Note-by-Note Cooking: The Future of Food

Hervé This

oct 2014 · Columbia University Press

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A renowned chemist and cooking pioneer breaks down the properties and benefits of cooking with molecular gastronomy.

1-Octen-3-ol, which has a scent of wild mushrooms; limonene, a colorless liquid hydrocarbon that has the smell of citrus; sotolon, whose fragrance at high concentrations resembles curry and at low concentrations, maple syrup or sugar; tyrosine, an odorless but flavorful amino acid present in cheese—these and many other substances, some occurring in nature, some synthesized in the laboratory, make it possible to create novel tastes and flavors in the same way that elementary sound waves can be combined to create new sounds.

Note-by-note cooking promises to add unadulterated nutritional value to dishes of all kinds, actually improving upon the health benefits of so-called natural foods. Cooking with molecular compounds will be far more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable than traditional techniques of cooking. This new way of thinking about food heralds a phase of culinary evolution on which the long-term survival of a growing human population depends. Hervé This clearly explains the properties of naturally occurring and synthesized compounds, dispels a host of misconceptions about the place of chemistry in cooking, and shows why note-by-note cooking is an obvious—and inevitable—extension of his earlier pioneering work in molecular gastronomy.

Includes an appendix with representative selection of recipes, vividly illustrated in color.

“Taking kitchen science to a whole new (molecular) level, Hervé This is changing the way France―and the world―cooks.”—Gourmet

“[This] explores the science behind shape, consistency, odor, and color, giving readers the knowledge to create their own magnum opus in the kitchen.”—Discover

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Hervé This is a physical chemist on the staff of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris and scientific director of the Fondation Science & Culture Alimentaire at the Académie des Sciences. His translated works include The Science of the Oven; Building a Meal: From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism; Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking; and Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, all published by Columbia University Press.M. B. DeBevoise has translated more than thirty works from French and Italian in every branch of scholarship.