The lecture schedule for the 2011 fall semester is as follows (exact dates and locations here):

1. Historical Context and Demos Illustrating the Relationship of Food and Science. Speakers: Dave Arnold (Food Arts magazine’s Contributing Editor for Equipment & Food Science), Harold McGee (author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen and columnist for The New York Times) and David Weitz (Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard)
2. Sous-vide Cooking: Phases of Matter. Speaker: Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca).
3. Heat and Temperature Flux in Chocolate. Speaker: Ramon Morató (Aula Chocovic)
4. Viscosity and Thickeners. Speaker: Carles Tejedor (Via Veneto), Fina Puigdevall and Pere Planagumà (les Coles)
5. Food Texture and Mouth Feel. Speaker: Grant Achatz (Alinea)
6. Gelation. Speaker: José Andrés (ThinkFoodGroup, minibar, Jaleo).
7. Emulsions: Traditional and New Emulsions. Speaker: Nandu Jubany (Can Jubany) and Carles Gaig (Fonda Gaig).
8. Proteins & Enzymes: Transglutaminase. Speaker: Wylie Dufresne (wd~50).
9. Browning Reactions: Culinary Examples. Speaker: Carme Ruscalleda (Sant Pau, Sant Pau de Tòquio).
10. Molecular Differences Between Production Methods. Speaker: Dan Barber (Blue Hill).
11. (Title to Come) Speaker: David Chang (momofuku)
12. Heat Transfer. Speaker: Nathan Myhrvold (former Microsoft CTO; co-founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures; and author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking)
13. Dessert. Speaker: Bill Yosses (White House)
14. Technology and Cooking. Speaker: Ferran Adrià (elBulli)

Below is the 2010 schedule for comparison. Remember that all of these are available on Youtube and iTunes!

1. Science and Cooking: A Dialogue. Speakers: Harold McGee, Ferran Adria (elBulli), José Andrés (minibar by josé andrés, Jaleo, The Bazaar) with commentary/moderation from Professors David Weitz and Michael Brenner (Harvard).
2. Sous-vide Cooking: a State of Matter. Speaker: Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca).
3. Brain Candy: How Desserts Slow the Passage of Time. Speaker: Bill Yosses (White House Pastry Chef).
4. Olive Oil & Viscosity. Speaker: Carles Tejedor (Via Veneto).
5. Heat, Temperature, & Chocolate. Speaker: Enric Rovira.
6. Reinventing Food Texture & Flavor. Speaker: Grant Achatz (Alinea).
7. Emulsions: Concept of Stabilizing Oil &Water. Speaker: Nandu Jubany (Can Jubany).
8. Gelation. José Andrés (ThinkFoodGroup, minibar, Jaleo).
9. Browning & Oxidations. Carme Ruscalleda (Sant Pau, Sant Pau de Tòquio).
10. Meat Glue Mania. Wylie Dufresne (wd~50).
11. Cultivating Flavor: A Recipe for the Recipe. Dan Barber (Blue Hill).
12. Creative Ceilings: How We Use Errors, Failure and Physical Limitations as Catalysts for Culinary Innovation. David Chang (momofuku).

In case you didn’t know the current world record for the world’s fastest ice cream is 10.34 seconds! To obtain the record you have to make one liter of ice cream from milk, sugar and flavoring (no eggs). Liquid nitrogen is used to rapidly cool and freeze the ice cream mixture. The current record was achieved by Andrew Ross (UK) at Cliffe Cottage in Sheffield,​ South Yorkshire,​ UK, on 6 June 2010. Prior to that the world record belonged to Peter Barham who in 2005 shaved two seconds of his previous record, ending at 18.78 seconds. To conclude his presentation on how food can be used to make students interested in physics and chemistry Peter decided to beat the current world record. Here’s a video of how it went:

Want to read more about the history of liquid nitrogen ice cream and find recipes? Then you should visit the webpages of The institute for liquid nitrogen ice cream experimental studies!

Remember the public cooking lectures at Harvard that I mentioned in September? According to the website they are *very popular* and the auditoriums are packed! This is good news, but the best thing is that the lectures are made available through YouTube and iTunes for free! So far 9 of the sessions are available, but I guess all will be available soon. If the picture is difficult to read, here’s the list of all the lectures:

Lecture 1: Science and Cooking: A Dialogue. Speakers: Harold McGee, Ferran Adria (elBulli), José Andrés (minibar by josé andrés, Jaleo, The Bazaar) with commentary/moderation from Professors David Weitz and Michael Brenner (Harvard).

Lecture 2: Sous-vide Cooking: a State of Matter. Speaker: Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca).

Lecture 3: Brain Candy: How Desserts Slow the Passage of Time. Speaker: Bill Yosses (White House Pastry Chef).

Lecture 4: Olive Oil & Viscosity. Speaker: Carles Tejedor (Via Veneto).

Lecture 5: Heat, Temperature, & Chocolate. Speaker: Enric Rovira.

Lecture 6: Reinventing Food Texture & Flavor. Speaker: Grant Achatz (Alinea).

Lecture 7: Emulsions: Concept of Stabilizing Oil &Water. Speaker: Nandu Jubany (Can Jubany).

Lecture 8: Gelation. José Andrés (ThinkFoodGroup, minibar, Jaleo).

Lecture 9: Browning & Oxidations. Carme Ruscalleda (Sant Pau, Sant Pau de Tòquio).

Lecture 10: Meat Glue Mania. Wylie Dufresne (wd~50).

Lecture 11: Cultivating Flavor: A Recipe for the Recipe. Dan Barber (Blue Hill).

Lecture 12: Creative Ceilings: How We Use Errors, Failure and Physical Limitations as Catalysts for Culinary Innovation. David Chang (momofuku).

