Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Moving Into Different States of Food
There are times I see connections between scientific concepts and the kitchen - not in the "science explains food" sense, but as direct metaphors. One that's scratching at my mind today is the concept of states of matter. As you probably remember from high school (or even grade school), matter can move into different states: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (which is a superheated gas). A New York Times article on "sperification," or the latest development in encasing liquids (Cointreau, in this case) in edible spheres.
That reminded me of the edible foam that's become a bit of a gastronomic craze, and that was started by Spanish chef Ferran Adrià Acosta. Much of such experimentation seems to come out of the idea of molecular gastronomy. I'd probably put gelatin filtration into the same category, and would probably argue that ceviche, in which you "cook" fish in a citrus marinade, could also qualify. How about steamed milk? The resulting liquid is sweeter than regular milk and has a different mouth feel because of the encapsulated air.
I do wonder what might be next. Maybe we can use the steam wands on espresso makers to foam up liquids other than milk and serve them as hot dollops over some dish. Perhaps films of food supercooled into fragile sheets to drop into drinks and melt as they cool them, or one ingredient frozen about a second. Maybe we'll see thin marinated sheets of vegetable dried, like nori, the Japanese seaweed sheets, used to encase some finger food. Think I'll heat up the steam wand and try some experiments.
That reminded me of the edible foam that's become a bit of a gastronomic craze, and that was started by Spanish chef Ferran Adrià Acosta. Much of such experimentation seems to come out of the idea of molecular gastronomy. I'd probably put gelatin filtration into the same category, and would probably argue that ceviche, in which you "cook" fish in a citrus marinade, could also qualify. How about steamed milk? The resulting liquid is sweeter than regular milk and has a different mouth feel because of the encapsulated air.
I do wonder what might be next. Maybe we can use the steam wands on espresso makers to foam up liquids other than milk and serve them as hot dollops over some dish. Perhaps films of food supercooled into fragile sheets to drop into drinks and melt as they cool them, or one ingredient frozen about a second. Maybe we'll see thin marinated sheets of vegetable dried, like nori, the Japanese seaweed sheets, used to encase some finger food. Think I'll heat up the steam wand and try some experiments.
Labels: chemistry, cooking, ingredients, molecular gastronomy
