Molecular Gastronomy

Its all about the combination of science and art

There are many branches of food science that study different aspects of food, such as safety, microbiology, preservation, chemistry, engineering and physics. Until the advent of molecular gastronomy, there was no branch dedicated to studying the chemical processes of cooking in the home and in restaurants. Food science has primarily been concerned with industrial food production and, while the disciplines may overlap, they are considered separate areas of investigation.Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur in cooking. Its program includes three areas, as cooking was recognized to have three components: social, artistic, and technical.Molecular cuisine is a modern style of cooking, and takes advantage of many technical innovations from the scientific disciplines.The term "molecular gastronomy" was coined in 1992 by late Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti and the French INRA chemist Hervé This. Some chefs associated with the term choose to reject its use. The creation of the discipline of molecular gastronomy was intended to bring together what had previously been fragmented and isolated investigations into the chemical and physical processes of cooking into an organized discipline within food science, to address what the other disciplines within food science either do not cover, or cover in a manner intended for scientists rather than cooks.
The objectives of molecular gastronomy, as defined by Hervé This, are seeking for the mechanisms of culinary transformations and processes (from a chemical and physical point of view) in three areas:1.the social phenomena linked to culinary activity2.the artistic component of culinary activity3.the technical component of culinary activityThe original fundamental objectives of molecular gastronomy were defined by This in his doctoral dissertation as:1. Investigating culinary and gastronomical proverbs, sayings and old wives' tales.2. Exploring existing recipes3. Introducing new tools, ingredients and methods into the kitchen inventing new dishes using molecular gastronomy to help the general public understand the contribution of  science to society.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the term started to be used to describe a new style of cooking in which some chefs began to explore new possibilities in the kitchen by embracing science, research, technological advances in equipment and various natural gums and hydrocolloids produced by the commercial food processing industry. It has since been used to describe the food and cooking of a number of famous chefs, though many of them do not accept the term as a description of their style of cooking.

Mandeep Rawat             Maheer Desai             Ajaykumar Sunderraj