A site about molecular gastronomy, and a video about sake

Here are a couple of links that I wanted to get into a bit more detail than I can in the del.icio.us hosted daily links.

Travelistic is a relatively new site that already has a lot of fun and mostly very professionally done travel related videos. They have a new video by ThirstyTraveler, aka Kevin Brauch from the Discovery Travel Channel program The Thirsty Traveler, about sake. He travels to Kyoto by Shinkansen, samples some sake, and visits a sake distillery. Worth checking out if you're interested in Japan, sake or both.

Khymos.org is a site about "molecular gastronomy and the science of cooking". The author is Martin Lersch, a PhD student in organometallic chemistry in Oslo, Norway. He has a blog where he tracks the latest news on molecular gastronomy, as well as recipes, a supplier list, book lists and more.

Watching the video and reading the site made me think how similar food manufacturing processes in 'factory' type situations, as with the distillery, are to haute cuisine "molecular gastronomy". Both are approaching food creation from a scientific, specifically a chemistry, point of view. As Martin says on his site, "food is chemistry". It's an approach I never really considered much until recently. Maybe I'll become a molecular gastronomist in part after all. Let me get my Dyson vacuum cleaner out... :P

Submitted by maki on 2006-11-08 13:32.
Filed under:  food sites

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Comments

max

8 November, 2006 - 18:07

The remark about the similarity between "industrial" food production and Molecular Gastronomy does make a lot of sense, IMHO. In both types of food processing places, there is a requirement/desire to control the processes. Of course, the objective for the control is not the same. In industrial production, the objective is (besides quality control and reproducibility), to optimize for most cost effective product (and therefore, profit). In Molecular Gastronomy, as shown by Blumenthal and others, it is (besides quality control and reproducibility) to optimize for for a specific culinaric experience at the highest possible level. And, the research lab of an "industrial" food manufacturer and the one of a high-end Molecular Gastronomist will look almost the same.

George - Gic Ra...

13 May, 2009 - 11:12

This is the first time I read about the notion of " molecular gastronomy"... sounds like to be interesting though in my life I have no touch to this sphere. Thanks for the info here, though. It’s much appreciated. And a separate thanks for keeping it simple.