Molecular Gastronomy...

Jo, can I ask the source of information you posted?

You may... It was a meeting I had with David Mudd and a follow up email. As I hope I implied, it has been discussed, but nothing has been formalized.

Isn't it all molecular??? My two cents, experimented with some cranberry caviar pre turkey day with sodium algenate and calcium chloride. It is science very precise measurements... I will take my chances ...after all cow dung is organic.

I, for one, hope the event happens!

I am looking forward to designing beverages without having to concern myself marketability- 'taking the leash off,' so to speak.

I think Jo does have a point here.. if you would like a complete 'molecular' experience, this would be an excellent place to get it.

Chemicals and I aren't in sync....this type of culinary skill is amazing, and I am sure tastes good...I just prefer a more natural beginning and end to my food.

I hesitate to say too much, but there is talk of doing a molecular dinner with the Idea Festival and Mayan Cafe in March. It has only been talked about so far and is in the early planning stages. With luck, Stephen D will be making the pairing cocktails for the event.

Mayan Cafe?


Jo: I'm still interested in doing that underground dinner we talked about months ago... Not sure when yet but sometime.
(Shoot me an email or a message and to touch base.)

Will do Ethan. Would still love to do one with you.

Again be careful of all the chemicals in your food: so called 'world's best restaurant makes customers sick with molecular gastronomy cuisine'

http://abcnews.go.com/International/sto ... 033&page=1

Again be careful of all the chemicals in your food: so called 'world's best restaurant makes customers sick with molecular gastronomy cuisine'

http://abcnews.go.com/International/sto ... 033&page=1

Well, allow me to retort...

'Molecular gastronomy' was not in the title of the article. In fact, no part of molecular gastronomy was cited as the issue, AT ALL. I'd be willing to place a gentleman's bet that it could very well be the result of British organic practices. In the land of mad cow disease, I wouldn't be surprised that some Berkshires got into acorns that had dropped into feces, or something goofy like that. In full disclosure, it has been written that it was most likely a seasonal virus. And yet you fearmonger...

You seem to great take great pleasure dancing on the misfortunes of the people trying to bring some excitement to the dinner table. Bad form, chef.

I will be following this story until its conclusion, now. Thanks for the additional workload.

Moving forward, I'll be rolling out a new cocktail within two weeks: The shark's fin cosmo. The cool thing about it is that no sharks are maimed and left to die a slow and painfull death in the sea. Agar-agar based, thank you. And I promise you nobody will get sick from gelatiniztion of pommegranate juice. Where are you getting yours?

EDIT: I also find it funny that your report says 400 people were stricken, yet British Sky news says 40. It did happen it Britain, right?

Stephen D: Fat Duck fame is based on his molecular style cuisine and I presume you are familiar with his work. It may also be very true that 'wholesome' foods has its problems like the spinach and scallion problem of past. As a chef, the last thing I would like to see another making customers sick. But adding too many chemically induced food is not the way either.

I am not using agar-agar product in my menu curently. It is a vegetable(seaweed) based product and it has been around before you were born. By the way where does the 'shark fin' comes from since no shark weere killed for your drink?

As for the number it the report is the US based ABC news which I presume is as accurate as CNN or FOX.

Looi

By the way where does the 'shark fin' comes from since no shark weere killed for your drink?

Moving forward, I'll be rolling out a new cocktail within two weeks: The shark's fin cosmo. The cool thing about it is that no sharks are maimed and left to die a slow and painfull death in the sea. Agar-agar based, thank you. And I promise you nobody will get sick from gelatiniztion of pommegranate juice.

Well I have no dog in this fight, but it seems Stephen will be using agar for his faux shark fin,at least thats the way I read it.

Stephen D: Fat Duck fame is based on his molecular style cuisine and I presume you are familiar with his work. It may also be very true that 'wholesome' foods has its problems like the spinach and scallion problem of past. As a chef, the last thing I would like to see another making customers sick. But adding too many chemically induced food is not the way either.

I am not using agar-agar product in my menu currently. It is a vegetable(seaweed) based product and it has been around before you were born. By the way where does the 'shark fin' comes from since no shark were killed for your drink?

As for the number it the report is the US based ABC news which I presume is as accurate as CNN or FOX.

Looi

First, I should make it clear that I have nothing but respect for you and have enjoyed your work numerous times. Please don't misconstrue my response as impetulent, as it is hard to show emotion, or lack thereof, on a forum.

