Flavor pairing is a controversial* topic which I’ve blogged about many times in the past. In my last post I suggested that predicted aroma similarity may be a more precise term, and below is an attempt to illustrate predicted aroma similarity (of type 2d according to this classification) by using a color analogy. Let me explain a little first: The letters describe different foods and colors are used to illustrate the sum of the key odorants. The normal situation is that foods A and K (which are perceived as different because they are far apart in the alphabet) also have different colors meaning that they share few or no key odorants. A and B however are close in the alphabet and have similar colors, hence they share key odorants. In some cases foods that we think are very different (A and Z) may turn out to share several key odorants (i.e. have similar colors). The “flavor pairing hypothesis” is a way of finding the “Z” based on predict aroma similarity. I think one reason why we cannot always find the “Z” is that our sense of smell is not very analytical (compared to a gas chromatograph). One thing which I hope becomes clearer with the color analogy is that for a successful pairing one will need contrasting elements as well. This was also a general experience from the TGRWT experiments. I’m very curious whether this communicates well or just makes things even more confusing, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Let us assume that the two foods A and K with no key odorants in common taste marvelous together. Many (or possibly even most?) food pairings are of this kind.

Two similar foods A and C share a number of key odorants. This is no big surprise and most people will say that A and C are quite similar.

Aroma similarity prediction (the “flavor pairing hypothesis”) is a tool to identify Z which (surprisingly) turns out to be quite similar to A because they share key odorants. As mentioned above, finding Z is what is difficult.

Let us imagine a dish where A is a prominent ingredient. It’s combined with classic or empirical pairings (indicated with the different colors – the color tones are chose to match each other).

Based on aroma similarity prediction one can then introduce Z which (surprisingly) is similar to A because of overlapping key odorants.

One can even imagine the case where A is replaced by Z. If the process is repeated a dish can slowly morph into a new dish by exchanging one ingredient at a time.

*Controversial: See for instance the latest issue of Gastronomica where Maurits de Klepper criticizes flavor pairing under the title “Food Pairing Theory – A European Food Fad”. It’s an interesting piece and I recommend that you buy access to read it. But I should quickly add that there are a couple of things that I disagree with. What I’ve previously formulated as a flavor pairing hypothesis is turned into a theory, and I also disagree with the formulation that “the more aromatic compounds two foods have in common, the better they taste together”. In my previous blog post on the topic I have reformulated my viewpoint as follows: For foods with a predicted aroma similarity based on the analysis of it’s volatiles there is a good chance that they can be used together in a dish. It’s also a pity that de Klepper doesn’t cover the topic of key odorants (or odor activity values) properly, but mixes up the different categories (2a, 2b, 2c and 2d) of aroma similarity prediction that I’ve outlined previously. Despite this de Klepper summarizes the experiences from TGRWT very well when he says that flavor pairing “is not a guaranteed recipe for success – balancing flavors is what does the trick”. I couldn’t agree more.

You can tell that the days were packed during my visits to Belgium (The Flemish Primitives) and Denmark (Molecular gastronomy seminar) in March by the fact that I still blog about it in June. After the sous vide masterclass I attended a master class on taste technologies hosted by Quico Sosa (the man behind the Sosa company) and chef Dave De Belder. Many may frown upon flavors and their use in high end gastronomy, but anyone who considers using flavors as a shortcut to better cooking should rethink this as both successes and disasters are amplified (interestingly, Bruno Goussault said exactly the same about sous vide in the preceeding masterclass).

In haute cuisine, technology must be at the service of flavour and not otherwise. We must escape from the myth that everything was better in the past and also, that everything new is better. (“The technology of flavours”, Sosa ingredients)

From his presentations, advocating flavors and essences, one could easily think Quico Sosa was a chemist or a food technologist because of his very pragmatic approach to flavors and flavorings (in fact he studied philosophy). His motto could easily be summed up as: Use natural whenever possible, but understand when technology can give nature a boost! -If something is not beautiful it does not exist, says Quico Sosa. A fruit without flavour does not exist. We should of course use fresh fruit whenever possible, but we should not be afraid of using flavors.

Mackerel with carrot is a classic pairing, but the challenge for any chef is to capture the freshness of the carrot. The piece of mackerel served with carrot powder was a very good example of this. I think I’ve never tasted such a concentrated yet fresh carrot!

-We don’t know the flavor of a fresh product any more because we can’t buy it, he says and continues: If you go to a restaurant and it’s not tasty, you should complain. Today chefs have no excuse! Another example mentioned was mousse of lychees. It’s difficult to make because the flavor is so dilute, especially if it is also combined with other, stronger flavors. -In this case you need a bit of technical help, says Quico.

