About Note by Note Cooking
1. You did say that it is not necessary to whip the eggwhites to make a soufflé. I have allways thought that by whipping the eggwhites you were binding the air, and then when the air gets hot it expands, and the dough will raise. It this is not what happens, can you please explain what happens?
In 1989, I showed that soufflé swell because of water evaporation, not air bubble expansion. And, of course, there is a consequence : you have to evaporate water form soufflé preparation at the bottom of it... so that the big volume of vapor which is formed can push upper layers upward. In short, heat the bottom, not the top !
And in one seminar, we had two pieces of the same soufflé, in two identical ramequins, one with whipped egg white, and the other with non whipped eggs.... and the astonished chefs and teachers participating to the seminar could see the two soufflé rising up the same. I must confess that the final texture was slightly different, but only slightly.
This idea should be generalized to any swelling preparation, such as popover, etc.
2. What is your prospect and visions for NBN? It is to save/feed the world or pure gastronomical or bout?
I am frequently saying around that a project should have many goals at the same time.
Here, NbN is useful for :
- new artistic way of expression for culinary art
- feed the humankind in 2015
- figth allergies
- prepare the big world energy crisis
- prepare the big world water crisis
- enrich the farmers
- accordingly, give another place to environment... etc.
3. Do you think that “Note by note cuisine”(NBNC) can play the same role as moleculary cuisine did/still do? And will it then stand alone or combined with traditionals ingredients?
As I am not a new Napoléon, I would say that anybody can make what he/she wants. You can perfectly add a compound to a traditional dish, or make a fully new dish.
And probably, tradition will go along with the new for some time. But I would love to see very soon a fully NbN restaurant.
4. One of the things that is hard for the students (and me) to imagine, is how to remake things like texture, savour and offcourse taste. Or is the idea about NBNC that we shall rethink the whole idea about how we make food to day? Shall we intent all new tastes, consistensys and smells?
I would first say that it's better not to reproduce the consistencies, because a picture of the Joconde painting is not the Joconde, and will always be considered as less than it. It's much better to make new consistencies, new tastes, new flavours.
Morover, why sticking to the very small old world, when you are offered a big new continent ? Simple calculation show that we know a very very limited range of possible food, and this is why the time is so exciting.
Of course, there will be some danger, and we have to walk carefully.
5. For me one of the great things by being a chef is the change of season, and getting the fresh local grocerys when it is best. There is also our personal foodhistory, i still remember my mothers cooking with pleasure, and combine it with good memorys ;-)
Yes, it is true, and we have to understand why this is so for many of us. And there is the same question for terroirs.
Here, I have to say that for phenolics from grapes, for example, you keep the terroirs, as it is extracted all the same.
Terroir are "impureties", ie small quantities of some compounds.
But it is true, in the end, that the "fresh vegetable of fish" is not present. For some of us, it can be sad... but after all, for the time being, there is no reason to stop having fresh new asparagus along with NbN. The same in music: even if NHOP is doing a wonderful jazz music, you can sometimes hear at Mozart. What I propose is more choice. The worst would have to have no choice.
6. When we were in the kitchen, the students and I noticed that for example when we cooked the artificial mushroom, the taste did not change. Is that an issue?
Indeed I am not very sure of what you mean by this question. First, it was not an artificial mushroom, but a piece of something (we should introduce a name) with a octenol taste. And there was no reason why this odor (rather than taste) should change, because we used the octenol compound. Octenol before, octenol after: why should it change ?
7. Final question ;-) Do you have some basic recipes for NBN?
Yes, there are many, in my book (to be published in English in September, as I said to Jakob), but also at https://sites.google.com/site/travauxdehervethis/Home/cuisine-note-a-note
8. How can we invent totally new dishes with Note by Note?
Look at any recipe of the International Contest, or read my book Note by Note Cooking, at Columbia University Press.
9. Do you think that molecular gastronomy will be the future or not because it needs some hardly available items for it, or like liquid nitrogen. So will it be available in a normal kitchen or just for the best Restaurants?
You confuse molecular gastronomy (science) and note by note cooking. Molecular gastronomy is spreading in universities all over the world. And note by note is spreading in restaurants of all the world. But there are many answers about this elsewhere.
And note by note cooking will be able to used more and more common ingredients (remember this word: just as carrot and meat are ingredients of traditional cooking, pure compounds are the ingredients of note by note cooking).
10. So is Note by Note for example when you deconstruct two material to their chemical structure and then construct it with another material with the same structure?
Note by note does not mean deconstructing two materials to their chemical structure ! Indeed the sentence has no meaning: what is the "chemical structure, for example? And note by note cooking does not deconstruct. It means building a dish from pure compounds (let's say "chemical species" if you prefer). And what you build does not have the same chemical composition or chemical structure as... As what, by the way?
11. Or how is this going? I have read that for example the garlic and the coffee has the same structure so they can be combined to invent a new dish?
By structure, you perhaps mean "composition". And no, garlic does not have the same chemical composition as coffee... otherwise they would be the same ! Please, also avoid the "I have read", and give precise references. By the way, only have good readings (can you recognize them?).
Finally, what you probably read is that coffee and garlic have one or more compounds in common, so that they would "pair". But this is a bad theory, that has nothing scientific as cooking is art, not a question of science.