A perfect boiled egg in 32 minutes? Don’t let science ruin the joyful imperfection of home cooking | Alicia Kennedy

R.o Making pearls of balsamic vinegar, the first good amount of olive oil in a tall cup. While waiting in the refrigerator, in a small saucepan over medium heat, brought the vinegar and reward the raid to the beginning of the boiling-until the Agaar is dissolved. Let this mixture cool, remove the oil from the refrigerator, and use a pipette to drop vinegar balls cut in the oil to form pearls. Drain in another container using a small sieve to arrest pearls. Oil reservation to use another.

I remember that I made this, the first and only in what is known as “molecular cooking art”, in 2013. It was already a little at that time, but the scientific experience of creating simple acidic appetizers for chocolate and strawberry cake was undoubtedly fun. The impact of the lesson on how to use AGAR-Agar, which is the vegetable gelatin derived from seaweed, in dishes like Panna Cotta or Flan, but I have never done the pearls again. It was a modernity, and now I have a wonderful memory of my influence such as Ferran Adria, the Spanish chef who spread these types of operations through El Bulli Restaurant.

Pearls appeared in the mind while reading an experience conducted by Ernesto de Mayo from the University of Naples in Italy. His team found that if you switched an egg between boiling water and 30 ° C every two minutes for eight sessions, with a total of 32 minutes, the egg will be cooked evenly between white and yolk. New world This conclusion has been reported Instead, as if home chefs really feel confused about how to boil the egg as they like.

Instead of cooking science that revolves around making a beautiful and enjoyable thing, such as vinegar pearls, this experiment was about conducting a state of daily cooking workers, consuming time and taking a long time. I can see someone doing this experience once, the way I made the pearls of vinegar, then return to a real and real way. (When it is worth it, dropping eggs in the already boiling water and allowing them to cook for seven minutes is how I get its preferred tissue from the Jammy Orange.)

In the long history of the relationship between cooking and chemistry, there was often this type of pressure between what would actually happen and enlighten a home cook, and the pursuit of perfection-whether in technology, taste or nutrition. In fact, the kitchen was defined in the United States throughout the first part of the twentieth century through a gap between gourmet, who were interested in food and wine for the pleasure that he gave them, and “scientific chefs”, who were obsessed with eating as eating the means of eating the appropriate amount of vitamins Minerals and calories without any interest in the joys of the table.

“Food Science” differs from the molecular cooking style that the restaurant is moving because it usually focuses on nutrition, flavor chemistry and the stability of the shelf to the most common ends to create industrial products. The molecular cooking art, a term formulated in 1988 by British physics born in Hungarian Nicholas Corte and French physical chemist Herve, was focused on cooking applications for principles and scientific cooking: it’s slowly in a water bath. Using liquid nitrogen to create carrot foam; Or convert olive juice tissue through mobility. These technologies were circulated through El Bulli, Wylie Duffresne’s New York City Restaurant WD ~ 50, and Grant Achatz’s Chicago Restaurant Aleinea – and the last is the only one of those who are still open and crossed with apple -filled apple -filled with the table that reaches the table In the form of a balloon. (I ate there, and inspired me to Sous-Vide slices from Rutabaga-Swedish-Once again, only once.)

Instead of these types of taste tasting perhaps, “innovation” tends in food these days to come in forms that focus on a perfect sustainable future: fake meat based on plant; Special seed companies driven by chefs, such as Dan Barbers, grade 7; Or strawberries that are grown throughout the year by Oishii. This is more in line with what was about food science, which is accuracy, monotheism and repetition: products that can determine and transform profit, but keep cooking considerations learned from molecular cooking art.

If there is a scientific touch of food, it will be understood that there must be an element of this purpose of high blood vessels in full swing in order to persuade people of its value.

Although it was always fun mixing scientific methods with home cooking, what worries me about focusing on “innovation” for squash or “ideal” strawberries, a soy -based soy pie, or new techniques for simple things such as egg boiling It is that it can have a deterrent people from cooking. Learn how to choose fruits or vegetables on the market and reach the kitchen for cooking it will always be the work of experience and error, and they should be enjoyable.

Cooking is an experiment, every day, on how to collect water, oil, salt and many other elements for the purpose of making a delicious thing. But unlike the laboratory or factory, the result does not need to be the same at a time, or holds accurate scientific standards. The weather, mood and attention affects how human chefs – and there is a lot to enjoy defects.

• Alicia Kennedy is a nutritional and culture writer and an author that does not need meat: cultural history and the future of cooking for vegetable eating, and upcoming notes about eating: making and delicious