Quico Sosa composes flavors as were they perfumes. He always tries to use natural extracts, but adds pure compounds as required to achieve the desired flavors.

The essence of pea skins (left) gives the creamed peas an incredible freshness. The pea cream was served on a thin disk of white chocolate with royal Beluga caviar and freeze dried whole peas (top right). Anu Hopia, professor at University of Turku and fellow food blogger (molekyyligastronomia.fi, google translation) is ready to taste (bottom right).

After the session I asked Quico about how he perceives the natural/artificial debate, and his reply could just as well have come from a chemist: -The most dangerous thing we sell is natural nutmeg essence, says Quico. (due to myristicin in case you wondered!)

Yoghurt foam flavored with bergamot and sprinkled with liquorice powder (left). Liquorice extract is quite yummy just by itself (right).

A handout on the technology of flavors was provided during the session. Apart from repeating the common misconception of the tongue map of tastes it is well worth reading, in particular the second part on “New flavour technologies” which covers the different functions the flavor products may have as well as the different techniques used in their preparation (freeze drying, grinding/conching, concentration at low temperature/pressure, cold confit/candization, extractions). In a restaurant setting the use of flavor products and aroma extracts is quite different from the typical industrial setting. Examples include:

• provide variation in textures
• separate flavors from their texture/color
• enhance flavors that fade during cooking or are particularily unstable/weak
• use of aromas to scent the dining room
• experiments with flavor pairing

As a chemist I guess I’m quite open minded with regards to the use of flavors. But how do chefs see this? Is it OK to use flavors or is it regarded as cheating in high end restaurants?

The master class session with Quico Sosa included countless samples for tasting

As mentioned in my previous post about the flavor pairing presentation given by Wender Bredie as part of the Copenhagen seminar on molecular gastronomy I’m really happy that the topic has been brought into the scientific community. At the same time is has also become very clear to me that the term flavor pairing needs some clarification. First of all I have come to realize that the the term flavor pairing is slightly misleadning, and I wonder if aroma similarity perhaps is a more precise term. As I see it, today the term flavor pairing is used in a range of different ways:

1. Empirically based pairings. These are the good combinations of ingredients (or even food and wine) that more or less all cooking relies on. An excellent source for such flavor pairings is The Flavor Bible. If one can talk about any chemical principles at all it would be related to balancing the basic tastes and using contrasting elements. But the pleasantness of the empirical based pairings are probably also often subject to the exposure effect – you get used to something and eventually start liking it.
2. Predicted aroma similarity. This is the broad category that I’ve previously referred to as flavor pairing. It can be further subdivided into the following categories:
   1. Predicted aroma similarity based on overlap of one or a few volatiles
   2. Predicted aroma similarity based on the number of overlapping volatiles
   3. Predicted aroma similarity based on overlap between one or more of the high concentration volatiles
   4. Predicted aroma similarity based on overlap between high impact odorants (volatiles to compare are first selected based on OAV, AEDA, CHARM, FD …)
   5. Predicted aroma similarity based on similar neurological responses (as judged by fMRI or any other technique)

The reason I propose aroma similarity for category 2 is to avoid confusion with category 1. Also, such a term does not suggest that only combining the two will yield heavenly combinations. To a chef, it may even be the opposite, as foods or ingredients selected based on aroma similarity may be too similar if used by themselves. The predictive power in category 2 increases from 2a, 2b and 2c (where it is zero or very close to zero) to 2d and 2e (where predictions make sense). Personally I have always thought that what I previously referred to as flavor pairings should at least be of category 2d based on this, but I realize that I probably havent expressed this clear enough before. Another obvious reason to clearify the terms is of course that some of the discussion that arises around flavor pairing stems from different understandings and definitions of what flavor pairing is.

From what I’ve heard the flavor pairing examples Heston Blumenthal has come up with (or at least some of them) belong to category 2d/2e thanks to proprietary research that was made available to him. But since the background data has not been published (and probably never will be) it is difficult to evaluate this further. I also seem to remember that Heston has talked about flavor pairings of category 2a, 2b and/or 2c based on data from the VCF database (I think it was in one of the RSC videos). I do not know in which category the example from François Benzi (indole in jasmine and pork liver) belongs, but since indole was mentioned specifically it maybe category 2a unless indole is in fact present in high concentrations or even is a high impact odorant.

