At wd~50, we have carried on, I think, a very honest, legitimate European tradition of messing with foie gras.
It's just about asking why. We as cooks historically have been very, very technically proficient but not technically informed as to why we do what we do. Modernist cuisine is about that knowledge.
In the 1970s we got nouvelle cuisine, in which a lot of the old rules were kicked over. And then we had cuisine minceur, which people mixed up with nouvelle cuisine but was actually fancy diet cooking.
Today we take New England clam chowder as something traditional that makes our roots as American cooking very solid, with a lot of foundation. But the first person who decided to mix potatoes and clams and bacon and cream, in his own way 100 to 200 years ago, was a modernist.
As a pure source of reference, 'Modernist Cuisine' is incredibly helpful. It's like a modern-day encyclopedia, except for a single subject. It's not always the answer, but it's always a starting point. I feel honored to have been able to contribute to it.
[Molecular gastronomy] was a great trend, because it experimented with food. The benchmark was [former elBulli head chef] Ferran Adrià, and now he is no longer there it is harder to gauge.
When we first did 'Modernist Cuisine,' I think most people in cookbook publishing would have said, 'This is insane.'
Cooking is an art, but all art requires knowing something about the techniques and materials. Using modernist techniques, you get more control, and that allows you to be more artistic, not less!
