‘Entirely synthetic’ gourmet food debuts - April 20, 2009
French chef Pierre Gagnaire has created the world’s first “entirely synthetic gourmet dish” and unveiled it today in Hong Kong. In collaboration with the molecular gastronomy pioneer Hervé This, Gagnaire has created a dish made not from natural flora and fauna but from basic molecules.
The new dish’s ingredients are ascorbic acid, glucose, citric acid and 4-O-a-glucopyranosyl-D-sorbitol. The result, says the Times, is “a starter of jelly balls tasting of apple and lemon; creamy on the inside and crackling on the outside”.
“If you use pure compounds, you open up billions and billions of new possibilities,” says This. “It’s like a painter using primary colours or a musician composing note by note.”
In an email last month This noted, “Don’t be afraid: if Pierre is doing it, it will be good ...”
Comments
Haven't Jelly Babies and the like always been mostly synthetic anyway?
Posted by: David Bradley | April 20, 2009 05:04 PM
Fascinating! And from a French chef, too. Sadly, the Times report doesn't offer the recipe; I'd try it!
One quibble: in organic chemistry, whence this new cuisine apparently springs, "synthetic" usually means made in a lab or factory from simpler molecules. Excepting possibly the ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), all of the ingredients are very likely isolated and chemically purified from natural sources, and thus may be pure organic chemicals, but are not synthetic. Does this permit calling the new dish "synthetic?"
Posted by: David Henry | April 22, 2009 10:04 AM
Referring to David Henry's comment: this is correct. I think there was some confusion in the English/French understanding of the word. At the dinner, Herve This was clear that by 'synthetic' he really meant 'synthesis' meaning combining or mixing together. He didn't mean it as something unnatural.
Posted by: K Anthony | April 25, 2009 12:14 PM