The Evolution of Gastronomy

Guy Gateau's first draft of modern culinary history Guy Gateau, Maitre Cuisinier de France Monday, April 26, 2004 Translated by Jonathan Day
IT IS always a dangerous exercise to put down a point of view on the newest stages in the evolution of gastronomy. Nonetheless, let us try. As ever, it will be useful to take a small step backward in order to gain some perspective on the subject. Nouvelle cuisine was born in the 1970s primarily by the young chefs formed by Fernand Point at his Restaurant de la Pyramide in the Rhone Valley. Technology was an important factor in the development of this cuisine. The United States at the time already had blenders capable of making magnificent iced concoctions. Then food processors (mixeurs) arrived under the Robot Coupe brand. Suddenly, we discovered a new perspective on mousses, mousselines, and textures in general. Making them in the traditional manner was tough to do, a test of one's style. But the new machines available to chefs were about to change all of that. No more did we need those monstrous marble, granite, or wooden mortars. No more did we make quenelles as we had done for so long; it was time for something new. The doors of gastronomy opened upon new horizons. With the journalistic support of Henri Gault and Christian Millau, Nouvelle Cuisine took root, both its good and bad aspects. Everyone in the food world was aware of Nouvelle Cuisine; it enabled the rise of a new attitude toward cooking and its practitioners. Of course there were errors of excess, and critics would point to "baby food" meals composed of nothing but purees and mousses. But the positive aspects of Nouvelle Cuisine were clear: we started to ask deep questions about the ingredients that came into our kitchens and went into our pots. As an entire generation of young cooks, we had an opportunity to do things in a different way. The new horizons of the Nouvelle Cuisine led the most intellectually curious of our generation to explore deeply our own culinary heritage, digging down to the roots of cuisine and reading between the lines of our cookbooks. Some formidable cooks were leaders of the movement, among them Alain Chapel, Michel Guerard, Jean Delaveyne, and Alain Senderens; I am only mentioning those to whom I am personally indebted. At the same time the scientists started to ask questions and to work on issues of gastronomy. How did taste operate? What was really going on in the pots on the stove and the bottles in the vineyard? The 1970s saw the beginning of scientific conferences, sponsored by the French government, on nutrition and cookery. The alchemist's furnace was lit by the scientists, the engineers, the French National Institute of Research in Agronomy, and many others, in order to understand the nutritional value and effects of oligonucleotides, by which I mean the mineral trace elements, such as iron and zinc, in meat, fish, and the like. People started asking deep questions about basic ingredients, and the greatest chefs insisted on putting great products first and building a cult around them. At last, people realized the importance of great products for great cookery -- and therefore for great dining. (Let's not forget, by the way, that the rediscovery of the product is, in my view, due in large part to the rise of photography in our society, and the influence of television and culinary magazines on our appreciation

