Famous school stresses science in kitchen

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Chef Francisco Migoya, left, demonstrates how to make strawberry sorbet by applying liquid nitrogen to a puree mixture at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. This esteemed cooking school north of New York City is dramatically pumping up science instruction, saying that tomorrow's chefs will need more technical know-how in the age of molecular gastronomy and sous-vide. The Associated Press

September 20, 2012

Famous school stresses science in kitchen

Lectures sound more like chemistry and physics lessons

Anonymous ---- The Record Eagle Thu Sep 20, 2012, 07:14 AM EDT

HYDE PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The basics of a culinary education are getting a little less basic at the Culinary Institute of America.

Recognizing that for the chefs of tomorrow well-honed knife skills and a mastery of the mother sauces won't be enough, the culinary school is pumping up its curriculum with a host of science lab-worthy tools and techniques.

"Today's chef compared to a chef 30 years ago needs to know so much more," CIA president Tim Ryan said recently. "The industry, the profession, is so much more complicated."

Basic cooking lectures at times sound more like a chemistry lesson, covering the culinary uses of xanthan gum, or the physics of why oil and water won't mix. And just this month, the school was approved to offer a new major in culinary science, a field encompassing food science and culinary arts.

A recent class covered dessert making via liquid nitrogen. Chef Francisco Migoya carefully dunked strawberries into a smoking container of the super-cold liquid, then shattered them with a mallet and ground the shards into a fine berry dust for use in an ice cream dish. Frozen borage petals were added for garnish.

It's true: the famous French chef Auguste Escoffier never studied ion-dipole attraction and James Beard never had to consider the complex and sometimes outlandish creations of molecular gastronomy. But science has crept into cooking in so many ways, from cooks using lab centrifuges to separate ingredients to high-end restaurants that serve aerated foie gras. The trend, sometimes referred to as modernist cuisine, is loosely defined as the movement to incorporate scientific principles into the cooking and presentation of food.

And the movement has stars, like Chicago's Grant Achatz and Spain's Ferran Adria, who made gorgonzola balloons and vanishing ravioli for a select few at his former restaurant, elBulli. Practitioners even have a manifesto: "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking," a 2,438-page text published last year by Nathan Myhrvold, the first chief technology officer at Microsoft, which includes tips for preserving truffles in carbon dioxide.

Ryan recalled that Achatz once told him he picked up a lot of his knowledge not in the classroom, but on the Internet. But Ryan stressed that scientific skills are increasingly necessary not only in multi-star restaurants, but in the corporate kitchens and research labs many of his school's graduates will work in.

Freshmen being put through their paces preparing fish and carrots on a recent weekday morning in a kitchen classroom already were getting the message. While any line cook knows to finish off a sauce with butter, chef Elizabeth Briggs wants her students to know why. They have to have a detailed understanding of what's going on inside the pot.

"It's emphasized in this class it's the difference between a chef and a cook," said Janelle Turcios of Pittsburgh, working a range as she made a vin blanc sauce.

The emphasis on science is signaled most dramatically with the new bachelor of professional studies degree in culinary science. Beginning in February, students pursuing the degree will be able to take courses such as Dynamics of Heat Transfer, Flavor Science and Perception, and Advanced Concepts in Precision Temperature Cooking.

Chef Jonathan Zearfoss said they are not just teaching "magic tricks" or molecular gastronomy. He and Chris Loss, director of menu research and development at the CIA, tried to design a course of study that will teach the scientific underpinnings of food production.

"A traditional kitchen is like a pirate ship. We like our flames, we like our noise, we have our scars," Zearfoss said with a smile. "We'd like to create a kitchen that's more like a yacht."

To Loss, a strawberry is not just something to be sliced or dipped, but something with cells and enzymes that can be manipulated for best taste and presentation. Loss explained that the strawberries smashed in the kitchen classroom have more surface area and thus more flavor. And ice cream made in liquid nitrogen is smoother than the stuff on the supermarket shelves because ice crystals don't have time to form.

Other schools are stressing the link between food and science, too.