From Molecular Gastronomy to the Kitchen Table

Tempura fennel flowers from chef Ferran Adrià

Photo Credit: The Wall Street Journal

Those of you who know of Ferran Adrià will be interested to read this Wall Street Journal article about the world-renowned chef's transition to family-friendly cooking. Those of you who have yet to hear of the culinary genius, he's the one who "foams" foods like potato and mushroom to deconstruct the flavor of a dish. His latest culinary endeavor concerns your family's dinner table, and how best to feed those sitting at it in a cheap yet interesting way– I know, so overdone, right? But the creator of elBulli, that Michelin-starred restaurant that apparently had 2 million people vying for a reservation, coming out with a home cookbook? That's pretty enticing.

Katy McLaughlin, the author of the article, tested Adrià's recipes on her family for a week, and found that, even though her children weren't the biggest fans of every dish, the unexpected twists on the preparation of things like chocolate mousse were exciting enough to make up for the lack of kid-desired meals. A few of the recipes she mentions are included at the end of the article, and the Melon and Mint Soup with Pink Grapefruit sounds particularly delicious to me– and easy to make, which is a plus for someone who's afraid of boiling water.

The idea of breaking down a complicated dish– or even a simple grilled cheese sandwich, for that matter– into its constituent flavors and textures sounds amazing, to say the least. Since I heard of Adrià's now-closed elBulli, it's been a fantasy of mine to taste a liquid olive or foamed beetroot– basic flavors delivered in unexpected ways. In a phrase, molecular gastronomy is playing with your food. And what's so wrong with that? We've all tasted apple juice, but who's tasted spherified apple juice? Who even knows what that is? My point is that food is not only something that we need to physically survive. Of course that PB&J is going to satisfy your growling stomach, but I think there's some intellectual or mental satisfaction from learning different ways that a food can be prepared, be it by foaming or sautéing.