A Molecular Gastronomy Hoax

"During a recent raid on a wholesale centre in Guangzhou City, the capital of China's Guangdong province, a large quantity of fake eggs was seized. Their wholesale price is 0.15 yuan (S$0.03) each - half the price of a real egg.

Consumers have a hard time telling a genuine egg from a fake one. This is good news for unscrupulous entrepreneurs, who are even conducting three-day courses in the production of artificial eggs for less than S$150.

A reporter with Hong Kong-based Chinese magazine EastWeek enrolled in one such course. To create egg white, the instructor - a woman in her 20s - used assorted ingredients such as gelatin, an unknown powder, benzoic acid, coagulating material and even alum, which is normally used for industrial processes.

For egg yolk, some lemon-yellow colouring powder is mixed to a liquid and the concoction stirred. The liquid is then poured into a round-shaped plastic mould and mixed with so-called 'magic water', which contains calcium chloride. This gives the 'yolk' a thin outer membrane, firming it up.

The egg is then shaped with a mould. The shell is not forgotten. Paraffin wax and an unidentified white liquid are poured onto the fake egg, which is then left to dry.

The artificial egg can be fried sunny-side up or steamed. Although bubbles appear on the white of the egg, those who have tasted it say the fake stuff tastes very much like the real thing. But experts warn of the danger of eating fake eggs. Not only do they not contain any nutrients, a Hong Kong Chinese University professor warned that long-term consumption of alum could cause dementia or mental disease."

Last week the above information arrived twice in my inbox and had been circulating by email amongst Asian friends. As soon as I read it, I smelt a rat. There are many stories emanating from China about falsified foods and consequently some of the people I know in Hong Kong have become quite cautious shoppers. But it was definitely on the nose for me.


I had a look at Hoax Slayer and there it was. In fact a Blogger was believed to have 'cracked' the myth and the scam. But it spoke reams to me about what is happening in the food scene.

I'm talking about the increasing popularity of Molecular Gastronomy. It involves the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. The term was coined in 1988 by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French chemist Hervé This and has finally become fashionable. However this is not a fad that will appear on menus alongside local interpretations of Nacho's, Risotto and Laksa.

For two years the Molecular Gastronomy juggernaut that is El Bulli of Spain, has topped the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Chef Ferran Adrià Acosta and his huge kitchen brigade conjure astounding dishes like wizards. The result is conceptual and a play of chemistry, where traditional food textures and flavours are swapped, interplayed with scents not usual to culinaria and reconfigured to bewilder and hopefully fascinate the palate. If he wanted to I'm sure Mr Adrià could easily reassemble an egg, but it wouldn't be cheap.


For some cooks, having mastered the rudimentary and the traditional dishes of the culinary repertoire, there is comfort and mastery in the familiar. There is some interplay and twists on the familiar. For others there is boredom which I suppose is what inspires them to move on to more daring gastronomic feats, and hence we have the new fangled Molecular Gastronomy, a dining experience that globally has a small market.


As a conceptually driven experience of dining that requires large kitchen brigades and expensive machinery it has been available in Melbourne for the diner with deep pockets for a number of years. Most however have not been receptive of it, as often diners in Australia lean to the rustic over the conceptual and quality seems to be determined by traditional Haute Cuisine, while value is prized over innovation.


At Zuccini in 2001 the team found that there were not enough early adopters in Melbourne to sustain this stream of ambitious endeavours. When Ferran Adria came out to do our Food Fest circuits, people walked out of his sessions. At Reserve, George Calombaris tried to surf the wave but failed to find a market, and has since, successfully toned it down somewhat to infuse his ideas into the Greek cooking of his childhood cuisine at The Press Club. More recently Ray Capaldi and Robin Wickens are finding their way as the affluent diner is finally swayed by the fashion in international dining guides for venues such as El Bulli, Thomas Keller's French Laundry and Pierre Gagnaire's venues in Paris and Hong Kong.


But what about the home cook? For me, I no longer use recipes. I know from sight, smell and instinct how much of an ingredient to use without weights and measures, to get what I want and have accumulated 30 years of recipe reading and master classes in order to assimilate enough techniques to invent dishes. I know how to fuse the techniques of various cuisines with the ingredients of others and am proud of the results. I imagine that for the pros this must often be the case too.


But amongst all this I now have the desire to know just why certain things work and that all comes down to Chemistry. Although unlike Heston Blumenthal of Fat Duck, I have no desire to deconstruct a traditional dish and reconstruct it with a synthesis of other ingredients, like spheres of egg or pea, or even his famous egg and bacon ice cream, I do however want to know the reason how day to day culinary chemistry works.


Some of the questions that percolate in my mind are why is it if you add salad dressing ingredients in the wrong order it will separate and not emulsify? Why does it actually take a ton of sea salt to properly boil certain foods? What is the natural sugar content of certain produce and how much will they caramalise? Why is it that the humid evening air savaged my chocolate chilli souffle batter in a matter of minutes, but I was still able to rescue it - and how did I instinctively know what to do about it?


Sometimes with a little rumination I can figure it out for myself in terms of chemical reactions, but I'm also interested in micro-biology and the effects of bacteria and enzymes - to name but two items - on flavour and texture. The answers to those things I crave to learn. Ok, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a great big nerd.


On my wishlist is Harold McGee's incredible On Food & Cooking: The Science & Lore of the Kitchen, but I'm hoping to get that down the track. I content myself in the meantime by reading his New York Times Column, The Curious Cook instead. Perhaps one day I will Graduate to Herve This. But to begin with I am reading professor emeritus Robert L. Wolke's What Einstein Told His Cook 1 - Kitchen Science Explained and 2 - Further Adventures in Kitchen Science.


