Molecular Cooking is Cooking: Molecular Gastronomy is a Scientific Activity

Have you heard of molecular gastronomy? Molecular gastronomy involves the application of scientific techniques into cooking. I tried some of this kind of food a few weeks back and I saw how the chef used liquid nitrogen to make meringue, and "fruit caviar" using compounds such as sodium alginate and calcium chloride.

This is a video of a lecture by a French Chemist, Herve This, given at Imperial College in London. Herve is a physical chemist (physical chemistry is essentially what we are learning now in JC1), whose main area of interest is molecular gastronomy. He is probably one of the leading chemists dealing with the art of culinary. It is a long video, but it is very entertaining to see him performing all sorts of procedures on egg white (or egg yellow, as he calls it) and explaining the Chemistry behind it. The french accent may be a little difficult to get used to, but I love how he constantly proclaims that "eet iz very eeazi". 

Enjoy~