Omnivore - Richard Blais’ Knife’s Edge: Droppin’ science

I’m not a molecular gastronomist.

I’m not even sure what one of those looks like. I know there are a few amazingly talented scientists who apply their knowledge to food. They certainly may be molecular gastronomists.

But I’m not one. Except that I am.

Because every once in a while during an interview, or while communicating with the media, I have no choice but to acknowledge the title being applied to my cuisine.

Now, I could spend two of the three minutes I have explaining that what I do isn’t necessarily molecular gastronomy. I could recount how I failed chemistry twice in high school (I just wasn’t applying myself). Or I could argue that many of these techniques have been in existence for a long time. Did you know Taillevent was making liquid nitrogen ice cream in the ’70s? That cooking sous vide was discovered in the late 18th century? I found a recipe for faux caviar in a junior high chemistry lab workbook from the ’80s. But that wouldn’t help. Turns out, chefs have been “molecular gastronomists” way before the now fashionable title tipped into mass culture.

It’s a lot like rap music.

Follow me now.

I’m as ambivalent about the word “rap” as I am the term “molecular gastronomy.” See, before I had an immersion circulator, a smoking gun, or hydrocolloids, I had turntables, a milk crate of old records, a four-track mixer in my basement “studio,” and a high top fade with the Nike swoosh shaved in it. Honest. I was Eminem, before Eminem was. In theory…

Rap, much like the term molecular gastronomy, was just a title that the media used because it was tough to describe what MCs were doing. They were “rapping” about their inspiration, their lives, etc. But what was really happening was a paradigm shift. One where kids from the street were expressing themselves in an artistic way. Rap was just the descriptor. But it was also apparent in graffiti, break dancing, fashion, sport. All of those combined were a culture called hip-hop.

In the cooking world, molecular gastronomy, as a word = rap. Creative cooking = hip-hop.