Foie gras “pate” with bing cherry, Chartreuse meringues and pistachio granola This is another tasting menu item. There is a foie gras mouse wrapped with a cherry veil. Both are stabilized with agar and gelatin - the former also with egg yolk. The meringues are made with “versa whip” and then dehydrated. Gibbs, the recipe, is named after the famous physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs. Using an egg white whipped with oil, a white mixture is created. Cooked in a microwave oven at 100 degrees Celsius, the water heats and expands. This temperature is crucial because it is higher than the coagulation temperature of egg white proteins. The mixture is then trapped into a gel. “Of course, oil does not necessarily taste good, but imagine infusing vanilla pods in egg white, dissolving sugar into the mixture and adding very good olive oil before microwave cooking,” writes Hervé This in his article “Food for tomorrow?” Gibbs is made possible with the use of molecular gastronomy. The term itself is a style of cuisine where chefs explore thousands of culinary possibilities by borrowing tools from the science world and combining that with ingredients from the food industry. The end results are delicious dishes that are nothing out of the ordinary. Originating in Europe, molecular gastronomy is a “scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical processes that occur while cooking,” according to MolecularRecipes.com. The overall purpose is to look at the chemical reactions created when using certain ingredients and chemicals together to make extremely different, delicious dishes. How ingredients are changed by different cooking methods, how the senses play their own roles in our appreciation of food and how our brains interpret the signals from our senses to tell us the “flavor” of food are all major concepts of this science-based culinary process. The process itself includes a variety of ingredients and techniques to make these new molecular meals as delicious as
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possible. Carbon dioxide plays a major role in creating bubbles and adding foams to dishes; foam may also be created using an immersion blender. Liquid nitrogen is used for “flash freezing” (freezing items in a few hours by subjecting them to cryogenic temperatures, or putting them in direct contact with liquid nitrogen at −196 C) and shattering, while maltodextrin is used for turning high fat liquids into powders. Aromatic accompaniments are used as well: gases trapped in a bag, a serving device or the food itself; an aromatic substance presented as a garnish or creative serveware; or a smell produced by burning. The creations are essentially endless. In a recent Boston Globe interview, Michael Brenner, Harvard professor and director of the Science and Lecture Series, says the public’s current fascination with molecular gastronomy is exciting. “Scientific advances in the modern day, such as the development and understanding of gelling agents and other [natural] food additives have enabled chefs to create entirely new foods,” he says. According to “Food for tomorrow?” published by EMBO Reports, the three most known foods that have come from this practice are Gibbs, Vauquelin and Baumé; all are egg-based dishes. Nicolas Vauquelin inspired Vauquelin, which is “when an egg white is whipped and a small quantity of foam is formed. If the foam is cooked in a microwave oven, a chemically jellified foam is formed. To achieve a better‐tasting product, chefs use orange juice or cranberry juice instead of water, and add sugar to increase the viscosity and to stabilize the foam before cooking,” writes Hervé This.