In the food blogging event They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) I have tried to argue that flavor pairing at least should be based on category 2d types of pairings. But due to the very limited amount of data available it has not been possible to asses whether the pairings published by Heston actually do have an overlap of the impact odorants. From what I’ve heard the foodpairing website (old .be site, new .com site) put together by Bernard Lahousse and Lieven De Couvreur does incorporate threshold values and thereby is based on the impact/activity of the odors and hence falls into category 2d, but regrettably very little has been published about the underlying methodology used to create the website.

Let me also add that although I firmly believe that it makes sense to talk about activity or impact of odorants, I have previously addressed some of the limitations with odor activity values, and I quote myself:

It’s only fair enough to add that the concept of odor activity values has it’s limitations. Some are related to matrix effects, because thresholds are not necessarily recorded in a matrix mimicking the food product. Possible synergies between flavour compounds are disregarded (examples are known where sub-threshold concentrations are detected in the presence of other volatile compounds). Also, the underlying assumption that the odor intensity increases linearily is not quite correct. The typical intensity vs. concentration curve is more ‘S’ shaped with an expansive, linear and compressive region as shown below. At low concentrations (expansive region) synergism (also known as hyperadditivity or mutual enhancement) is observed. At high concentrations (compressive region) antagonism (or subadditivity or mutual suppresion) is observed. This means that a high OAV overestimates and a low OAV underestimates the impact of the individual compounds.

The fact that Wender Bredie in his studies found absolutely no correlation between the hedonic score of the food pairings and the overlap of volatile flavors could at first be a little disappointing. But I believe the only conclusion that can be drawn using data from VCF (which has information about volatiles and some concentration data) is that type 2b/2c predictions are very weak. I strongly believe that one should take into account some kind of metric to filter out the odors that do not contribute to the overall aroma of the food.

For fun I checked Wender’s list of “the good, the bad and the ugly” using The Flavor Bible (a good source of category 1 flavor pairings) and the foodpairing website (presumably category 2c and/or 2d predictions). This is what I found:

It is interesting that The Flavor Bible (being purely empirical) actually mentions three of the “good” pairings. That it also mentions one of the “ugly” pairings is a good reminder that binary mixtures are not actually food and this real life is more complex. And it is also peculiar that all the garlic combinations were perceived as “ugly”. In a moussaka for instance one would combine cinnamon and garlic (with many other spices and herbs of course), and it is indeed quite delicious. Moving on to the predictions from foodpairing.be it is not so easy to draw any conclusions, but it is interesting that the four predicted aroma similarity pairs fall into the whole range of hedonic categories (i.e. ugly, bad and good). These could be interesting cases in a follow up study at lower concentrations as Wender mentioned in his presentation.

Based on the distinction between the different types of flavor pairing suggested above the flavor pairing hypothesis may be reformulated as follows: For foods with a predicted aroma similarity based on the analysis of it’s volatiles there is a good chance that they can be used together in a dish. Needless to say, the prediction should be of type 2d or 2e. Experience from the TGRWT rounds further suggests that some experimentation may be needed to find the right balance between the two and that contrasting elements are very important, otherwise the combination may turn out quite bland.

So to conclude:  What I’m after from a gastronomical perspective is a tool to pair foods and suggest extra ingredients based on aroma similarity. This first and foremost becomes interesting if the combinations are novel or have a surprise element. Because of the aroma similarity the complexity of the combination will presumably be less than anticipated. Thinking about the Wundt curve (which I learnt about in Michael Bom Frøst’s presentation in Copenhagen – more on that in a separate post) which suggests that pleasantness first increases and then decreases with increasing complexity, a less than anticipated complexity combined with novelty/surprise could perhaps be what we are looking for when we try to create new and delicious food.

A topic that I was particularily excited to hear about at the molecular gastronomy seminar in Copenhagen was flavor pairing. Since Heston Blumenthal presented his white chocolate and caviar combination based on amines in 2002 and Francois Benzi of Firmenich the pork liver-jasmine combination based on indole the idea has been further elaborated by Bernard Lahousse and Lieven De Couvreur who launched the foodpairing website and by me in the TGRWT food blogging event. Despite the interest and fascination it is fair to say the flavor pairing is still controversial – see for instance the discussion with in particular Jorge Ruiz. What is clearly lacking in the field is a more stringent scientific approach (as well as someone with time, interest, a sensory panel and the money to finance the activities…). It was therefore great to hear that sensory science professor Wender Bredie together with PhD student Ditte Hartvig actually set out to test the flavor pairing hypothesis formulated as: if major volatiles are shared between two foods it may very well be that they go well together. To achieve this they used a sensory panel to assess the odor of food pairs mixed and unmixed. Bredie proposed that a hyper addition of odor intensities would perhaps be the holy grail of flavor pairing – that is if the intensity of the mixed odors would be more than the sum of the unmixed intensities. Or even better: if there would be a hyper additive effect on pleasantness. 

