The start of the Cooqing blog....

I decided to start this blog after developing an interest in molecular gastronomy. Now, if you are a devoted Food Network/Top Chef/No Reservations fan like myself, you've no doubt heard of the likes of Spaniard Ferran Adria and El Bulli, Grant Achatz and Alinea in Chicago, or Wylie Dufrense and wd-50 in New York, just to name a few. S. Pellegrino and Restaurant Magazine rate the 50 Best Restaurants in the world every year, starting in 2002, and El Bulli has pulled of the hat trick, taking the #1 spot in 2008, 2007, 2006. In 2005, El Bulli came in 2nd to The Fat Duck, also a restaurant that explores the world of molecular gastronomy.

Hervé This, the "father" of molecular gastronomy, wrote in Nature in 2006 attempting to clarify the goals of molecular gastronomy that are necessary to understanding what ultimately drives the genre...

I will define molecular gastronomy, because there is still much confusion in the media about the true meaning of this term, in part because of mistakes Nicholas Kurti and I made when we created the discipline in 1988. But I will start by distinguish between cooking and gastronomy: the first is the preparation of food, whereas the latter is the knowledge of whatever concerns man's nourishment. In essence, this does not concern food fashions or how to prepare luxury food—such as tournedos Rossini, canard à l'orange or lobster orientale—but rather an understanding of food; and for the more restricted 'molecular gastronomy', it is the chemistry and physics behind the preparation of any dish: for example, why a mayonnaise becomes firm or why a soufflé swells.

But then isnt all cooking molecular gastronomy by this distinction? Baking at its core is about mastering the chemical reactions between ingredients, healthy cooking is all about proper nourishment, and any home cook that ventures beyond frozen food or ramen seeks some sort of understanding about food. So there must be something more to the science-y part of the cuisine....

Hervé This explains that while science of food is not new (some historical examples are presented in the Nature article), his colleague Nicholas Kurti (a professor of physics at Oxford) noticed a lack of focus on food amongst the scientific disciplines. In 1988, they decided to create a branch of chemistry devoted to the "chemical art" of food. Serious to develop their new idea, like all academic disciplines, they held a conference to bring experts in chemistry and cooking together for the first time.

We organized the International Workshop on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy in 1992, held at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Italy, and invited chefs and scientists from all over the world. The success of this first meeting led us to repeat it every two years. In 1995, Jean-Marie Lehn, who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Donald Cram and Charles Pedersen, invited me to create the first Group of Molecular Gastronomy in his laboratory at the Collège de France, and in 1996, I presented the first PhD in 'Molecular and Physical Gastronomy' at the University of Paris (This, 1996).

What has caught on as the most trendy and cutting edge form of cooking actually started in the academy. Who knew? Those of us out there who also consider themselves to be academics will be happy to know that there is now evidence that "Yes, something we do is relevant to the real world." And... its delicious.

So as not to bookishly drag on too much about history, I'll just say that anyone interested in the genre's development from the academy to where it stands now at the frontier of gastronomy should read the rest of that Nature article. The spread of interest in the process across Europe and then the rest of the world seems fairly well documented.

Though this first post is mostly a history lesson, my general idea for the blog is more to document the adventures that Mike and I are about to embark on experimenting with molecular gastronomy ourselves. What I've noticed so far in my preliminary research is that there isn't a ton of freely accessible information on how to DIY. The guys at Khymos have put together a free molecular gastronomy cookbook (pdf here) which will no doubt be our main source for recipes at start. Though I thoroughly enjoy reading about the adventures of cooking from the El Bulli cookbooks over at Hungry at Hogstown, I don't have the ability at this point to buy them at over $200 a pop. The best (free) information seems to be coming from food blogs, written by professional chefs and home cooks alike, where people share their trials and tribulations playing in the kitchen.

Whether or not we can be a beacon of culinary help remains to be seen (yeah right). But hopefully we can put up good pictures and some funny stories to go along.