Teases book, Molecular Gastronomy Exploring the Science of Flavor, right, and um, I've had it since June of last year, almost a year, and I've read the first entry. But we have the book thanks to her and she she gave us the book to kind of grease the wheels toward a molecular Gastronomy podcast. So here it is. It's

almost a year late. So to wrap up the history her a Teases partner and starting up this new discipline, Nicholas Curty passed away her a uh then changed it to just molecular gastronomy, dropped the physical part. I think that's very honorable that he waited until the guy died, and I was like, I'm getting rid of this part. Well, he didn't call it tse and gastronomy. No. He seems

like a pretty cool dude, so uh. He also loosened his um viewpoint a little bit on pure science and said, you know what, there is a lot of art and soul involved, and so let's just say it's art and science and not one or the other. And it's um quote, the art and science of selecting, preparing, serving, and most importantly to me, enjoying food. That's right, because you can get to a point where you're no longer enjoying food.

The definition of of gastronomy was the art of selecting, preparing, serving, and enjoying food. And a lot of people worried when molecular was added to gastronomy that it was going to take out the last part. It's not fun when you apply science to it. But he managed to um combine the two and since then there's a whole just slew of really talented chefs out there working in this field.

That's right. And it's delicious food too. I mean it looks funny and looks interesting and different, but it's it's also yummy. It wouldn't be around at fifty plate if it wasn't yummy. Just because you can make a cube out of mayonnaise doesn't mean we're gonna eat. It's still gotta taste like good mayonnaise, right, And if you're gonna call something snail porridge because it's made out of snail, you have better taste. Kid, who was that? Nothing less

than his recipe? That was? Was it? Wild Frame? I don't know. I know you're a big fan of his, aren't you. Yeah? And I haven't been to w D fifty, but next time we're we're in New York, dude, we should go. Okay, for sure? He makes a s that length the ice cream bagels, Yeah, it's amazing and it's it's it looked like little bagel halves, but their bagel flavored ice cream made into the shape of a bagel and then dust like an airbrush to to give it

the shading an appearance of being toasted. It's pretty crazy something. Alright, So let's talk is heston blue menhal was the snail porridge? Alright, Let's talk chemistry for a second. If you're a chemistr you're gonna classify matter into one of three things. It's going to be an element, a compound, or a mixture. Element can't be broken down any further because it's like oxygen or hydrogen. Sure compound is let's say oxygen and

hydrogen water salt. That's a compound, and they are actually chemically uh combined, but they have properties that are separate and distinct from their components. That's the constituents right right.

And then you have a mixture, which is when you combine substances that are not held together chemically and they can be separated by physical means like filtering something, right, And then that's that's pretty basic stuff, right, chemistry On the one um one of now we start to kind of get into um, molecular gastronomy's interest in chemistry, like all of that is is taken into account of course,

but um, we get to colloids. And once we reach colloids, which we just have, we really have entered the realm of molecular gastronomy and food. And a colloid is basically a mixture of to two substances that are um. They're dispersed but not dissolved in one another, and they can actually be of two different phases or states. So you remember there's three phases of matter, technically four which is plasma, remember,

which is liquid so hot it behaves like a gas. Um. But I don't think they've entered that field with molecular gastronomy yet where they use plasma probably like trying to search that out. He's like plasma huh. Um, that's gas, liquid and solid, right, and you can um introduce one into the other, uh and create something new. So, for example, if you introduce gas, you disperse it into a liquid, you're gonna get what's called foam, for example, whipped cream

or beer foam. Or if you're Marcel from Top Chef, he'll put a foam on anything and everything. I like a nice egg wash on some drinks. It's just like egg white. It becomes emulsified and turns foamy. Yeah, you're into the cocktails. Oh yeah, I'm into pouring whiskey onto ice. I like that too. Yeah. I I've to make Manhattan

for you sometime. Man I have mastered it. Oh yeah, I had a fancy cocktail the other night at some place and it was it was fine, but it's just like, why are you putting all this stuff on top of the whiskey. In the end, it's not for me you. I will change your mind with my Manhattan. Remember that cocktail that youmy had it uh momo fuco. That tasted like a sweat sock. It was um, it was like the mustard whiskey. It was a mustard whiskey drink with

a pretzel stir. And it sounded really intriguing and awesome on the venue. But it did. It tasted like not only like an old sweaty gym sock, but one that that was taken off a foot that had some sort of effective. It was so growth and you guys are adventurous. But both of you are like, no, I can't drink this. I'm sorry, David Change, Yeah, but MoMA Fuco is awesome. We don't want to downgrade that place, agreed, all right, So I don't think we can. We're not in any

kind of position to downgrade moment exactly. So Cloydal systems, Josh, like you said, of all two phases uma some liquid or solid in liquid, but when you're talking about food prep, a lot of times there's more than two phases. And that is called a complex dispersed system, that kind of

Coydal system because there's more than two. And this is where it gets a little like mind numbing to me, because t said, you know what, let me create a little shorthand for CDs by um describing these complex systems through abbreviations phases letters representing ah the size of the molecules and what ingredients you're working with, and basically break down a recipe into what looks like a math equation, right.