A finding in their initial study with 8 pure volatiles smelled alone and in pairs was that the total odor intensity only increased when combining up to 2-3 components. This is in accordance with Fechner’s law which states that it takes a larger difference in physical stimuli to give the same rise difference in perceived intensity. The pleasentness of the individual components decreased when mixed. In a further study they prepared 53 binary mixtures from 19 food odors. The recorded responses were: intensity, pleasantness, complexity, “harmonic” and novelty. They found no real hyper additive effects for intensity – in 91% of the cases the mixture was perceived to be more intense than one compound perceived alone, but less intense than the other (= compromise region of hypo-addition). But turning to pleasantness there were a couple of interesting findings which were presented as the good, the bad and the ugly combinations, based on the pleasantness score from the sensory panel:

The good
lemon peel + butter
cinnamon + apple
ginger + apple
cinnamon + peanut butter
malt + peanut butter
cacao + malt
lemon peel + strawberry

The bad
ginger + blue cheese
caviar + apple
basil + caviar
vanilla + blue cheese
anis seed + basil
basil + green tea
anis seed + caviar

The ugly
cinnamon + blue cheese
anis seed + garlic
cacao + garlic
cinnamon + garlic
malt + blue cheese
caviar + blue cheese
malt + caviar

To test the flavor pairing hypothesis they then took the pairings and analyzed the overlap of volatiles using data from the VCF database. They found absolutely no correlation between the hedonic score of the food pairings and the overlap of volatile flavors! But knowing that many (if not most) of the volatiles compounds found in foods do not contribute to the aroma this is not very surprising. A further interesting test was to evaluate pleasantness as a function of complexity, but the conclusion in short was that one cannot use complexity to predict hedonic response.

Wender concluded that flavor pairing should be the subject of further and more elaborate studies, for instance at lower concentrations (in the so-called hyper additive region where the intensity increases exponentially with increasing concentration). Another approach could be to study sensory (dis)similarity rather than chemical similarity. One could also explore the arousal potential in pairs of dissimilar but liked flavours. He also suggested that one should keep on searching for additive hedonic responses. And he finished his presentation with the following quote:

“Flavour pairing is like painting in the dark… you do not really know what you are creating, but at daylight you may discover that you have moved art beyond imagination”.

I’m really happy that the topic has been brought into the scientific community – and I’m very much looking forward to see the results published. At the same time is has also become very clear to me that the term flavor pairing needs some clarification. I’ll discuss that in a separate post.

In my everday cooking sage is really underutilized. The only dish I can think of with sage that I’ve prepared during the last couple of years is potato gnocchi. So this was indeed the most likely candidate for experimentation in this month’s TGRWT #21. Potato gnocchi are one of those dishes that I suddenly feel a craving for, and I make it every now and then. When I get things right the gnocchi have a very light texture which fits nice with the melted butter and cheese. This time I decided to incorporate the peanuts into the gnocchi and apart from that stick to the original recipe.

While cooking I tried to chew some peanuts with a sage leaf, and this was a quite remarkable experience. The roasted peanut flavors blended into the sage, and the sensation was stronger than what is usually the case from the previous TGRWT rounds. When tasting sage by itself it will actually remind me of peanuts and vice versa. The last time I had a similar strong sensation was when combining roasted cauliflower with a cocoa agar gel.


I used a mini-food processor to grind the peanutes to a coarse powder.

Gnocchi with peanuts and sage
1 kg mealy/floury potatoes
100 g roasted peanuts
50 g butter
1 egg
250-300 g flour
1 t salt

For serving:
melted butter
chopped sage
grated parmesan
black pepper

Grind peanuts to coarse powder. Boil (or bake) potatoes (preferably unpeeled) until soft. Drain. While the potatoes are still hot, peel them and mash them. Add peanuts, butter, salt, egg and about half of the flour. Mix. Slowly add more flour until you get a soft and slightly sticky dough. Use as little flour as possible, but remember that with less flour the gnocchi are more prone to fall apoart (the added egg helps bind the gnocchi together by the way). Make a roll, approximately 2.5 cm in diameter and cut 1.5 cm pieces. Press against the back of a fork for the characteristic pattern, and place the gnocchi on a towel sprinkled with flour or semolina. Bring a large pot of salted water to a slow boil (is the salt really necessary here?) and cook the gnocchi for 2-3 minutes, or until they float to the surface. Remove from the water and drain. Serve with melted butter, chopped sage and plenty of grated parmesan and ground black pepper.

