Word: molecular
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Trained as a molecular biologist in amphibian development, Melton began the work he pursues today: trying to find a way to make insulin-producing cells by using stem cells. "It was a courageous thing to do because he was at the pinnacle of his career," says Gail. "He brought home textbooks on the pancreas to figure it all out." Nearly two decades later, Melton is convinced that stem cells will be a critical part of new therapies that will treat and maybe cure not only diabetes but also other diseases for which there are no answers today...
...most radical approach. Chef Angel Palacios hollowed out whole eggshells, then filled them with spherified scallop coral, made to look like yolks, and gelatinized algae broth that had the slippery, translucent appearance of albumen. "We wanted to pay tribute to Ferran," said coach Paco Roncero in reference to famed molecular gastronomy chef Ferran Adrià. "And we also wanted something transparent to show off the scallops...
...Still, what else are you going to call it? In an effort to move away from the dreaded 'molecular,' in 2008 Adrià embraced a new name, coined by Catalan journalist Pau Arenós: "techno-emotional." The term was received with relief among some chefs desperate for a more lyrical description of what they did and derision among the better part of the food-writing community; this year, it got no traction at all. Instead, Adrià opted for 'scientific gastronomy,' while McGee, arguing that all cooking involves scientific processes, made a plea for plain and simple 'gastronomy...
...David Chang, the chef behind the adored Momofuku restaurants in New York, was more skeptical. "It's never going to lose the name molecular. Hippies don't like being called hippies, but that's what everyone knows them by." Still Chang, who described the panel members as "the Mount Rushmore of current gastronomy," wasn't troubled by the prospect. "This style of cooking, is a language, a code, and it can be intimidating. But only if you don't try to understand it. The boneheads who reject it never ask questions, never ask why someone might cook this...
...After a suitably scholastic detour into the origins of the phrase "molecular gastronomy," (McGee maintained that the term was born at a scientific conference in the early 1990s in an attempt to make inquiries into cooking sound more impressive; physicist Cassi suggested that he coined the phrase some years later), Adrià urged the audience to, essentially, chill out. "If we keep seeing science and cooking as two Martians coming at each other with test tubes, we all lose," he argued. "We have to normalize the relationship between them." A few hours later, as Elena Arzak demonstrated sauces that change...