Tag Archives: calcium alginate

Pushing molecular gastronomy boundaries to create new cooking techniques

Researchers are hoping to develop new cooking techniques eventually by looking closely at how chefs practice molecular gastronomy, From an Oct. 1, 2014 news item on phys.org,

One of the most iconic forms of avant-garde cuisine, also known as molecular gastronomy, involves the presentation of flavorful, edible liquids—like cocktails or olive oil—packaged into spheres. Now a team of scientists, in collaboration with world-renowned chef Ferran Adriá, is getting to the bottom of what makes these delectable morsels possible. Their findings appear in ACS’ The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

For anyone who wants to see these edible liquids, there’s this demonstration by Ferran Adriá

An Oct. 1, 2014 American Chemical Society news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, provides a few more details about the research,

Christophe Chipot, Wensheng Cai and colleagues explain that the technique of “spherification” was invented 70 years ago but was popularized in avant-garde cuisine more recently by Adriá. The process of making the spheres involves packaging juice or other liquid ingredients in envelopes of calcium alginate, a gelatinous substance made mostly out of molecules extracted from brown seaweed. Although spherification has become a prominent technique in molecular gastronomy, no one had investigated the formation and stability of the alginates at the atomic level. Chipot’s team wanted to change that.

The researchers used classical molecular dynamics techniques to probe how alginate spheres form. Among other discoveries, they found that alginate chains spontaneously wrap like a net around liquid droplets and that calcium ions were key. They concluded that studies such as these, which bridge the gap between material science and avant-garde cuisine, could help chefs and food scientists rationally design the next generation of innovative cooking techniques.

The funds for this work came from a number of institutions (from the news release),

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China and the Cai Yuanpei program of the  [France?] Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du Développement International.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

From Material Science to Avant-Garde Cuisine. The Art of Shaping Liquids into Spheres by Haohao Fu, Yingzhe Liu, Ferran Adrià, Xueguang Shao, Wensheng Cai, and Christophe Chipot. J. Phys. Chem. B, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/jp508841p Publication Date (Web): September 15, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

The researchers have also made this image illustrating the transformation of a bowl of peas into a chemical mass and finally into a reconstructed, liquid pea available.

PeaMolecularGastronomy