Gnocchi ready to be cooked. Use too much flour in the dough and you get boiled lumps of flour. Use too little flour and your gnocchi will fall apart.

Verdict: The amount of peanuts used gave a noticeable, yet mild nutty flavor which actually fitted the gnocchi quite nice (for future gnocchi attempts I can imagine even trying other nuts as well, such as hazelnuts or walnuts). The sage works very well as an aromatic and fresh component together with the more “heavy” flavors of potato, butter and parmesan. And frankly, I must say that the gnocchi were a success! I’ll make a note in the cook book that adding 100 g of peanuts works nice so I won’t forget the next time I make potato gnocchi.

A quick search over at The good scents company reveals that the butyraldehyde occurs naturally in both sage and roasted peanuts. But as I’ve pointed out several times previously – as long as we don’t know the impact odorants it’s impossible to tell whether this is the compound that ties sage and roasted peanuts together or not. If you’ve done litterature searches for impact odorants of roasted peanuts and sage, please tell me about it in the comments

It’s been a couple of months since the last round of “They go really well together” where food bloggers around the world explore food pairings based on similarities in their aroma profiles. The similarity is not based on the concentrations of the aroma components, but rather the odor impact of the components to the overall aroma (and in case you wondered: impact does vary with concentration, but it varies even more with the detection threshold). In other words, what this food pairing does is to point at two foods (which often may seem quite different) and say that these actually have something in common. And because of that it could be worthwhile to try and use them together when cooking. The 21st round of TGRWT is hosted by Greg over at Humbling attemts at creativity, and the foods to pair are sage and roasted peanuts. Head over to his announcement post for more details on how to participate. The deadline is June 1, so there is plenty of time for some creative cooking the next couple of weeks! If you’re not yet familiar with TGRWT you may want to have a look at some of the previous TGRWT rounds.

I prefer my coffee black, and politely decline when offered milk and sugar. However, if offered salt I would probably smile and say “Yes, please!” Salt???! It turns out that adding salt to coffee is not as weird as it may sound at first. There is a tradition for adding a pinch of salt to coffee in Northern Scandinavia, Sibir, Turkey and Hungary. And when available, such as in coastal areas where fresh water from rivers mixes with the salt sea, one would simply use brackish water when preparing coffee. This water typically has a salt content of 0.5-3%, which is lower than the average 3.5% in seawater. This results in a more intense taste and more foaming. And if living far from the sea, the Swedish food blogger Lisa Förare Winbladh let me know that in Northern Sweden one would deliberately add salt if using melt water from glaciers for making coffee. But tradition aside, is there a scientific explanation of this widespread tradition of preparing coffee with addition of salt?

The first thing that comes to mind is that salt reduces bitterness. And to be more precise it is the sodium ion (Na⁺) that interferes with the transduction mechanism of bitter taste. But interestingly the mechanism behind this is not fully understood! One of my very first blog posts was about tonic water and how one by adding salt can suppress the bitter taste and make tonic water more or less sweet. It’s a fascinating experiment that you should try at home. Expect to use about 1,5-2 g salt for a glass with roughly 1,5 dL (150 g) of tonic water. It’s a good idea to start with a little salt and taste it as you go.

Try adding a little salt to tonic water – the effect is quite surprising: The characteristic bitterness from the added quinine disappears!

Bitterness is an important flavor in coffee, but under less-than-optimal extraction conditions it can be too dominant. Generally bitter tasting compounds are less water soluble than other coffee flavors, hence the bitter compounds are extracted towards the end of the brewing. High temperatures (close to boiling) and long extraction times also favor bitterness. In that respect the coffee percolator is known to produce rather bitter, over-extracted coffee due to near boiling temperatures, and such coffee would most likely benefit from a little salt! And before the percolator came the ground coffee was just put into the boiling water and then left to settle. I can really imagine how brackish water could actually benefit

But the salt need not be reserved for over-extracted coffee. I’ve tried using salt both in a drip coffee maker and in the filter basked when pulling an espresso. The tests were very un-scientific, but the tiny amount of salt does dampen bitterness and change the coffee taste (but the coffee does not have a salty taste). Since I lack cupping experience, I certainly lack the language to describe how salt influences the taste, so I leave it up to you to try it out! And maybe some baristas with cupping experience can fill me out on this and do some tests?

