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Hot ice, liquid olives and charcoal oil: molecular cuisine, made famous by celebrity chef Ferran Adriá, has suspended the aggregate states of food and thus triggered a kitchen revolution. But what is molecular cuisine? What are the real benefits of the underlying scientific findings? At the symposium "The Journey of Xanthan" in Mainz, organized by the TreTorri publishing house and the ZDF.umwelt editorial team, scientists, star chefs and journalists sought an answer.

Parade of stars: top chefs discussed molecular cuisine with scientists and journalists. From left: Christian Kolb% Thomas Quecke% Jörg Sackmann% Hans Stefan Steinheuer% Joachim Wissler% Heiko Antoniewicz% Michael Hoffmann% Thomas Bühner


Olive oil is served as a semolina on the plate, while the olive is served as a liquid. The mascarpone is so firm that it tumbles from the spoon, the spaghetti is made of calf's head and the carrot captivates with its pleasant beech wood aromas. Welcome to the magical realm of molecular cuisine! Catalan chef Ferran Adriá made it world-famous in his restaurant "El Bulli"; Adriá was elevated to the rank of artist with his work at Documenta 12 in 2007 - and not without reason: the star chef has deconstructed the conventional view of dishes and ingredients. He liquefies solid ingredients, serves ice cream hot, and gives shape and consistency to liquids. In this way, he has made completely new perspectives on cuisine possible - and is gratefully acclaimed by the public. Molecular cuisine has also long since moved into Germany's top restaurants: Juan Amador in Langen, for example, has now earned three stars in this way, and very many top chefs use the new techniques and methods at least in individual dishes. Because star cuisine is always also entertainment with food, and the spoiled guests always need new culinary kicks to keep them coming back.

A whole new kitchen philosophy, crazy dishes to amaze and surprising things to taste - this is one aspect of this trend. But there is also a dark side: molecular cuisine requires additives and chemicals from the food industry, otherwise used in mayonnaise, ketchup, ready-made dressings, cheap cheese and sausage, tinned meat and packet soups. Nitrogen is just as much a part of it as soy lecithin, maltodextrose, cellulose derivative, calcium lactate, carrageenan or sodium alginate. Do such substances really belong in star gastronomy or in the kitchens of hobby chefs?

The Mainz symposium "The journey of xanthan" sought answers to these questions. The title is derived from the thickening and gelling agent of the same name, also known as food additive E 415 - and stands for this basic contradiction like no other substance. It is recognised as an eco-additive and, via the recipes of molecular cuisine, can now also be found in the dishes of Michelin-starred restaurants. However, xanthan gum has been indispensable in industry for years for the tough consistency of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, cottage cheese, cheap sausage and toothpaste.

Professor Thomas Vilgis of the Institute of Polymer Research in Mainz argues for a different understanding of molecular cuisine: "There's a lot more to it than just mixing powders."

The scientists, journalists and a number of renowned star chefs struggled to come up with answers - because molecular cuisine polarises. For some, it's kitchen doping with dark substances for cheating and cheap effects. "Our stomachs are filled with algae extracts and indigestible celluloses. What began as the use of new technical possibilities is increasingly developing into a promotion for food additives," emphasized Stern author Jörg Zipprick, for example.

The other camp propagates the application of scientific knowledge from physics and chemistry for better, healthier food: "In molecular cuisine, the targeted use of aids known from the food industry, such as thickening or gelling agents and E-substances, can only be regarded as a partial aspect," explained Prof. Thomas Vilgis from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, one of the most important scientists on molecular cuisine. It is much more a matter of the researcher's view of the kitchen in order to understand the still largely undeciphered physical and chemical reactions that lead to the dish on the plate. The discovered connections could be used spectacularly like Ferran Adriá, but also to improve cooking processes or to better bring out the taste of the basic products.

At times, the emotional discussion was reminiscent of the doping debate in sports, but with the difference that the substances used are not banned. Even better star cuisine at any price? Are foams, jelly and charcoal oil worth it for the guest to ingest lots of e-substances in the process? "Up to now, the top chefs were the last bastion against industrial food. They were role models. If they now turn around to use the methods of the industry, this is fatal", warned the author Hans-Ulrich Grimm.

Thomas Vilgis tried to mark out the terrain scientifically: "In its application, molecular cuisine aims at a quantitative physical-chemical recording of the concepts of taste, structure and texture. What is pleasure? How do physical parameters determine taste and sensory?" But he also emphasized that molecular cuisine describes "on a molecular level all processes that are triggered by physical parameters such as changes in temperature, pressure, volume or field strength, as in microwaves, and how phase transitions or changes in the state of aggregation triggered by these can be understood and used in culinary terms."

Joachim Wissler emphasizes in his discussion contribution% he uses techniques of molecular cuisine only% to produce the best possible product: "Deception would be noticed by our guests immediately."

