Chemistry and Physics in the Kitchen
Bon appétit! Scientists are beginning to understand how chefs accomplish their culinary masterpieces—and are making modest recipe suggestions of their own
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Recent Articles by Nicholas Kurti
Hervé This is the head of the Molecular Gastronomy Group at INRA (the French National Institute for Agricultural Research), a professor at AgroParisTech, one of France's "Grandes Ecoles", and the director of the International Center for Molecular Gastronomy AgroParisTech-INRA.
He is also the scientific director of the Food Science and Culture Foundation of the French Academy of Sciences, the Educational Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Gastronomy (Hautes Études du Goût) with Reims University and the president of the Human Food Section at the French Academy of Agriculture.
Herve This is the author of 22 books, 4 of which have been translated into English. His main area of scientific research is molecular gastronomy, a discipline he co-founded with the late Nicholas Kurti in 1988. Herve This is also a key proponent of "molecular cooking" (cooking with modern tools, often taken from labs, such as siphons, liquid nitrogen, ultrasonic probes or rotary evaporators). Since 1994 he has promoted a new culinary method called "note-by-note cooking", a new way of cooking in which no meat or vegetables are used, only pure compounds, such as electroacoustic music is making music from waves of pure frequency. In October 2014, his book Note by Note Cooking: The Future of Food was published by Columbia University Press.
Herve This has written numerous research papers from his lab in Paris, as well as many popular articles and guides for cooking instructors. He devotes part of his time to education, in particular within the "Food Innovation and Product Design" Erasmus Mundus Master Course.
In this blog, This will celebrate chemical physics in particular and molecular gastronomy in general, which means that he will explore various fields of knowledge, generally starting from culinary questions, but always trying to move towards deeper questions of chemistry, physics, epistemology and methodology. So-called "traditional" and innovative food will be discussed as well. Knowledge has no borders! Follow Hervé This-Benckhard on Twitter
