Note-by-Note Cooking: The Future of Food

Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History

by Hervé This, Malcolm DeBevoise (Translator)

"Note-by-Note Cooking" is a landmark in the annals of gastronomy, liberating cooks from the constraints of traditional ingredients and methods through the use of pure molecular compounds. 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. Herv? 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. An appendix contains a representative selection of recipes, vividly illustrated in color.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Science

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Hervé This is is a French physical chemist who works at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. His main area of interest is molecular gastronomy, or how our knowledge of chemistry and science in general, can be used as a tool to enhance culinary experiences, rather than the purely empirical knowledge which more often than not dictates the rules in the kitchen. With the late Nicholas Kurti, he coined the scientific term "Molecular and Physical Gastronomy" in 1988, which he shortened to "Molecular Gastronomy" after Kurti's death in 1998[1]. While it is often stated that he has a Ph.D in Molecular Gastronomy, his degree is in "Physico-chimie des matériaux" (Physical Chemistry of Materials), for which he wrote a thesis entitled "La gastronomie moléculaire et physique"[2]. He has written several books on the subject which can be understood even by those who have little or no knowledge of chemistry, but so far only two have been translated into English. He also collaborates with the magazine Pour la Science, the aim of which is to present scientific concepts to the general public. He is also a corresponding member of the Académie d'agriculture de France, and, more recently, the scientific director of the foundation "Food Science & Culture", which he created at the French Academy of Science.

Every month he adds one new "invention" in the Arts and Science section of the website of the three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire.

Although his main focus is on physical chemistry, he also attributes great importance to the emotional aspect of cooking, as the title of one of his books shows: Cooking is love, art, technique.

Reviews

[Robert Hudder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. What a well reasoned argument for cooking with compounds and notes including natural vs. synthetic, economics, environmental impacts, and toxicology. I guess that's what happens when a chemist loves food.

Here are my notes that were made while reading this book. The first one came from I don't know where but here it is.

Strawberry mousse (savoury) + strawberry herbed salad (thyme, juniper and rosemary) w/ blue cheese whipped cream. (I think this may be a cross pollination of the veggie book I was reading.)

p127. mix citric acid with sodium bicarbonate in equal proportion and add water (sweeten w/ sugar and there you go)
p131. Cooling gelatin can be used to strengthen and intensify liquids (broths for e.g. but what about a sweet application? Could I push what I was hoping to make a gel or jello out of and push the flavours? And is it more efficient and tasty than just reducing the liquid?)
p135. Adding a drop of lemon juice or vinegar helps to make a new kind of caramel (peligots). I wonder if it works with other acids and how do these caramels taste? Do all sugars caramelize and what are their different flavours? Does this affect the sugars that have caramelised in other foods? Fond on a steak for example.
p146. Fractionalization: Take something and put it in a water and oil mix Grind and shake it. Oil things go to oil and water things go to water. Taste the liquids. What about temp? I want to try this with coffee beans and some herbs/spices. The liquids leftover could yield some interesting flavours and new ways to work with stuff. Imagine a coffee oil or all the non-oil components of a citrus fruit in water! I can't quite grasp it but there is something wonderful possible.
p150. Adding orange flower/blossom water to regular strawberries makes them smell like wild (and trick you into tasting wild). Try chestnut + fennel or carrot + orange.
p170. Next time I have a cold, should try foods with the idea to figuring out what affects my trigeminal nerve (mustard, hot pepper, black pepper, water cress, raw chanterelle, raw garlic, clove, xylitol stuffs, menthols + mints, etc)
p174. turmeric dry as colouring vs wet as flavouring (curcurmin) (adulterated/coloured foods is very old and some natural have been bad so why worry about something that is known to be safe or such a high LD50? copper sulfate to wine as an example of bad and natural.)
p179. Just a reminder that I have annato and its main purpose is colouring. A natural colorant and is aqueous or oily.
p180. Betanin or beetroot red is classified as an additive (colouring) from ... crushed beetroot in aquaeous form. Basically, crush some beets and put it in water and use it. Wonder if most of the flavouring aspect is gone?
p204.Disagree with his idea that this will become the dominant form of agriculture etc but then again, who could have foreseen this awesome and aweful agribusiness model we have now...

[Odette Cortés · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have heard of molecular gastronomy before. In the circles I travel it’s like the boogieman, that thing with chemicals that is unnatural. That monster that threatens the traditional culinary world we know. But let’s face it; it’s a brave new culinary world out there. Note-by- Note Cooking by Hervé This is out the finish with these rumors, and it attempts to do it with humor, lightness and most of all science.