In stead of just using plain salt with coffee, cured ham would signal rafinesse if served in central Europe, whereas in Northern Sweden there is a tradition for serving dried meat with coffee. The Swedish author Mikael Niemi describes this in his novel Popular music from Vittula:

“… and then the pièce de résistance among all the sweetmeats: a hard, brown lump of dried reindeer meat. Salty slices were cut and placed in the coffee, chunks of coffee-cheese stirred in, and white sugar lumps were held between the lips. And then, fingers trembling, we all poured the coffee mixture into our saucers, and slurped our way to heaven.”

With cured ham, apart from the salt-coffee interaction, one also has the combination of meat and coffee. From previous flavor pairing rounds TGRWT #1 and #5 (chocolate/coffee and coffee/meat respectively) we have seen that coffee and meat in some ways approach each other and are actually a good combination. A secret tip BTW is to add a little coffee to your beef stocks for extra depth and richness – this works because coffee shares many impact flavors with browned meats due to the Maillard reaction.

Now I’m curious – are you aware of coffee-salt combinations in your own country? Please tell me about it! And if you try a pinch of salt in your coffee – how did it taste?

Update: Read about my tests of coffee with salt at Tim Wendelboe’s coffe shop

–
Some articles that discuss the role of sodium ions (Na⁺) in suppression of bitter receptors:

Breslin, P. A. S; Beauchamp, G.K. “Suppression of Bitterness by Sodium: Variation Among Bitter Taste Stimuli” Chemical Senses 1995, 20, 609-623.

Breslin, P. A. S; Beauchamp, G.K. “Salt enhances flavour by suppressing bitterness” Nature 1997 (387), 563.

Bresling, P. A. S “Interactions among salty, sour and bitter compounds” Trends in Food Science & Technology 1996 (7), 390. (free download)

Keast, R. S. J.; Breslin, P. A. S. “An overview of binary taste–taste interactions” Food Quality and Preference 2003, 14(2), 111.

In addition to suppression of bitterness, salt can enhance sweetness at low concentrations and umami flavors at higher concentrations (more about this in part 5 of “Practical tips for molecular gastronomy”).

If I were to name a topic for this year’s Flemish Primitives event I guess gadgets would be it. I’ve already covered the high pressure processing in a previous post. Regrettably we were only shown pictures and movies of this machine (it is to large/complex to be brought on stage) but there was much more that would qualify for a post focusing on some of the gadgets presented.

Crycotuv
The most obscure machine in my opinion was the Crycotuv – a vacuum chamber which could be cooled to any desired temperature between -150 and 0 °C in seconds/minutes. The rapid cooling was achieved by evaporation of liquid nitrogen (so in order to run a Crycotuv you’ll need a steady supply of LN2). The major benefit of rapid vacuum freezing is significantly less cell damage. In conventional freezing the damaged cells cause leaks when the food is thawed. When the desired vacuum was reached, a spray nozzle also allowed flavors to be sprayed onto foods inside the vacuum chamber, resulting in a “vacuum impregnation”. This was demonstrated with oranges slices which were submerged in coffee. Using the Crycotuv the airpockets were replaced by coffee.

(skip the long intro with overly dramatic music and view from 0:53 – that’s were the demo starts)

The most interesting demonstration was how one could use the vacuum to expand foods and then freeze them to obtain sponges. This was done with foie gras and I sure wish I could have tasted one of those! The Crycotuv is based on a ideas from Kristof Coppens and produced by Messer, and during the sessions the Jean-Claude Claeys and Harold Demoen (from Messer and Cretel respectively) were also on stage.

During the presentation is occured to me that the vacuum impregnation (without cooling) is identical to what you can do with the Gastrovac, and that you could even make a DIY version with a pressure cooker and a water suction pump. Or if you have a food saver with the possibility of attaching jars you can use them as well for vacuum impregnation.

Chef Roger van Damme with the EmulsionFire. Photo by Piet De Kersgieter.

EmulsionFire
An immersion blender will bring you quite far when making emulsions such as mayonnaise, but if you want to make emulsions at a larger scale the EmulsionFire could be your choice. The machine was demonstrated by chef Roger van Damme and 3 emulsion samples were handed out to every participant – they were indeed thick and very rich. In fact, it’s possible to make emulsions as thick as Nutella with EmulsionFire. It was mentioned that the machine uses magnets, but no details were given on this. My guess is that the machine uses a contact less, magnet based drive train in the emulsifier unit as would probably be qutie favorable from a cleaning viewpoint – but this is only a guess.

Samples prepared by the EmulsionFire: dark chocolate, milk chocolate and coconut creams.