And the chefs themselves? Joachim Wissler from Restaurant Vendôme in Bergisch-Gladbach, himself awarded three stars, took a differentiated view: "I go to El Bulli every year, because it opens up a new horizon for me." Adriá had questioned or ignored all the laws of high cuisine. Therefore, "the path itself is very interesting." He himself has not yet been able to usefully implement nitrogen - "although I use it here and there." Dortmund-based gastronomic consultant and molecular expert Heiko Antoniewicz stressed that the molecular dishes from El Bulli had made chefs start fundamentally questioning their cuisine for the first time: "What is taste? What is texture? What are we doing?" For him, he said, this form of cooking is "just an option." Thomas Vilgis also confirmed this. "With an agent like ProEspuma, you can even get stale coffee foamed. On the other hand, I produce carrot foam quite simply without additives. The chef just has to know exactly what he's doing."

You are what you eat. Dr. Thomas Ellrott, head of the Nutritional Psychology Research Centre at the University of Göttingen, explained the highly complex taste imprints that we experience in the course of our lives. Genetic aspects play just as important a role as cultural and social ones. For example, he described the "mere exposure effect" - the experience of tasting the flavours offered by the food culture. In this way, he says, it is possible to understand why Germans, Chinese, Mexicans or Africans have completely different taste preferences. "In every eating culture, training on preferred foods and dishes takes place, which is essentially controlled by habit-forming experiences. Individually different preferences and dislikes are formed, which arise in family and social communication."

Jörg Sackmann demonstrates the complexity of molecular cuisine.

Here, the irresolvable contradiction inherent in molecular cuisine became clear once again. It's not the substance that matters, it's what you make of it and how. "I want to refine, not deceive," argues Joachim Wissler, for example. The same gelling agent that turns meat debris into cheap ham for the discount store helps Michelin-starred chef Hans Stefan Steinheuer stabilize his carefully decorated vinaigrette for salad in such a way that the service staff can serve it without streaks on the plate. Xanthan gum in the luxury vinaigrette causes outrage, but not in the ready-made dressing, because consumers are no longer familiar with the consistency of ketchup and the like.

This also shows the ever-widening gap between those who can afford the best food in star restaurants and those who can often only buy food because it is produced ever more cheaply. The view of molecular cuisine, then, like any culinary experience, is socially shaped. After all, most excipients have been found in abundant quantities in industrial food for years, but until now no one has really cared. Ferran Adriá has reopened the discussion because he creatively uses the additives necessary to produce bad and tasteless food for dishes in Michelin-starred cuisine. Already the indignation is great. It just goes to show: people are among themselves.

Turbot with extract oil% in a bag cooked for 7 minutes at 54%8 degrees in a water bath% underneath a spaghetti of calf's head and agar-agar. On top are tomatoes. Cooked by Thomas Bühner.

But Thomas Vilgis defines the term further: "Molecular cuisine describes the broad understanding of elementary relationships in the preparation of all food." Because the scientists agreed in the Mainz discussion: so far, the processes have only been superficially deciphered, which, for example, lead to the fact that a tomato smells fresh after cutting and after a few minutes already no longer. There are more hunches than scientific explanations as to what happens to the ingredients during baking, cooking and roasting - and what they physiologically trigger in the stomach afterwards when eaten.

Organic chef Christian Kolb, known for the show "Kochen für Kids" on ZDF, therefore also rejects molecular cuisine with additives. "They possibly change the appetite control, the taste formation could change in the long run. We know nothing about the long-term consequences." Just because of "hype and nice textures," he won't buy the industrial powders: "At some point, molecular ingredients will also be on cooking shows, and I don't want that." Still, as he prepared exemplary dishes, he showed that he could change states of matter Adria-style, even without additives: He showed fresh, dry and liquid tomato, liquid basil and a strong-bite mozzarella. His example proved that molecular cuisine is more than making pretty foam with additives. "It's more than showmanship and more than stirring powder," Professor Thomas Vilgis also emphasized.

Thomas Bühner cooks a turbot with extract oil in foil at just under 55 degrees.

Ferran Adriá has made a completely new view of food possible with his ironic, humorous, childishly enthusiastic dismantling of star cuisine. His playfulness with industrial additives and techniques are props for a culinary theatre that makes you want to explore new ways of cooking with all your senses. Is that all? Certainly not. The analytical view of the physical and chemical processes involved in preparing food is much more sober and superficially boring than watching the chef joyfully experimenting with nitrogen. But this is the essential point: findings from science and research can change our traditional understanding of cuisine and the craft derived from it. They can redefine the way we deal with ingredients and preparation, enjoyment and taste, and make entirely new combinations of dishes possible. In scientifically understood molecular cuisine, additives are not necessary. It is only at the beginning, not even the basic knowledge is understood - and the sentence of the Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti, who already formulated the theoretical basis of molecular cuisine in 1993 with his essay "The Physicist in the Kitchen", still applies: . "It is absurd that we know more about the temperature at the centre of the sun than we do about that inside a soufflé."


More articles on the topic:

An interview with the symposium organizer.

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