Molecular Gastronomy Quotes

In San Francisco, the majority of the restaurants are ingredient-driven. In New York, that is true as well, but there's also a greater focus on technique.

At wd~50, we have carried on, I think, a very honest, legitimate European tradition of messing with foie gras.

I'm always up for music shows such as Jools Holland, but news more than anything, particularly Newsnight. And cookery: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rick Stein - it's down to him that I cook fish so much - and the great food alchemist Heston Blumenthal.

When I came to El Bulli, right away I knew I was becoming part of something incredible. It was like watching the Big Bang happening right in front of me.

The kitchen's a laboratory, and everything that happens there has to do with science. It's biology, chemistry, physics. Yes, there's history. Yes, there's artistry. Yes, to all of that. But what happened there, what actually happens to the food is all science.

Right now, I am doing the reverse of molecular gastronomy. I'm working with scientists to find ingredients and produce that are proven to be good for you.

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.

I don't understand people who travel purely gastronomically, who book a Michelin-starred restaurant three months in advance and suddenly find themselves in Copenhagen or Barcelona with a zeitgeist plate of snail porridge.

Molecular gastronomy is not bad... but without sound, basic culinary technique, it is useless.

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.

France and Britain have large culinary differences, but one thing they do share is a relatively low tolerance for modernist cooking.

I would say that molecular gastronomy is a field of science. I would - I would say that it's probably lumped under chemistry, maybe. Because cooking, while it has certainly biology and some physics, it's mostly chemistry.

I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.

I actually don't think there is any difference between French and American cuisine. French cuisine was always about discipline, about ingredient, about creativity, but also about simple. I see America as very similar in these rights.

Ferran Adria making hamburgers... some thought it was crazy. But getting them perfect was a challenge. Plus I'm fascinated by all aspects of food.

Chemistry was my college interest. Cooking is about chemistry.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been shy about how important Ferran Adria has been in my life; he is a friend, a mentor, an inspiration.

Here's the irony in what I do: When I go out to eat, I like classic French food. I like amazing Japanese food that has such a history that it goes back hundreds of years. And I also like really innovative food as well.

When you talk about avant-garde cuisine, the surprise factor is really important. For example, I love looking at blogs and the photos, but I'm not that keen on other people taking photos of my dishes.

My mother is a southern lady with short dark hair and a wary, blue-eyed smile. She is also an experimental chemist and teaches a college course entitled The Chemistry of Cooking.

I wanted to take nouvelle cuisine further, to the point where we were breaking down the essence of taste and sensation, reconfiguring food as a series of really intense hits on the tongue.

Cooking is chemistry, really.

When we first did 'Modernist Cuisine,' I think most people in cookbook publishing would have said, 'This is insane.'

The food being presented at the most expensive restaurants, by the most sophisticated chefs, was not always recognizable as food to the diner - it required a leap of faith, and I felt curious about that phenomenon.

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!