Laboratory equipment
The large laboratory supplier VWR was a sponsor of the event and had a range of equipment on display at the back of the scene. I talked to the VWR sales representative Dominique Mauroy and he let me know that they soon will launch a brochure with laboratory equipment of particular relevance for use in the kitchen. I’ll update once I know more about this. There is also a launching event planned on April 19 in Belgium. Anyway – here are some of the gadgets VWR had on display. This is equipment that we use daily in my daytime job, and it’s really fun to see how it has found it’s way into kitchens.

To the left a conventional rotary evaporator, but check out the wide mouthed flask on the right! This is perfect glassware for food stuffs which are sticky and may require more extensive cleaning.

In chemistry labs UltraTurrax stirrers are a common sight. They are high shear stirres but without “external” moving parts (like the knives of an immersion blender) and are excellent for dispersion of hydrocolloids.

Freeze driers (left) are well known in the food industry, but chefs are also beginning to see the potential that lies in this low temperature flavor concentration technique. Of course there were also water baths for sous vide on display.

To the left a standard laboratory heating plate with magnetic stirring. To the right magnetic stirring bars of different sizes.

SOSA aroma library
SOSA should be well known to many with their extensive product range for professional kitchens. At The Flemish Primitives this year they displayed their aroma library. With a total of 192 flavors grouped into categories such as sweets, nuts, herbs, flowers, vegetables, roots, fiction, lactis etc you basically have “an alphabet of flavors” at your hands. It’s a great way of learning flavors and a perfect toolbox when investigating flavor pairings. I’d sure like to have a library like this in my kitchen! Interestingly Sense for taste (who formally run the foodpairing website) and SOSA had co-published a small booklet on flavorpairing with two recipes using some of the flavors from the “flavor alphabet”.

“Alphabet of flavors” from SOSA: 192 flavors at your finger tips!

Wine table
And finally a gadget for the more tech savy people: a Microsoft Surface table running a wine application (from the company Metanous). As you can see from the pictures and the video a coaster with an identifying chip is attached to each wine bottle. When the bottle is put down on the table it is immediately recognized and a circular menu appears around the bottle. If you move or rotate the bottle, the menu follows the movements. The menu gives access to text, pictures and videos about the wine, the grape variety, the growing region, interviews with the wine producers etc. The table allows plenty of simultaneous user interaction with different gestures and touches.

Due to the outbreak sessions I regrettably missed the presentation of Sergio Herman’s sophisticated dinner plates.
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I also visited The Flemish Primitives in 2009. You can read more about that in my four posts from last year: The Flemish Primitives: A travel report (part 1), Chocolate surprise (part 2), Heston Blumenthal (part 3) and Glowing lollipops (part 4). Final note to readers: This year my travel expenses were covered by TFP and the tourism bureau of Brugge.

Again I was lucky that all the practical details worked out so I could attend this year’s Flemish Primitives in Brugge. For some one who’s not attended, it’s not so easy to grasp the concept and ideas behind The Flemish Primitives (TFP). And I admit, even though I’ve been there twice it’s not so easy to convey it in a short way. First of all the name is rather cryptic (unless you’re into art) as it refers to early Netherlandish painting. The link to food is described as follows by the organizers of the event (my highlights):

In the 15th and 16th century, ’The Flemish Primitives’ were masters in combining their talent with new techniques. Techniques they developed by interacting with other disciplines like manuscripting, sculpting, etc. This way of working changed the painting techniques in all of Western Europe forever. The event ‘The Flemish Primitives’ wants to continue in the same spirit. Respect for food products and beverages, the knowledge of the classic cooking techniques combined with a stimulation of new techniques and creativity. By promoting interaction between scientists, the world’s most famous chefs and artists, the event wants to deliver a creative boost for the food industry and gastronomy in Belgium and the world.

Considering last year’s sucess it was no big surprise that this year’s event was sold out (and the foyer of the Concertgebouw was equally full in the coffee breaks). And with the memories from last year I arrived in Brugge with great expectations. One main difference from previous years was that the scientific parts were much better integrated throughout the day. Scientists were on stage alongside the chefs, explaining their work. Also, contrary to last year’s back stage kitchen, they had now moved the kitchen onto the stage, flanked by a bar, some sofas and laboratory mezzanine. A good decision!

Flavor pairing (or food pairing as they call it) was the main topic of last year, but even this year flavor pairing was mentioned throughout the day by several people. It’s also obvious that Bernard Lahousse and his team have worked hard to get some of the sponsors of the event to incorporate the idea into their printed material (Belcolade and SOSA).

Flavor pairing diagrams like this one were incorporated into the Belcolade (= Belgian chocolate company) handouts. Similar diagrams for a great number of food items can be found at the food pairing website.

