Waiter, There’s a Physicist In My Soup, Part I. Stephen J. DUBNER: What’d you have for dinner last night? “Pasta with mushroom sauce.” “Grilled cheese sandwiches.” “Artichokes and cardoons and capers.” “We had leftovers.” “I would call it a chicken kiev.” “Meyer lemon fennel treat.” “I just got a hot dog on the street.” DUBNER: So, what did you have for dinner last night? ANNOUNCER: From WNYC and American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio. DUBNER: Raise your hand if you really like to eat. Alice WATERS: Something that’s timeless, really. Nathan MYHRVOLD: So with a vacuum desiccator you suck air out, which allows you to dry food at low temperature. WATERS: First thing on Monday, call the fisherman and see what happened.
MYHRVOLD: Water is a polar substance. WATERS: I’m thinking about root vegetables in the fall and in winter, I’m thinking about nuts, dried nuts and berries, I’m thinking about jams and syrups, I’m thinking about dried beans of all kinds, grains like lentils and split peas. DUBNER: That kitchen Myhrvold keeps mentioning? The Mechanic Muse - What Is Distant Reading?
Wp-content/uploads/2010/12/FoodArts_Sept2010.pdf. Future of food: Drinkable bagels and beyond - Technology & science - Innovation. Recently, in a laboratory outside Seattle, I ate a piece of buttered toast that I will remember for the rest of my life. The bread itself was not extraordinary, but it was spread thickly with the brightest-green butter I've ever seen. It was not true butter, but rather an extract of pure green peas. Fresh peas are blended to a puree, then spun in a centrifuge at 13 times the force of gravity. The force separates the puree into three discrete layers: on the bottom, a bland puck of starch; on the top, vibrant-colored, seductively sweet pea juice; and separating the two, a thin layer of the pea's natural fat, pea-green and unctuous. A standard pea yields about 3 percent fat, so the half-ounce of glistening viridian on my toast was the equivalent of perhaps a pound and a half of peas condensed into a single bite.
I was eating with Dr. This kitchen is the home base of Modernist Cuisine, a rather ambitious cookbook project that Myhrvold first outlined in 2006. Inside The Modernist Cuisine Kitchen Laboratory. Chefs Await ‘Modernist Cuisine’ Scientist at Work - Nathan Myhrvold - After Microsoft, Bringing a High-Tech Eye to Professional Kitchens. Interview with Nathan Myhrvold: Home Cook, Modernist Chef, Pioneer & Food Geek | Seattle Food Geek. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Nathan Myhrvold about his upcoming book, MODERNIST CUSINE: The Art & Science of Cooking (by Dr. Nathan Myhrvold & Chris Young). But this is no ordinary cook book – it is a 4-volume tome totaling over 2200 pages on recipes and techniques you might think of as “molecular gastronomy”.
Although Nathan humbly denies the analogy, this book is poised to do for modern cooking what Escoffier did for classical cuisine a hundred years ago. If you haven’t heard of Nathan Myhrvold, you’ll likely enjoy his Wikipedia bio, which should be cataloged somewhere between the biography of Leonardo da Vinci and The Adventures of Baron von Münchhausen, except that all of his accomplishments are verifiably true. I’ve followed the sous vide thread on eGullet and I noticed that your first post was in March of 2004. I’ve been interested in cooking forever. So, who is the audience for the book? There is absolutely no reason that sous vide can’t be done at home.
Nathan Myhrvold: Cut your food in half About Modernist Cuisine | Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Welcome to The Cooking Lab, home to Modernist Cuisine. Explore the space where the team does its research, recipe development, photography, and copious amounts of mad science. Modernist Cuisine is an interdisciplinary team in Bellevue, Washington, founded and led by Nathan Myhrvold. The group includes scientists, development chefs, and a full editorial department—all dedicated to advancing the state of culinary art through the creative application of scientific knowledge and experimental techniques.
The Cooking Lab is home to a state-of-the-art research kitchen and laboratory that is the backbone of Modernist Cuisine. Stocked with a centrifuge, rotary evaporator, freeze dryer, rotor stator homogenizer, pizza oven, laser cutter, autoclave, and even a soft serve machine, the lab is a culinary wonderland. Dr. Intellectual Ventures Lab. Kitchen Gadgets Bonanza. Kitchen Gadgets Bonanza. Tasteologie. A Casual Sunday Lunch | a razor, a shiny knife. On the first of May we hosted a “luncheon” on the L line of the New York City subway. The subway is a familiar place, providing a necessary means of transportation for many New Yorkers. Its stairwells, turnstiles, platforms, trains and unpredictable elements are all-too-familiar to its dedicated patrons.
One begins to know the exact time of travel from one destination to another. One begins to intuit the conditions of a ride, anticipating smooth stretches and knowing when to brace for a jarring turn. Through a series of familiar gestures, presented in commonplace locations in unfamiliar ways, we set out to challenge a habitual experience. We wanted to serve a meal in a dynamic and strained location, to give ourselves a challenge that could only be overcome through teamwork and partnership.
It is with that that I am honored to say thank you to everyone listed here below as this event could not have taken place without your energy, effort and support. My sincerest thanks go to: Online | Jeff Potter Talks About Food, Failure, and Cooking for Geeks. Bompas and Parr | Gestalten. L'Equipe INRA de gastronomie moléculaire.