Following a new set of rules: Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal and adventurous local chefs

Molecular gastronomy. Who but a dweeb would have come up with such a term? In fact, it was a physicist and a chemist, back in 1992, who formalized the term in an application for research funding on the science of cooking. The term came to refer to experimental cooking techniques developed in kitchen labs of some of the world’s most revered, avant garde chefs, including Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Heston Blumenthal of Fat Duck. Blumenthal even engaged sound, equipping diners with an iPod to eat his Sound of the Sea dish with “sand,” seaweeds and seafoods; his snail porridge became a foodie sensation. And then, the movement began to embarrass its early practitioners as ambitious young chefs began emulating them badly, like kids with new chemistry sets. Chefs played with liquid nitrogen (to flash freeze), maltodextrin (to turn high-fat ingredients into powder), lecithin (to stabilize foam), hydrocolloid substances (to jell and thicken and make lovely little “caviar” beads), water baths (for cooking sous vide), “deconstructing” familiar dishes, using anti-griddles (for cooking and freezing with the same appliance) and edible printed paper as food. They made sweet what was savoury and made savoury what was sweet. They were breaking the No. 1 rule of traditional chefdom, which was to follow rules the French “king of chefs,” Auguste Escoffier, codified in the early part of the last century. In 2006, Blumenthal, Adria and Thomas Keller (of The French Laundry) wrote an open letter in The Times (London) divorcing themselves from the cult of molecular gastronomy — a “we do not pursue novelty for its own sake” declaration. However, when the world’s top-rung restaurants (anointed annually as the “50 best” in the world by Restaurant Magazine) are known for their avant garde techniques, these procedures aren’t going to be banished any time soon. Adding more fuel to the fire is Nathan Myhrvold’s The Modernist Cuisine, published last year, the mother of all bibles for kitchen science and ultra-modern cookery. In an effort to normalize their methods, Blumenthal, Adria and Keller simply called it “our cooking” and “a new approach to cooking.” Hamid Salimian, Diva at the Met’s executive chef, incorporates some of these modern techniques as a matter of course, and sometimes, for the “wow!” effect. “Ten years ago, this was new and exciting,” Salimian says. “Chefs were turning peas into liquid ravioli, foie gras into powder. Then time passed and it’s become another element of cooking. It’s changed the way chefs think. It’s just modern cuisine.” At Northwest Culinary Academy in Vancouver, one of the owners, Tony Minichiello, says students are definitely intrigued and interested in modernist cooking, especially the young guys. “I have two camps now. I have the young male modernists and slightly more mature females who want to do what grandmas used to do, to get their hands dirty in the garden, to use the mortar and pestle, to do artisan cooking.” He’s not in favour of using plastics (in sous vide) or chemicals used to transform ingredients. “Of course, if you look at Restaurant Magazine awards, the young chefs know if they don’t do any of this [modern] stuff, they’re not going to get awards. When The Modernist Cuisine was published, the guys went crazy for it. The women, in general, did not.” Minichiello is not a huge fan of modernist cuisine but acknowledges it’s here to stay. “I see that cooks always need something to get excited about because it’s such a hard industry.” At Northwest, he says, they’ve upped “molecular” classes from one to two days and incorporate ideas throughout the term. “I had a student who made balsamic vinegar pearls last term but he was bright and advanced in how to apply these techniques. Modernist cuisine has produced a lot of failed cooking and Ferran [Adria] will be the first to admit that. At the same time, it can be mind-blowing.” Minichiello had a meal last year at Arzak in San Sebastian, Spain, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant known for its innovative techniques, and loved it. “The chef is the greatest I’ll ever meet. The food never said it was all about her. It was humble but incredible. There was something from the past and something contemporary on every dish.” Looking back to this era of experimenting and inventing, the new techniques (some of them have been around for a long time in the food processing industry) will be but a continuum in the world of cooking. When you think of it, leavening with baking powder, aerating egg whites and making frozen ice cream were revolutionary at one time, as was the concept of blenders and food processors. The most magical cooking I witnessed was at an open-air restaurant in Vietnam in a small town along the Mekong delta. A cook at one of the stations placed rice balls into hot oil in a wok and, with just a wire mesh strainer for a tool, twirled them until they inflated into perfect crisp, golden balloons, both small and large. I wonder if Blumenthal could do that?