Even though molecular gastronomy is focused on cooking, I don’t think any actual chefs became involved with it until I started working with Professor Kurti. In 1991 we created the first symposium of gastronomy, held in Erice, Sicily, where I demonstrated things like fermentation and emulsions in front of forty professors. I became completely immersed in the science behind it and even produced a TV series and book with Professor Kurti called Blanc Mange, which aimed to show how cooking and science worked together in a simple, accessible way.
One of the best moments of this series was when we scientifically proved that a high-quality organic chicken tasted far better than an intensively farmed one. We put three chickens – one intensively farmed, one free-range and one a famous Poulet de Bresse – in three identical ovens. As they roasted, we captured the flavour molecules through copper tubes containing gases which separated them into groups. A computer connected to these tubes would measure the compounds and create readings based off them.
With the low-quality chicken, you couldn’t see much happening on the screen. With the free-range chicken, there were lots of spikes, but with the Poulet de Bresse, which was reared for sixteen weeks on a varied diet, it was going all over the place!
While the scientific readings were interesting, the real proof for me was in the aromas. At the end of each copper tube was a mask, which you could wear to inhale the aromas coming off the chickens. The nasty chicken was all greasy and fishy – horrible. The free-range chicken was wonderful, all roasted and nutty and incredibly pleasant. Then there was the Poulet de Bresse – oh my God, it was a symphony!
This experiment proved what I already knew. What’s going to taste better – a young chicken which has been force-fed with all sorts of horrible food, a free-range chicken which is just eating corn, or an older chicken which has run around eating all sorts of wild and natural ingredients?
When Blanc Mange aired on the BBC it got two million viewers, which was huge for a programme on science. Professor Kurti asked if I would become a champion for molecular gastronomy after the success of the series and our work together, but – I think to his surprise – I said I didn’t want to be. I felt food was so much more than something you could distil down into a scientific formula.
The provenance of the ingredients, the way wine goes with food, the friends around the table, the weather, the hospitality… all of this makes up the complete ensemble that is eating, and to take just one element of that, you lose so much. Being an expert in molecular gastronomy can be incredibly useful to a chef, but it also focuses on just one element, almost turning the style of cooking into something fashionable and lacking emotion. You need to understand all the elements that go into a great meal to be a truly great chef.