It came as no big surprise that NOMA defended its no. 1 position in April. A lot of the press coverage of NOMA and René Redzepi focuses on foraging (some even claim that we are in The Era of the ‘I Foraged With René Redzepi Piece’). It is all about nature and natural ingredients. Many would probably claim that NOMA is as far away from molecular gastronomy and science as you could possibly come. In March René Redzepi attended The Flemish Primitives in Oostende. I was there, and the one question I asked René at the press conference was this:

ML: The Flemish Primitives aims to bring together chefs, scientists and artists. There is also a co-operation between Noma and the University of Copenhagen. What have you learnt from from working with scientists?

RR: A lot! A lot! There is an incredible amount of knowledge to be gathered. Chefs are caretakers of flavor whereas scientists care about why things happen. But they don’t care about flavor. Torsten Vildgaard, one of my chefs, has been working 4 months every year on the project at Copenhagen University.

In a recent interview with WSJ René also said that “a lot of the techniques developed during the molecular phase have now been incorporated even into our style of cuisine because of their practicality”. I find it very fascinating and reassuring that René sees no contradiction between a modern approach to cooking, utilizing science and technology for what it’s worth, on the one side and his own cooking on the other. He is truly open minded and lets modern equipment and techniques coexist with his foraging approach.

During the interview René also mentioned the Nordic food lab, a non-profit organization founded by René Redzepi and Claus Meyer that aims to scientifically explore the New Nordic Cuisine (manifesto, 40-page booklet). They promote open sharing of their results, and contrary to food research in universities the Nordic food lab is “committed to show tangible results on a more frequent basis and on a slightly lower academic level than would be expected from e.g. a university.” I really recommend checking out their news section (which is more or less in a blog format – unfortunately I could find any funtioning RSS link on the page, but http://www.nordicfoodlab.com/feed seems to work!)

Of course René also talked about other stuff than food science and molecular gastronomy. One thing that he’s particularily focused on now is the new food festival MAD foodcamp (MAD is “food” in Danish). It takes place on August 27 & 28 (the last two days of the Copenhagen Cooking festival). The topic this year will be vegetation, there will of course be chef & food, but there is also an International symposium and they have announced that Harold McGee is coming! René mentioned that the most challenging part is in fact to find writers and scientists who want to contribute to the symposium.

The Flemish Primitives aims to bring together chefs and scientists to promote culinary innovation. The last two editions held in Brugge focused on food pairing and new technologies. This year the event had moved to Oostende and the more spacious Kursaal (a good choice!). The event had also been stretched over two days, starting with 10 master classes in five parallel sessions on Sunday followed by a Gala dinner prepared by 13 Belgian chefs. The second day followed the format from previous years. The focus was on a group of Belgian chefs, the so-called Flemish Primitives as well as specially invited guests from abroad including René Redzepi and Michel Bras. All chefs prepared food live on stage. In between the chefs there was also time for two sessions with researchers from KU Leuven and a presentation of Modernist Cuisine by Chris Young.

Bruno Goussault, Sang-Hoon Degeimbre and Thomas Bühner busy giving their sous vide master class

As a scientist the master classes were of greatest interest to me, especially since the science played a less central role on the second day of TFP. I attended one master class about sous vide by Bruno Goussault, Sang-Hoon Degeimbre and Thomas Bühner and one by Quico Sosa on his range of flavors, extracts and condiments. Expect separate blog posts about these master classes.

Quico Sosa passionately advocated the use of pure flavors in cooking. -We don’t know the flavor of a fresh product anymore because we can’t buy it!, he claimed.

For the first time this year a number of awards were handed out. The “TFP Research award for the researcher or lab that has done remarkable work with importance for chefs” (only papers by Belgian scientists published during the last year were considered for this price though) went to a group from the Catholic University of Leuven who studied the flavor of a ripening banana: Instrumental based flavour characterisation of banana fruit (DOI: 10.1016/j.lwt.2009.05.024). The “TFP award for an international personality for supporting chefs in culinary solutions for go-between science and gastronomy” (how can anyone remember that name?) went to Bruno Goussault, the grandfather of sous vide who has more or less thaught all the major chefs most of what they know about sous vide.