The thing that I am most thankful for is that this book has taught me how to see food in an entirely different level, to understand shape, taste, smell and other components of a dish from the inside out. Once you understand how a product works, then you can do with it whatever you want in the kitchen. Suddenly cooking and alchemy don’t seem like they are foreign disciplines.

Note-by-note cooking allows you to unlearn many things that you think you knew and learn them through a new pair of eyes. These new ways will help the chef achieve unimaginable things in the kitchen.

Nonetheless, even though the book tried to make this whole process light and simple I did find that the English translation of This’ book is not light reading at all. It is incredibly interesting, but not something that I would pick up for the fun of it. Part of me is thrilled that I can approach a simple fruit and think about it in a different way, the other part of me (the one that hated science in high school) was left with the slight sensation that is left when you go to a lecture thinking its one thing and then find yourself facing another, which just tried to educate you in something that you didn’t want in the first place. Yes, there is a lot about cooking and rethinking each component of a dish, but what I wasn’t thrilled by was that the recipes to help you materialize all the knowledge you’ve just acquired are left in the appendix, like an after thought. Left there just in case someone wants to take a hands-on approach to the situation.

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is clearly not a cookbook, as the one with recipes, but I am writing this disclaimer just for those who are not aware of what molecular cooking is. Three quarters of the book is about chemistry, but not only the chemistry of food, but also the chemistry needed to break down molecules down to its simplest components; the last "quarter," so to speak, is about all the possible combinations that can be achieved with respect to color/flavor/consistency/etc.
Very interesting, but certainly for a select few.

Questo chiaramente non é un libro di cucina, quello con le ricette per capirsi, ma lo scrivo solo per coloro che non sono al corrente di cosa sia la cucina molecolare. Tre quarti del libro riguardano la chimica, ma non solo quella degli alimenti, ma anche quella necessaria a scindere le molecole fino ad arrivare ai suoi componenti piú semplici, l'ultimo "quarto", per cosí dire riguarda tutte le possibile combinazioni che si possono raggiungere rispetto al colore/sapore/consistenza/etc. Molto interessante, ma certo per pochi eletti.

[Lili · Rating 5 out of 5]

**I received this book for review from Netgally**

This book, in one easy description, is dense. I feel as though Note by Note Cooking has transported my back to school and I am reading one of my chemistry textbooks, but with more food and culinary artistry and a nice seasoning of Philosophy. There is an entire chapter on the shapes (Platonic Solids...ok, that is more geometry) of foods and how we appreciate them, for example cutting a potato in the shape of a barrel is comforting to us. If you have ever craved a cookbook that talks about Newtonian and Non-Newtonian liquids, you are in luck, personally I have never thought of Mayonnaise in that way, but from now I will be adding white Non-Newtonian sandwich spread to my shopping lists. I would have to say one of my favorite parts of the consistency chapter is the description of various carrageenans, not only does it list what each carrageenan is derived from, but also its chemical composition and a handy table showing application, effect of heating, and, texture. Very helpful for people who are a fan of making candies and custards.

My all around favorite part of this book was the chapters about taste and odor. As a reviewer of tea I spend a lot of time thinking about taste and odor, as a lover of science I spend a lot of time thinking about why a thing tastes and smells the way it does. I have a sneaking suspicion that when this book comes into print and I order my copy (because this book needs to be in my collection) I will sit, armed with a highlighter and pencil, and take copious notes and highlight many points of interesting data.

I do hesitate to call this a true cookbook, it is more a cooking reference book that will take your appreciation for the culinary art to a whole new level. There are some recipes, but they are very few, so if you were hoping to buy a new recipe collection I cannot recommend this book. However if you are wanting to mix your science and food (and who doesn't?) then I can recommend this book with great fervor.

[Ste · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun exploration of the deep chemistry of food - the individual aldehydes and saccharides that produce taste, odour, colour and texture - and a manifesto for a new form of cooking that builds food up like a symphony from individual compounds. This's grand political statements about the future of food feel unconvincing, but I'm also not sure they're meant to be serious in that classic ironic French philosophical style. At its best, the book almost reminds me of Borges in its dry, wry academic half-jokes - a discussion of the geometry of the different edible shapes goes into a list of the numerological meanings of polygonal food that reads like the Chinese taxonomy.
One little detail that was frustrating: there are recipes for "note-by-note" dishes, but they rarely give quantities. When you're dealing with unfamiliar ingredients where you could need one microgram or a million, a sketched recipe is almost useless.

[Seeds Of Modernism · Rating 5 out of 5]

Step foreward, future of food.

This books shows how passion and brainstorming can lead to wonderful inventions. This book is just a beginning of the "note by note cooking" phenomenon and its about time that we take this up in consideration.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love or even like science, this book is for you. A lot more text than illustrations, but it's still awesome.