With propers given, allow me to say this. I work very hard trying to educate the public on the virtues of the molecular approach. To the point where I spend my own money and time making amuse' bouches in the attempt to win people over. Add in the effort involved in explaining this stuff and you might see where I am forced to take exception with the 'it will make you sick' argument. It took you one sentence and a link to undermine what little progress I have made over the past 5 years or so. It would be different if I felt that you had made a causal connection. I would be the first to stop working with these products.

If memory serves, wasn't agar first used domestically in toothpaste in the 50's? But I could be wrong. I am no wickepedian.

So, back to the drawing board for me. As opposed to pomegranate, I'll go to work today and make the gel out of aloe vera. The faux shark fin is a simple technique where you allow the gel to dry out some and then run a microplane over it.

And yes, I'll keep my head up and continue laughing off the stabs. 'Stephen fell? I guess he forgot about the water molecules.'

EDIT: I should also point out that industrial additives represent about 5% of what I do and espouse doing.

Unfortunately it seems to be 400, but over a longer stretch of time. It seems they still are uncertain what the cause may be.
I suspect it may be an employee or something in their beverage system as this can affect a broader # of guests as opposed to 400 persons having had the same dish, etc.
A few months back here in NYC, Socialista sickened many because of a bartender with Hepatitis C.


Top restaurant in Britain laid low by wave of illness
By Sarah Lyall
Published: March 7, 2009

LONDON: Was it something in the air? Was it something in the food? Was it some unspeakable organism lurking evilly on a countertop or skulking under a plate?

Whatever it was, it has caused hundreds of people in the last month to report falling sick with vomiting and diarrhea after eating at The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire. The Fat Duck, which has three Michelin stars and is perhaps the most celebrated restaurant in Britain, is currently closed. The cause of the outbreak remains a mystery.

In a statement, the Health Protection Agency said it was testing the food, testing the people who became ill, and conducting a "risk assessment of all food storage, preparation and cooking processes." It is testing for bacteria, testing for viruses, testing for patterns in the sick people's symptoms and in the food they ate, and, for good measure, testing other people who ate at the restaurant, whether or not they got sick.

"There are a lot of tests, every one you can think of," said Philip Bicknell, who is in charge of public protection for the local council, Windsor and Maidenhead. "They're looking for a bug, something that's causing the sickness, that may well be attached to the restaurant, inside or outside, or to the staff who work there, or to a customer who came in."

The owner of the restaurant, the celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, made the decision to close it Feb. 24 after about 40 diners said they had become ill with vomiting, diarrhea and flu-like symptoms after eating there. Since then, as publicity about the outbreak has spread, about 400 people in all have reported succumbing to the sickness from late January and through most of February.


Blumenthal declined to comment. But a spokeswoman said that none of the tests had yet proved conclusive. "They've shown no food poisoning, no viruses, nothing," she said. She asked that her name not be used because she is not officially on Blumenthal's staff and because her company is helping him out as a favor.

She would not say said how much money Blumenthal has lost so far. A regular dinner at the restaurant costs about £100, without wine.

Blumenthal told The Independent last week that he felt "dreadful, absolutely dreadful" and that closing the restaurant had been "an incredibly emotional decision."

Along with El Bulli restaurant in Spain, The Fat Duck is considered one of the world's most innovative practitioners of molecular gastronomy, which uses science and technology to invent new forms and combinations of food (Blumenthal rejects the term, calling his cuisine "sensory design.")

Blumenthal is best known for items like snail porridge and "nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream" (served with tea jelly).

Philip Harden, co-editor of Harden's Restaurant Guide in London, said in 18 years following the restaurant industry, he could not think of a similar case.

But, like many other people who have been following the situation, he speculated that the diners might have come down with Winter Vomiting Disease, a highly contagious type of norovirus that has been cutting a swathe through Britain this winter.

Dr. Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that the reported symptoms certainly seemed more in line with the vomiting illness than with, say, food poisoning.

I've been trying to stay out of this whole thing this time around, but in defense of the whole medium:

I truly think using the term "chemicals" is completely taken out of context.
Or at least should be taken and thought of in perspective.

Perhaps if we as Americans called baking soda by it's proper name: sodium bicarbonate or even NaHCO3, or perhaps referring to common table salt as sodium chloride or NaCl we wouldn't find such an influx of fear, misunderstanding and blind judgement. We're just so used to the "friendly names" we've been spoon-fed for generations.