And I mean the fact that he created a shorthand for CDs kind of suggests how important it is to molecular gastronomy to to basically create these kind of new and radical textures and shapes and things like that. Um, but yeah, it's a uh for example, the I'm gonna see if I can describe it's okay, good luck, but um, the the CDs shorthand for ioli right, just basically mayonnaise. Yeah,

but it with garlic and lemon and um olive oil. Um, it's it's oh times tend to the negative fifth common tend to the negative four divided by W times D, which is greater than six times seven to the negative seventh. That's an actual sort of shorthanded recipe, it is. And frankly, um,

I I can't make heads or tails of it. I know that the O and the W stands for oil and water, and the fact that there's a forward slash or a division sign means that the oil is dispersed into the water rather than the water dispersed into the oil. And then the numbers like tend to the negative five or tend to the negative four. Those are shorthand for the size of the particles in that are that are

meant to be introduced into this. So really, if you're her Vets or somebody her Vetis has explicitly sat down over the course of five years and explain this to you could look at this and be like, oh, well, yeah, there's ioli right there, and I know exactly how to make this and how to make it every time. And the the surprising thing, don't forget her Vets is not a chef. This whole thing started with a failure of to make sufflay. He's a physical chemist, right um. He

what he came up with stands up across the board. Um. There are literally hundreds of different sauces in the French pantheon of cooking. He managed to figure out that with his CDs shorthand, this colloidal dispersion system shorthand, right um, he can he can basically categorize him and I think to twenty four different groups, three different groups, hundreds boiled down in twenty three different groups, and you can make

new sauces by going backwards. And that's one of the exciting things about it is they're sort of reinventing classic recipes many times, and we should mention it too. I kind of walked over this. UM. One of the most familiar complex dispersed systems that you know of is ice cream. Yeah,

because ice cream is actually very complex. It's um solid, which is milk fat and milk protein liquid which is water, and gas air because you whip air through it as you're chilling it, and in at least two colloidal states. So ice cream is a lot more complex than you might think. Yes, and delicious, yes, But and we'll see later on. Molecular gastronomists have figured out how to make that very complex delicacy in a very easy way ablaze

with his liquid nitrogen. So chuck, UM. We have an idea now that you can apply what looks like math, which is really just shorthand to cooking for molecular gastronomy. UM. Other molecular astronomers have come up with basically new ways of preparing or presenting food right, Yes, big time, and there's some some are bigger than others, some are more buzzwords than others. UM like, uh, suvied cooking very popular

these days. Suvied is when you take um, sometimes it's some meat, sometimes it's vegetables, uh, and you um put it in bag with its spices that you want, and you vacuum seal it, get every single bit of air out, and then you cook that bag of you know it's something that won't melt. Obviously, you cook the bag with the food in it in a water bath that's a very steady temperature, but never boiling. It's not like rice serrouni that you're boiling a little more complex than that.

It's generally a very low temperature. So like if you're gonna cook meat, you put it in about a hundred and forty degrees and you cook it for uh yeah, thirty. Well it depends on what it is, but yeah, and what it does is in the end, you retain the nutrients more, retain the juices, the flavor, and you get a perfectly even cooking experience. Right, and take it out and you flash fried on both sides to see it real nice, well not flash fry sere it and you've

just basically made a steak. As per molecular astronomy. Yeah, I like your recipe better though it's been working for you. Yeah, it's nice, although I do want to try the Suvie. It's just a little price you to get into. Yeah,

because really you need a vacuum seiler and uh water oven. Technically, I mean, I guess you could do it on the stove, but the whole key to suvie is having a really really precise, consistent temperature, and unless you're really good on your gas range, you're probably not gonna be able to do that with just a pott and water. That is correct. What about spurification? Technically you can do this with just a normal pot of water, right, Yeah, tell me about that.

So spurification is basically a way of presenting um food and kind of turning mundane stuff into delicious little balls of food that kind of explode in your mouth. Right. Yeah, it's got liquid. It's like remember that gum that used to chew that have the liquid center freshen up um that stuff still around. It's awesome. So the blue peppermint kind Yes, So basically um spherification is is taking it. It's a jelling reaction between calcium chloride and alginate and algenate.