To use an Aussie analogy, Robert L. Wolke is the Dr Karl Kruszelniki of cooking. So far most of it confirms my own deductions with scientific evidence, such as that marinading will only affect the surface area of a piece of meat and not penetrate it - even if punctured. But there are other things such as why fish decompose faster than meat and even the molecular explanation behind producing emulsions.

I don't think that it will lead me to buying the cute molecular products now available for producing your own spheres and foams, but I hope that it will take me that step further in my culinary pursuits...


... Besides, the foam that topped Mr Stickyfingers' scallop raviolo last week at Toofeys reminded him of the cat sputum that typically accompanies a furball. I wonder what he'll make of dinner at Fenix next week?

What do you think of Molecular Gastronomy?

Dupleix Vs Torode trendspotters?

"John Torode has been living in London for 17 years and has become accustomed to how things are there. London has some exciting things happening on the food scene because there is money pouring in from Russia and for £200 you can eat some amazing things, but most of us can't afford that."

"More importantly in Australia we have great affordable food and can eat out several times a week and still eat well."

"In London, Nordic food is getting popular - thankfully light, clean, fresh flavours."

"Young English chefs are doing away with heavy food and are addressing British food in a lighter way......more casual.....like the Australian way of cooking. I think we actually have a lot to teach the British."

Jill Dupleix on John Torode’s assumptions of Australian dining.

I'm not sure what compelled me to turn on the TV when I did, but there was Jill Dupleix in the ubiquitous checkerboard mini apron that she sports on the cover of her latest cookbook, Lighten Up. She was cooking one of her light recipes and telling daytime talk host, Kerri-Anne Kennelly how she helped her husband, Terry Durack, lose five belt notches of weight or six stone. Then Kerri asked her about John Torode's recent comments about Australian food (see my post, John Torode - Hidden Agenda?). Jill's response is above.

Now I have been a big fan of Terry's since the hedonistic eighties and have always hoped that I could emulate him, though sadly I will never have his incisive wit. In Jill I saw someone who was instinctively able to reflect the zeitgeist through her work first in Advertising and later in food writing.

The current book is a reflection of this, to the point that on viewing her latest recipes, I wondered whether she had been looking over my shoulder whilst I cooked for Mr Stickyfingers. Or am I too just an early adopter of global market changes by eating low GI foods, doing away with big pasta meals, cutting back on the size of our meat and starch portions while consuming more vegies and oily fish and omitting trans fats, palm oil and corn syrup?

The thing is, I don’t think I am alone here, so it made me wonder, if this book is meant to be a groundbreaking approach to eating, whether in fact Australiais ahead of the UK, where she and Terry now reside? And I say this in spite of John Torode’s assertions that what Australia has to offer is “pretty tired”.

Over here there is a growing resistance to the Americanisation of our supermarkets and the loss of favourite local brands to global brands and house brands in the pursuit of better profit margins. We also have experienced a rise in food allergies, and more people are beginning to turn to our abundant fresh produce over processed foods.

So using the marketing part of my brain, I was also curious as to what the whizz-bang £200 London restaurants are offering? I suppose some of these restaurants are featuring Molecular Gastronomy, which on our local scene is attracting the Melbourne Foodanista’s, some of whom are not really there for the food. Given the expensive machines and labour intensive techniques required, Molecular dishes don’t come cheap.

Trend spotters acknowledge that this movement has risen to prominence on the back of the apocalyptic global mood, in the wake of the rise of fundamentalism, the threat of global Terrorism and increased knowledge of Global warming. By the same token fashion is reflecting the post-apocalyptic phase of the eighties where the general sentiment was that we would either die of HIV or nuclear fallout.

Somewhere in the middle ground between the rustic trend supported by Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein and Antonio Carluccio and ‘The Molecular’ came the East/West Fusion and the confused Global menu. Fusion done at it’s best is now accepted as an inspired and healthy fine dining choice. But the other phase, the crude global mish mash of cultures where menus listed poorly crafted versions of Laksa alongside pizza, nacho’s, tagines, sushi, grills and risotto is sadly still in existence at some of our more mainstream venues. People who favour this style of eating will never comprehend Molecular Gastronomy.

The global phase that is emerging now turns it’s back on hedonism and pretention, and perhaps the laundering of Russian money? The term that was coined for this predicted trend ten years ago was ‘Think global; act local’ a process of thought that moves from the ‘all is lost’ perception to ‘how can I do my own little bit for the future?’ has finally hit.

The extension of this in dining sees support for producers of slow grown sustainable foods, rare breed meats and heritage vegetables coupled with low food miles. Again, this is something Mr Stickyfingers and I have incorporated into our diets over the last two years. Fortunately for us, this is readily available in inner Melbourne and by shopping carefully at farmer’s markets is affordable. However, once it hits the restaurant scene as a trend, prepare to pay haute cuisine prices. Fashion-wise, look for alternative textiles like hemp and a move away from synthetics to natural and sustainable fibres.

Although this is aptly being led through smaller café venues and home cooks, in Melbourne we actually have one restaurant contender in this ‘Locavore’ food league. The 100 Mile Café, is not extortionately expensive, but as the forerunner in this league it can’t afford to be. Like most trends it will make an initial splash and then move into the mainstream where, as my new friend, chef and witty blogger The Gobbler put it, “it is merely another weapon in their arsenal of getting bums on seats.”

Whatever the trends on offer, eating in Australia is progressive and is one of the few places in the world where we have affordable fresh produce that in some parts of the world costs and arm and a leg. With Jill Dupleix asserting to food writer Matt Preston that she and Terry just make ends meet living in Notting Hill - European assignments aside -perhaps it's time that they came home to the good life?