Short of a few additives used that are in fact technically "chemical compounds", we're talking about naturally occurring gellifiers that have been processed to make them usable in a practical manner (little different than milling grain into flour, or drying sea water to make salt)

As Looi points out - agar agar is a seaweed-derived gelling agent used all over Asia for many many years.
It should be noted that any and all additives used in "molecular gastronomy" are all natural and safe products.
Whether derived from red algae, irish moss, vegetable cellulose, enzymes and proteins, or through fermentation of bacteria/yeasts, these are all products and methods thought to be universally safe amongst authorities in medicine and food science.


For those who are truly afraid of the "chemical" aspect of these additives, i suggest you look at your products labels and notice how often you find names you don't know, how many gums are added to your food, or alternate names used in lieu of the unfamiliar.

In comparison, bleach, peroxide, hand soap, shampoo, etc. are all loaded with more lab-made, chemically manipulated ingredients than these "chemicals" in food. Yet not one of us is afraid to take a shower and wouldn't hesitate to bust out the soap?

I won't even get into the chemical aspect of hair dying. (of which I have been no stranger to).

I think the European Union really has it figured out, instead of allowing different names for additives it makes use of a system for listing food additives with a standardized "E" number code. Food Additives in Europe: E Number List.

You'll find a ton of things you've never heard of by there scientific name, yet i wager most of us consume these on a regular basis in our everyday foods we love.



No one allows these items to be used blindly unless they have been proven to be safe.

They used to say smoking and drinking in pregnant women was okay.
Now we know better.

Perhaps one day they/I will be proven wrong.


But if we outlaw and condemn everything we are naive to, the unfamiliar, the unknown...
We as the human race would have missed out on a world of change, advancement, and in the end (for better or worse) convenience.




I do believe the happenings at the Fat Duck are unrelated to food additives, as (believe it or not) Heston Blumenthal uses a lot less additives than a lot of the other "forward thinking" chefs out there.
Ferran Adria at El Bulli, and Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 are both the kings of this and use additives in nearly every application of food in their kitchens, and to my knowledge neither has yet to have a reported food additive related illness.



I should also note than I am very much a firm believer that quality ingredients and proper preparation and techniques are the hallmarks of good food/dining.

The use of hydrocolloids and other food additives is merely an addition to the "toolkit" and repertoire of the modern chef to achieve the results they desire. A chefs food and technique must be already at a high level before the application bears any merit. For the majority of the chefs (with some obvious exclusions) using these techniques/applications, I'd wager that they constitute 1% of the total amount of the end result.

I knew it had to do with either an employee(s) or a guest(s) carrying or incubating a virus.
We humans and other animals are much better vehicles for pathogens than say...molecular gastronomy. I am certain we can debate about this forever but a much more sinister topic is at hand -- like the MRSA's in our pork that Nick Kristof wrote about in the NY Times. And the steroids and GTH pumped into our factory farmed meats and poultry.


19 March 2009
Noro virus likely cause of Fat Duck illness

The mysterious illness that led to the costly closure of Heston Blumenthal’s famed Berkshire restaurant The Fat Duck was possibly
caused by norovirus, according to the chef.
Speaking to Hospitality magazine after arriving in Australia today for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Blumenthal said that after
exhaustive tests at the restaurant, of the staff and of customers, norovirus was the only potential cause that had been found.
Blumenthal made the decision to close down the three Michelin star restaurant last
month after it received a series of calls from customers who said they had been ill after
eating there and got in contact with the Health Protection Agency and told them what
had happened. The restaurant was reopened last week after two and a half weeks.
He said he was shocked that anything could have gone wrong because of the stringent
food safety measures that are in place at the restaurant.
“It is categorically not food poisoning, we know that,” Blumenthal said. “For the last five
years we’ve been sending food off every month for sampling and I don’t know any other
restaurant in the country that does that. We also have a company that has been looking
after all our health and safety stuff for the last five years.
Blumenthal said that since the closure of the restaurant 200 tests had been done on food processes, on all of the staff, there had
been 80 swabs of the environment and they were all negative on all counts of food poisoning or hygiene issues. “The only thing that
has come up is the three staff and five customers have been tested positive for something called noro virus,” he said.
Blumenthal said support for the restaurant throughout the crisis had been “incredible”. “Its affected the restaurant big time because
had to cancel 800 people because of the closure but in terms of the business and people wanting to