Is this gum like substance that's extracted from seaweed. Okay, so, um, you you take the calcium chloride to make um alive spheres. Right, take all of juice calcium chloride. And I'm not giving any um any amounts which are is very important, like specific amounts, but I'm just giving you a rough idea. Um, you take all of juice and calcium chloride. You mix it together. Right, You take algin it and you mix it with water, Allow it to sit overnight, let the

air bubbles rise to the surface and escape. And then um, the next day you you make little tiny balls out of the calcium chloride and um all of juice mixtures, and then very delicately drop it into the um algenate blend of water and a chemical reaction happens. Right, Apparently, long chain algenate polymer's become linked because of the calcium chloride ions. Right, a gel is formed. Because you introduced them as little balls, they turn into little gel balls

of olive taste. And you take them out, you know, you drain them, put them in a cold water bath, and then after that they're set and you can pop them in your mouth or serve them like caviar. I know, um, one recipe that they had in here was for someone that takes apple juice and makes a little caviar apple basically. Yeah, that you would basically would probably spoon that on top of some sort of other dish and all of a sudden, these flavors are bursting in your mouth as you bite

into it, and it's just an experience it is. So I guess at this point, molecular gastronomy is food done ridiculous. They can flash free. That's a big popular thing. They have something now called the the anti griddle, and I've seen Blaze is this too. It's basically cold cooking. Uh, he's into the cold cooking, but it's a griddle and instead of getting hot, it goes down to what negative

thirty degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, And so I've seen Blaze put mayonnaise on there and then take that little frozen mayonnaise and bathe and batter it and fry it. So in the end you have a mayonnaise fried mayonnaise ball. That sounds awesome and it stays at it's in its ball for him until you like squish the burger down. Then it that is awesome. I did not know about that. Pretty cool. I don't know if he does that it flip, but I've seen him do that on a TV show once.

So Yeah, with the anti griddle and flash freezing, it's basically you're you're taking something and that's liquid and making the outside hard, yeah, and leaving the in the interior. The core is like a in a liquid state. So you know you do that with like chocolate, you get something pretty awesome, right, I would think, and I guess Chuck, Um, those are some some fairly common or if you go to a molecular gastronomy restaurant around the world, you're going

to run into something like that. Spification, which was I think um introduced by a guy named Ferran Adria, Spain. Yeah, who owns Abouli in in Roses, Spain. Um, he created that, but I think it's become kind of standard if you want to do it more at home, if you want to engage in molecular gastronomy, you could do severification. You just have to have the right ingredients. But it's also just kind of using technology. It's like trans human cooking as well. Um, so like if you want to cook duck,

all our orange right, duck all duck all orong? I got it that time. Um, you would basically roast a duck for two hours. If you're going to do it molecularly, Um, you would prefer using a microwave. A lot less time, a lot less energy. I'm not into it. I'm not either, chuck. Um. There are some tools, and we said one of the great criticisms of molecular gastronomy is this isn't something that most people can do in their kitchen, which is, you know,

that's part of cooking, that's what makes cooking soulful. You do it at home. There's a very special room in your house that you cook in and you teach your kids or your grandkids, and it's a family bonding exactly. Um. But a lot of the stuff we just talked about you can't necessarily do in your kitchen, or can you answer you can? You can go buy an anti griddle. This is something you could have like stored in your kitchen bucks. Okay, so if you were wealthy, you could

go out and buy an anti griddle. Yeah. You can get a water oven for a few hundred and a and a good vacuum sealer for about a buck fifty, so all in on the SUVII bucks or less. You can do that, it's not too bad. Yeah. Um. The hypodermic syringe isn't very expensive. You can go down to your local free clinic and pose as a junkie and they'll give you a bunch of them for free. Yeah. I actually use those. They have like the cooking syringes. Yeah.

It's inject meats, Yeah, inject meats with um, with marinades or if you want to do make the little apple caviar. This is good to have. It's also very good for extracting egg white from egg yolk. Um. Where there's a very famous picture that appears in this article of a correct egg and a syringe dipping into it. That's like the visual icon for molecular astronomy. Yeah. Um. A vacuum machine is very important for Suvie cooking, right, Yeah, I can't let any water in there, gotta be sealed tight.

And then there's the gastro vac which is kind of like an all in one utility for cooking molecularly. It's about five thousand dollars. Yeah, so it's uh, what is it? A crock pot vacuum pump and a heating plate all in one. Not bad. And then you got liquid nitrogen, which is what Blaze loves to work with. Right, and we were talking about making um ice cream actually easier

than creating a colloidal system. UM. You can say, follow any recipe for ice cream and you get the ice cream mixture already, but before you the step of actually processing it, you just pour in some liquid nitrogen and you stir it and botta boom, bought a bing. You have just created ice cream. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Another thing I've seen Blaze do is to get um like

on a very large serving plate. He'll have a very small uh like let's say, almost like in a moose boush, like literally one bite, and then he'll have spices sprinkled on the plate and he'll at the table. They will pour some liquid nitrogen onto the plate and it starts

at like it's like something out of the Abyss. It it stays together and it starts like dancing all over the plate and collecting the spice, and so it's a clear you know, it looks like vodka or something, but it's vodka sailing all over your plate until it's collected all the spice into its little sphere. That's very cool. Very where was that? I saw YouTube of itne Blaze has done it. Okay, very invent of guy and he lives. I mean we should have had him in here. Actually,

he wouldn't have come in here. We could probably get in touch with him. All right. Well, Richard Blaze, if you're out there and you have a time machine, touch with us, because we'd like to have you on. I see him walking his dog and his kid all the time over now, saw over near the Edgewood Shopping Center. Hi, say hi for me next time. Like, how you do that thing with that liquid nitrogen? Thing? You do exactly?