As I see it, one of the main objects of TFP is to find (or even create) new sources of creativity for chefs. And art, science and cooking can indeed be a fruitfull mix for creative exchange and development. Working as a chef is all about constantly finding new sources of creativity. Even among the very best, one can find signs of creative fatigue – it suffices to mention Ferran Adria who recently announced that el Bulli would close down for two years (2012 and 2013). He gives several reasons, but The Times Online reports that according to Spanish culinary insiders the “effort needed to keep dreaming up mouthwatering wonders, has worn him down” (more in a recent Q&A from WSJ). Ferran does however promise to be back in 2014!

TFP 2010 included presentations of five novel technologies and concepts. These included the use of very high pressure for processing of seafood and fruit. This is commonly done in the food industry for preservation purposes, but now it was used mainly for the textural and flavor changes induced. A second device shown was a combined vacuum and freezing chamber were the freezing was effected by liquid nitrogen, allowing virtually any temperature between 0 and -150 °C to be reached within minutes. Regrettably I missed part of the presentation of the third device (due to break out sessions that were running alongside the main program – more on those later). But from the pictures it seemed to be a microfluidic device for precise delivery of flavor essences (feel free to fill me out on this one in the comments!). The last machine presented was a kitchen emulsifier for preparation of emulsions as viscous as Nutella. I’ll post pictures and more info on the gadgets in a separate post.

In the preparations to this years event surveys with chefs and consumers had led to the forumlation of 10 statements on the identity of Belgian gastronomy, which in essence are not too different from the Statement on the ‘new cookery’ which was formulated by Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and Harold McGee back in 2006. I think they are well formulated and it’s hard to disagree with any of the statements. I also belive that most of them could be adopted by many chefs world wide by substituting their own country into the statements. I bring the statements here in extenso for your convenience:

1. Local ingredients. Work with regional products.
2. High-quality ingredients. Work with products of the best quality available preferably in Belgium. Work with seasonal products in the right season.
3. Producer orientation. Chefs have the power to control the quality of the ingredients by making specific choices and demands. Belgian chefs are partly responsible for the motivation of producers to supply the highest quality.
4. Consumer orientation. Chefs have the power to broaden the palate and to revalue or upgrade specific products by paying attention to forgotten, seasonal and local products, or products with low intrinsic value.
5. Inventiveness and openness. Be open to new techniques and products. Strive for innovation and improvement.
6. Inventiveness and cooperation. Strive for intensive cooperation between chefs, the industry and the scientific community. Information exchange is particularily important, also between chefs.
7. Innovation and tradition. Innovation and tradition are not opposites. Have respect for traditional Belgian cuisine by including this respect or tradition as such in dishes.
8. Tastiness and well-being. Strive for food which is tasty above all, but also keep in mind to provide a state of well-being during and after the meal.
9. Moral responsibility. Strive for the use of products that have been produced in an ethical, ecological and sustainable manner.
10. Multisensorial tastiness. Strive for an optimum and ample stimulation of all senses of the consumer. Create a socially agreeable and exclusive experience.

Apart from all the journalists present this year there were also a couple of food bloggers present. You may already know the blogs which mainly focus on restaurant reviews: Very good food (Denmark), Food snob blog (UK), High end food (Germany), Food intelligence (France), Cuisiner en ligne (France) and Gastros on tour. I had a chat with some of them and they all have non-food day time jobs, just like myself. Like last year I plan to write several posts on various topics from TFP – and I will publish this as soon as time allows. But in the mean time, check out the blogs mentioned for a perspective and covering of TFP 2010 that will probably be different from mine

Update: There were more food bloggers present: Coolinary (Belgium), Der Kompottsurfer (Germany).

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I also visited The Flemish Primitives in 2009. You can read more about that in my four posts from last year: The Flemish Primitives: A travel report (part 1), Chocolate surprise (part 2), Heston Blumenthal (part 3) and Glowing lollipops (part 4). Final note to readers: This year my travel expenses were covered by TFP and the tourism bureau of Brugge.

This month’s round of TGRWT is hosted by John Sconzo over at Docsconz, and the foods to pair this time are pumpkin and cooked chicken.* As always you can find instructions on how to participate in the announcement post. If you are new to TGRWT (which stands for They Go Really Well Together), check out the round-ups of the previous 19 rounds!

* In case you wondered why the link to the announcement posts includes lemon grass: There was some confusion regarding how to read the charts at the foodpairing website. The initial suggestion was to use pumpkin and lemon grass, but his has now been changed to pumpkin and cooked chicken.