Bruno Goussault receives the award for his life-long dedication to promote sous vide cooking from Bernard Lahousse

All in all it was once again a fascinating event. I admire TFP for bringing together science and cooking. It’s done in a very subtle way, the emphasis is always on the cooking and the chefs. Personally I could have wished for a little more focus on the science this year, but given that there are mainly chefs in the audience it’s a difficult balance. But with the delicate “wrapping” that TFP provides I’m sure the chefs could have taken a larger dose of science

René Redzepi won the Culinary Linchpin award of the year, and a bit startled he asked: What award was this? What did I win? (I admit that I didn’t know what a linchpin was either…)

Gene Bervoets holding one of the TFP awards which also deserves a mention: the prizes were 3D reproductions of the tiny air channels inside pears and apples as studied by Bart Nicolaï and his team using the ESRF synchrotron facility in Grenoble. Quite fascinating!

René Redzepi cooking on stage with Michel Bras and Sergio Herman

Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson lit a fire on stage to grill white cabbage. Good thing the smoke alarm didn’t go off!

With the risk of totally missing the point of his presentation: Kristof Coppens handled liquid nitrogen in a glass container without wearing safety goggles (yes – it was pyrex glass, but still…). This is stupid! Everyone: Please don’t learn from his example! Learn how to handle liquid nitrogen safely: Always wear safety goggles. Glass can easily shatter due to the extreme temperature differences involved.

And last but not least: Dominique “Shock-o-latier” Persoone left no one disappointed! Here his “Brazilian lips” (in co-operation with Sergio Herman and Alex Atalla) from the Gala dinner. When served a droplet of liquid was added to the sigarette, generating smoke!

Flown in directly from Seattle, Chris Young presented Modernist Cuisine at The Flemish Primitives today. In the picture: presumably the first copy in Europe It’s backordered now (see Nathan’s long posts on this) due to high sales. It actually reached as high as #38 on Amazon’s overall sales rank.  I had 5 minutes to take a look at the books today and I can only say wow! These books mark a new era for everyone interested in a scientific and technological approach to cooking! Immediately the feeling struck me: there is nothing more to blog about now. But Chris reassured me (as he also did in my recent interview with him) that there is plenty more to dig into. Phew. Expect more about The Flemish Primitives 2011 in the coming days.

It’s soon time for the third edition of The Flemish Primitives and registration has now opened. The Flemish Primitives wants to challenge Belgian gastronomy and bring together chefs from all over the world to meet and exchange ideas built on innovation. The top name this year is without doubt the chef René Redzepi of Noma, the world’s best restaurant according to Restaurant magazine, but “the Flemish primitives” will be present (a group of Belgian chefs) as well as guests and scientists. And there are a lot of new things going on as well. There will be master classes on a range of topics including meat cuts and aging, fish, precise temperatures, cheese and beer pairing, fermentation and pickling and liquid nitrogen to mention a few.

Furthermore a research award has been announced in order to encourage scientists to share research results relevant for gastronomy with chefs and to promote research in the domain of gastronomy. The announcement states that “scientists often have know-how that is very useful for chefs in their quest for novel or improved courses” which is very true. During the last decade we have seen a number of very successful chef-scientist partnerships. Unfortunately there is a small catch with the prize (at least for the majority of my readers): The applicant should have the Belgian nationality or working for a Belgian company or institute (if this applies to you, take note of the application deadline which is Sunday February 13th!).

Another big change is that the event has outgrown the Concertgebouw in Brugge, so this year’s event will be held at Kursaal Oostende in Belgium with an auditorium seating 2000. And with so much going on it’s probably a good idea that they have stretched the event to two days now, starting on Sunday March 13th with the masters classes and a gala dinner, and followed by keynote presentations given by chefs and scientists on Monday March 14th.