of food. For it is photography that can make explicit what cooks understand by intuition and conviction. A photograph of a salad leaf, shining in the sunlight and crowned with a drop of olive oil, can go a long way to convincing us of the importance of superb products. Photographers as well as chefs deserve credit for the new emphasis on fresh, quality products.) Some ten years later, around the beginning of the 1980s, biochemistry joined technology and opened the great adventure in nutrition that we are now living through. We are only at the beginning of this journey. It is important to recognize the role, step by step, that science has played in bringing us to where we are today, and notably to today's avant garde restaurants such as El Bulli. Although many cookery phenomena and techniques were a matter of instinct to experienced restaurant and home cooks, the scientists began, through theory and experiment, to demonstrate either why our culinary habits made sense -- or sometimes why they didn't. (The work of Herve This has been very important in this regard.) Let's review some of the main steps in the journey: -Recognizing the importance of water. We understood that it was important, but we didn't understand why. Now we know a lot more about the structure of water, its physical and physio-chemical properties, as well as the way it can make foods more appetizing or cause them to deteriorate -- the latter discoveries leading to new methods in food preservation. -Understanding the impact of heat on water absorption; the role of liaisons, of binders in different forms; the water released from cells; the oxidation of fats, enzymatic reactions; the suite of phenomena that degrade foods; cause them to change color or texture or develop micro-organisms. -The mastery of temperature is certainly, in my view, the biggest step of recent years. Temperature for bringing foods to the exact "right" point and knowledge of the temperature at which collagens begin to degrade are among those developments that have encouraged cooks to try new methods, such as long cooking at low temperature; use of new liaisons; sauces served at lower temperatures; lighter emulsions; jus lie and so on. All these new ideas stimulated chefs' creativity and led the more bold among them (or the more talented) to push their experiments as far as they could, motivated by clients who were always in search of new sensations and new discoveries. -New learning about the "organoleptic" qualities of plants, which is to say the vitamin and mineral components as well as the inherent natural qualities that lead substances to be stimulating and immediately recognized by the senses; the effects of herbs; new aromas; flavors; and textures are all advances exploited by chef-restaurateurs, notably Ferran Adria at his restaurant, El Bulli. -At the industrial level, the many applications of this research to the production of new products. The use of tools such as gums and binders that could be used in hot or cold foods has enabled the creation of new textures. All these concern are changing dining habits that formed over many generations. These steps in scientific progress have created a new El Dorado in gastronomy. Molecular Gastronomy is now reaching its apogee in the work of popularizing researchers such as Herve This. Raymond Dutreil, the French minister of tourism, has made an initial commitment of 400,000 toward an Institute for Advanced Studies in Taste, Gastronomy, and the Arts of the Table, which is being developed at the University of Reims. (Each student will pay 4,000 to attend.) Other sponsors include Credit Agricole, Moet-Hennessy, Alain Ducasse, and the National Market at Rungis. Elsewhere, Herve This and his movement have sponsored INICON, a project aimed at the "introduction of innovative technologies in modern gastronomy for the modernization of cooking"; it has a total budget of 1.1 million, with roughly half of this coming from the EU. We may be witnessing the beginning of a view that is more scientific and less commercial, but I am concerned that the desires of different factions will be difficult to reconcile. Though El Bulli, for example, has long used the Paco Jet, a machine that enables the creation of new textures, one objective of INICON is the development of an even more advanced mixer to produce some new dishes with special sensory characteristics. This mixer will make it possible to overcome the current limitations for certain processes and products such as emulsions, by implementing

different features such as controlled atmosphere (reduced pressure), controlled temperature (-5C to +100C), variable mixing speed, and so forth. Emulsions have been chosen because they are daily present in kitchens, being the base of many different sauces and mayonnaises, salad dressings, ice creams, shakes, etc. The new machine will first be a laboratory prototype. Commercial concerns thus seem to have taken a back seat to scientific ones, and to cooking itself. I believe we must not confuse research and pleasure. Chefs, eager to be recognized, are proud to be associated with the researchers, who have become the alchemists of modern times. The goal of the ancient alchemists was human progress and the protection of certain secrets that could harm humanity. Those talented chefs who have been able to take advantage of technical progress and a new understanding of foods are indeed able to astonish us. But I believe that we must above all keep in mind a principle that has long been fundamental to cuisine. As our predecessors put it so well: the product, the quality of the product and nothing but the product. We must continue to respect the product and the producer; we must learn to consume with care. My greatest fear is that we will see the molecular manipulation of foods take us down roads that could be detrimental to cuisine and to the culinary arts. There is a real risk that Molecular Gastronomy could be carried to the same excesses as the Nouvelle Cuisine of the 1970s. It is important that we learn about this movement and inform the public about it. All this being said, it is clear that Ferran Adria is a cook of enormous talent. It is also clear that gastronomes have the freedom to choose between more traditional and molecular cuisine. ***

In a culinary career spanning two continents and more than 35 years, Guy Gateau has been a chef de cuisine for diplomats, kings and their royal palaces, the prestigious hostelerie alliance Leading Hotels of the World, bistro owners, world-famous chefs and restaurateurs; he has been chef-patron of two restaurants, a culinary teacher, and a restaurant/hotel consultant. Guy has seen it all: the birth of the food boom; the vastly changing cooking and restaurant phenomena; and the shifting cross-cultural culinary winds on both sides of the Atlantic. He is also one of only 337 Maitres Cuisiniers de France, a title which instantly identifies him as a first-class chef.

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