Bengal goat fell over. That's it? You got anything else? Chuck? Uh, Well, we should say that if liquid nitrogen seems odd, it's really. Blaze likens it to deep frying, except it's cold frying. I'm glad you brought that up. Um, there is a there is a lot of criticism to molecular astronomy. There's also a lot of um explanation to it too, Like that right her a teeth once said. We pointed out that, Um, you can cook an egg by adding heat to it. You can also achieve the same end by adding alcohol

to it. Really yeah, um, so you know what's the problem, especially if you can change the flavor create like something new by adding alcohol rather than just cooking. I think, um, molecular astronomers kind of think that people who have a problem with it are just kind of looking at it the wrong way, Like you're still achieving the same thing, you're just using a different process or different means. Right. Um, I think it's cool. I wouldn't want to eat that.

You know, it's expensive. For one, if you go to one of these restaurants, you're gonna drop some serious cash. It's true. But you know, I'm kind of classicists as well. No you're not. I don't know egalitarian. I don't want to know e multifiers in my food. Oh so you're a classist upward not downward. No, I mean I don't mean a classicist. I mean a classic I'm into the classics. Well, you went right from like very expensive meals into class that.

I didn't realize you were, sorry, and what's sad? As you said it correctly, I just assumed you meant classes. Now Yeah, I'm all confused. Now, yeah, me too. So that's it from Molecular Gastronomy. If you want to learn more, um including a list of some of the churches of molecular astronomy around the world. If you can type in molecular gastronomy in the handy search bart how Stuff works

dot Com and will pull up a great article. And uh, now, of course we've just traped innocently into the forest of listener mail. That's right, Josh, And this is a sad one. No jokes on this one, because we have lost a listener sadly, and her friend Amanda wrote us to tell us about it. Uh, hi, guys and Jerry, hope you're keeping well. I am, unfortunately the bear or bad news one of stuff you should know as big as fans. Lynn Volos passed away from a particularly virulent cancer a

few days ago. And I think we got this letter last week's so mid March. My friendship with Lynn epitomize all that is new in this century. I was a all time student with no money, needed some entertainment in the evenings in early two thousand one, and I had just read a book that delighted me. The publisher set up a message board, so off I went and joined a rabble rousing community of women from all over the world.

Lynn was one of the first to welcome me, and in the ensuing decade would often give me the keys to the bus, so to speak, when she was away or indisposed to keep the peace. Because you see, Lynn was a peacemaker. She must have seen in me a glimmer of her ability to relax frayed nerves, bring people together in crisis and joy, and be a center of calm and still water during many of the storms we have weathered individually and as a community. Lynn lived a

life that I doubt many of us could imagine. She discovered her true self later in life and moved from the Deep South to the Northeast to be with her darling Nikki. Facing hardships from the life to which she had given so much, Lynn gave more as a mother to Jessica and Becca, a beloved auntie, as a caregiver to seniors and special needs kids, and to her wonderful animals gave her so much happiness. Just a short time ago, Lynn was diagnosed with cancer, and with the bravest of faces,

she fought on until she could no longer. I never met Lynn in life actually, but I cannot imagine the last ten years of my life without her in it. Not only have I lost a friend, our community has lost a beloved presence. And Stuff you should Know is minus one evangelists who got a treat with her last almost hour long show last week. Lynn love stuff you should know. I think more for the rational, measured and well balanced way you all present information without judgment and controversy.

So many traits that you all share with Lynn, and I will think of her whenever I hear Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, as always your friend Amanda.

Very sad and it is sad. Thank you, Amanda. And I asked Amanda if there was any kind of charity that her family might want us to mention, and she said yes, and she wrote her family and said that, um, if any was moved by this, that you can make a donation to the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi at the b WW dot A, r f M S dot com. So a great charity as well. Uh well, thank you again Amanda for letting us know and rest in peace. Lyns Volos um. Although we never knew you, we were

glad you listened to us. Thank you for listening. Part of the part of the stuff You know family for sure, and we hope that you can still get us wherever you are, wherever you may be. If you want to let us know about something good, something sad, something neutral, we always want to hear it. You can send it in an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For moral on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about

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