Cheeseburger in hydrochloric acid

Do ice cubes made with heavy water float or sink?

Exotic ways to cut through butter

Spectacular ways of destroying pumpkins for Halloween

Tea chemistry

See Martyn Poliakoff boil an egg

(Martyn mentions that the yellow color of egg yolks is due to a sulfur containing compound, but I’m not really convinced he’s right about that. The yellow color is mainly due to a group of chemical compounds called xanthophylls which have long conjugated double bond systems that absorb light. And BTW – if you want to dissolve the egg shell in your own kitchen: skip the hydrochloric acid and use vinegar instead.)

Baking a cake in the lab with akward equipment…

… and then figuring out what to do with the cake
(it wasn’t eaten since it was made in a chemical lab)

Mirror images: Carraway and spearmint

Fun chemistry with Crispy creme eggs

Chocolate and roses for Valentines day

As the name suggests, the TGIF posts are a little less serious than what I otherwise post here at Khymos. I hope you enjoy it

If Richard Wiseman’s fork balancing trick is not challenging enough, why not try the fork balancing trick I did for part 8 (where I encourage experimentation in the kitchen) of my Ten tips for practical molecular gastronomy series. You only need two forks, two skewers, a wine cork and a little patience. If interested you can read more about the physics behind the balancing fork trick.

As the name suggests, the TGIF posts are a little less serious than what I otherwise post here at Khymos. I hope you enjoy it

Nathan Myhrvold giving a TED talk about some of his many interest (click image to see video). Photo by Neil Hunt from flickr.com (CC BY-NC 2.0).

If you’ve played around with sous vide cooking there’s a good chance that you’ve visited the massive eGullet thread on sous vide (currently spanning more than 100 pages and 3000 posts), and in that case you’ll be familiar with Nathan’s many well informed posts on sous vide. There have been rumours about an upcoming book for quite some time, and things are getting more and more exciting. The last I heard was that he had a team of 5 people working on a book about sous-vide. This has now increased to a team of 15 people, including 5 professional chefs, a photographer, an art director, writers and editors. And there’s more:

“The project has grown in size and scope. Originally planned as a 300-page discussion of sous vide, an increasingly popular restaurant technique of cooking food in vacuum-sealed bags in warm water baths, the book has swelled to 1,500 pages that will also cover microbiology, food safety, the physics of heat transfer on the stove and in the oven, formulas for turning fruit and vegetable juices into gels, and more.”

Wow! Let’s hope that Nathan’s “one year left” statement is actually true this time. I’m really looking forward to see this book!

Materials used:
2.0 g sodium alginate
200 g water (with low calcium content!)
50 g blueberry syrup

2.5 g calcium chloride
500 g water

Procedure:
2 g sodium alginate and 200 g water were mixed vigourously in blender. The mixture was then left to stand for some hours to get rid of the air bubbles. 50 g blueberry syrup was then added to the sodium alginate solution. A calcium chloride bath was prepared by dissolving 2.5 g calcium chloride in 500 g water. The sodium alginate/blueberry mixture was dripped into the calcium chloride bath using a plastic syringe with a steel cannula. After 1-3 min the pearls were removed and rinsed with water.

More detailed procedure with pictures and video:
I had to obtain a scale with a 0.1 g accuracy to weigh out 2.0 g of sodium alginate (my first experiments using a normal kitchen scale failed). The model I got cost about $100 and is inteded for school laboratories. Amazon provides several scales with this accuracy.

I used a blender to dissolve sodium alginate in water. This incorporates a lot of air in the mixture which we don’t want. It could possibly be avoided by using an immersion blender/mixer. However, I just left the alginate solution on the bench and after 3-4 hours the air bubbles had all escaped from the solution.

Plastic syringes and cannulas can be obtained from your local drug store or pharmacist. I found it was easier to produce evenly sized drops with a sharp cannula (CAREFULL!) than with just the plastic tip of the syringe. This of course depends on the viscosity of the solution. By thickening (with xanthan for instance) you can produce larger drops.

After 1-3 min the spheres were removed from the calcium chloride solution and rinsed with clean water. I dried the spheres carefully using a kitchen towel or paper.

Definitely looks like caviar when presented on a spoon like this!

Larger spheres were made by filling a small measuring spoon with the alginate mixture (I used a syringe for this so the outsides of the spoon would not be covered with alginate solution) and carefully emptied it into the calcium chloride bath. It takes some trial and error to achieve good results.

The spheres are suprisingly robust and can be handled without rupturing.

If cut with a knife, the spheres rupture and the liquid contents flows out.

The small spheres didn’t taste much, so I could have added more blueberry syrup. The large spheres however had a nice taste. The surprise element when they rupture in your mouth is very nice!

Monday, March 12

16.00-16.30
Other Ways of Thinking, Toni Massanes (Fundación Alicia).

16.40-17.10
Other Ways of Understanding, Antonio Duch (Fundación Azti).

17.20-17.50
Other Ways of Doing it, Harold McGee.

18.00-18.30
Other Ways of Seeing it, Davide Cassi.

18:40-19:40
What can Science Offer us in Addition to Techniques and Technology?,
Round table discussion with Toni Massanes (Fundación Alicia), Antonio Duch (Fundación Azti), Harold Macgee (writer), Davide Cassi (scientist), Heston Blumenthal (chef).

Update: Kate Hill at IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) has written an extensive report on the meeting.

Also, Bernard Lahousse (who is in charge of food for design and a co-organizer of the MG smeinar) has let me know that the next seminar will be held on March 16th with the title “A world of Pinot noir” – focus is on wine, but with live MG demos. Stay tuned!