What is it all about?
The answer to whether the term Molecular Gastronomy can be used to describe the cooking processes used by chefs to create new or present old recipes in a new way will help to understand better if the Molecular Mixology name can be applied to the bartenders’ creations.
Cooking food has been with us since the beginning of humankind; we cook to eat and sustain ourselves, yet not many questions have been asked about what goes on during food preparation. Why do we like something cooked one way and not in another wa? Why do we want some ingredients and not others? Maybe the culinary process used contributed to the different tastes of the final products, and if it did, the question becomes why and what happened to the food we did or did not enjoy.
1988, the Science of Molecular Gastronomy was established to answer these questions. A process had to be implemented to define the recipe, as per Hervé. This was to study the culinary definitions describing the objective of recipes and culinary “precisions,” including old wives’ tales and methods. The main goal was to discover new scientific phenomena and new ways of cooking. As a result of the progress, different approaches, techniques, and tools were developed. The scientists are usually not interested in how the chefs present the food or the drink but only in the mechanisms behind the process.
At the same time, the cooks were more concerned about how and what they could use to create a new sensory experience for their customers. Using the latest methods, tools, and ingredients, they created unique dishes not seen before. This helped us understand that food is not something we eat when we are hungry but also an experience, a moment to stop and appreciate the craft of cooking.
Though they were not science, these methods used in the kitchen were byproducts of scientific discoveries. The term Molecular Gastronomy did not apply to what the cooks were doing. I don’t believe any of the famous chefs were also associating their cooking with the term. They did not want people to look at their restaurants as laboratories, and they were right. One of the main differences between science and technology is that science pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and technology uses the resulting findings to implement them into the real world for everyone’s benefit.
That means that technology’s primary domain is the application of the tools that science has discovered. If I replace the word technology with the word cooking, it might sound like that.
Cooking is an application of the tools discovered by the science of Molecular Gastronomy; therefore, the term MG cannot describe the dishes created by such methods.
A few suggestions for what can replace molecular gastronomy, such as “molecular cooking” or “modernist cuisine,” have been used to describe it. I believe either of them fits the chefs’ culinary endeavours well.
That means, If Molecular Gastronomy is reserved to describe the science behind it, then the natural question is: can the definition of Molecular Mixology still be used to describe the bartenders’ creations? Probably not, but then how do we classify the molecular mixology drinks, “Molecular bartending,” “Modernist cocktails,” “Sensory drinks,” etc. In the beverage business, the Bar menu has to clearly describe what the establishment has to offer and simultaneously make it easy for the customers to order. The problem is under which category we will list the drinks made with foams or airs, which will probably not be under Cocktails, Collins, or Pousse-café. That’s why I think Molecular Mixology will stick with the description of these drinks, as the Mixology part of it is the one most familiar to the patrons.
Until someone comes up with a better word, molecular mixology is it.
One final thought on why we have to name this new way of cooking and making drinks is that the answer lies in understanding how the human brain deals with new information. The brain has to find an association of something similar and familiar in the memory banks. Then, after processing this new input/information, it has to be stored/accommodated in our memory for easy recall. If no definition of MG of MOM is found, we are confused and indecisive about what we see in front of us.
