Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor Read Online Free PDF Page B

teases and taunts and ridicules him, so that
    the young hero grows increasingly furious and finally gives the fool a good beating.
    Once having done it, though, he suddenly reassumes his Quakerish manners. He falls
    back, and cries out in his shame, “Alas! I believe that the flesh has triumphed over
    the spirit!”
    I feel the same way. After a reaction which is certainly pardonable, I go back to my first
    opinion.
    friend: It simply can’t be done. You admit that you have shown yourself as an author for
    a second or two. I’ve got you now, and I’m taking you to the publisher’s. I’ll even tell
    you that more than one friend has already guessed your secret.
    au thor: Don’t leave yourself open! I’ll talk about you in return … and who knows what
    I may say?
    friend: What could you possibly say about me? Don’t get the idea that you can scare
    me off!
    au thor: What I shan’t say is that our native land prides itself on having produced you;
    that at twenty-four you had already published a textbook which has since become a clas-
    sic; that your deserved reputation inspires great confidence in you; that your general
    appearance reassures the sick; that your dexterity astounds them; that your sympathy
    comforts them. All this is common knowledge. But I shall reveal to the whole of Paris
    ( here I draw myself up ), to all of France ( I swell with oratorical rage ), to the Universe itself,
    your only fault!
    friend ( gravely ): And what is that, may I ask?
    au thor: An habitual vice, which all my exhortations have not corrected.
    friend ( horrified ): Tell me! Don’t torture me like this!
    au thor: You eat too fast!
    [here the friend picks up his hat, and exits smiling, fairly well
    convinced that he had made a convert.]
    Introduction | 15
    The latest studies of the present generation of physiologists of flavor are
    reported in the second part of the book. These studies, which, unlike Brillat-
    Savarin’s literary investigations, constitute the true physiology of flavor, have a
    direct usefulness in the kitchen for those who are bold enough to apply them.
    Yet a more complete science remains to be built on this base. Recall the defini-
    tion I gave earlier of molecular gastronomy. Only the dictums, proverbs, and
    rules that have been shown to be sound can be placed at the heart of the new
    science that is needed. This means that culinary practice must henceforth be
    based on a genuine physiology of flavor. In asking how are individual dishes
    to be prepared, however, we are dealing with something rather different: the
    modeling of culinary operations. And this modeling must be based on an
    understanding of the physical transformations to which foods are subjected
    in cooking.
    This is the subject of the third part of the book. However, note that the
    “intelligent knowledge” the reader will find there must be judged with refer-
    ence to the peculiar situation in which cooks find themselves. Sutor ne supra
    crepidam iudicaret: Let not the cobbler criticize [a work of art] above the shoe.
    But cooks have no choice but to judge above and beyond the pan, for they know
    that this work is not for the stomach but for the heart and the soul. And this
    is why seemingly useless explorations find their place here—for love of the
    beauty of pure knowledge.
    Consider the egg yolk—the ordinary egg yolk, which generations of cooks
    have used without looking at it any longer than was necessary to prevent it from
    being broken or spilled. Yet it possesses a complex and unsuspected structure,
    which science has disclosed to us. No longer can the sight of an egg yolk be
    thought uninteresting. For boredom is born not of uniformity but of a certain
    offhandedness, a lack of deference. Thanks to science, which teaches us that
    even the yolk of an egg deserves to be the object of curiosity and admiration,
    we have no reason to be bored in the kitchen again.
    Obviously molecular gastronomy does not aim solely at attaining