If you’re not familiar with the The Flemish Primitives event you can get an impressions from the last two editions from previous blog posts:

TFP 2009
The Flemish Primitives: A travel report (part 1)
Chocolate surprise (part 2)
Heston Blumenthal (part 3)
Glowing lollipops (part 4)

TFP2010
Overview of the event (part 1)
Inspiration from Asia (part 2)
More inspiration from Asia (part 3)
Interview with Bernard Lahousse (part 4)
Gadgets (part 5)
Tomato gels with the pectin that’s there (part 6)

Making gels with fruits that are high in pectin is not particularily challenging. Addition of sugar promotes pectin gel formation with low methoxyl (LM) pectin, but the drawback is that you need a lot of sugar, typically around 50%. So this is only relevant for jams and marmelades. And if you try to gel tomatoes or carrots you may find this quite challenging, even if you add sugar. The approach chosen by Thomas Duvetter, a post doctoral researcher at Laboratory of Food Technology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, was to use the pectin methyl esterase enzymes (PME) naturally present in tomatoes, carrots and oranges. The role of PME is to cleave of methyl groups, hence leaving the pectin more prone to calcium induced gelling. Equipped with this knowledge Jean Yves Wilmot presented a number of gels made with the pectin that’s already there.

In order to achieve this one must consider one important thing: tomatoes have another enzyme as well, a polygalacturonase (PG), which causes some trouble. If I got it right this enzyme degrades the pectin gel (and plays an important role in the ripening of tomatoes). One therefore needs to inactivate the tomato PG enzyme and this is done by heat. Regrettably this also knocks out the PME of tomato, but this is were the carrots and oranges come in – they have PME, but no PG. Hence they hold the key to unlock the gelling properties of tomato. So to sum it up, you can use enzymes present in carrot and orange juice to chemically change the pectin of tomatoes to make it more prone to gelling in the presence of calcium ions. If you’re familiar with traditional pectin, what the enzyme does is to make LM pectin out of HM pectin.

Some scientific papers co-authored by Thomas Duvetter which may be of interest:

Isabel Verlent, Ann Van Loey, Chantal Smout, Thomas Duvetter, Binh Ly Nguyen, Marc E Hendrickx “Changes in purified tomato pectinmethylesterase activity during thermal and high pressure treatment” J. Sci. Food. Agric. 2004, 84 (14), 1839.

Ruben P. Jolie, Thomas Duvetter, Ken Houben, Elke Clynen, Daniel N. Sila, Ann M. Van Loey and Marc E. Hendrickx “Carrot pectin methylesterase and its inhibitor from kiwi fruit: Study of activity, stability and inhibition” Inn. Food Sci. Em. Technol. 2009, 10 (4), 601.

Ilse Fraeye, Thomas Duvetter, Eugénie Doungla, Ann Van Loey and Marc Hendrickx “Fine-tuning the properties of pectin–calcium gels by control of pectin fine structure, gel composition and environmental conditions” Trends Food Sci. Technol. 2010, in press.

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This is part 6 of my report from The Flemish Primitives in 2010. Apart from an overview of the event (part 1) there was quite some inspiration from Asia this year (part 2 and 3). You can also read an interview with Bernard Lahousse, the project leader of The Flemish Primitives (part 4) and I’ve also written about a number of gadgets shown (part 5).

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.

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.

I’ve written a couple of posts about The Flemish Primitives 2010 event (and there are more to come), but I also wanted to do an interview with Bernard Lahousse, the project manager of the event. Bernard first contacted me back in 2006 and we met at the EuroFoodChem conference in Paris in 2007. Those who’ve followed Khymos for a while may remember pointers to the “Food for design” blog and the foodpairing website which Bernard has set up.

ML: It seems you have always had an interest for things in the cross section of science and art? When we first came in contact you were writing the “Food for design” blog which covered gastronomy, science and design – what happend to it?

BL: Indeed, I’ve always been interested in the cross-section between different disciplines. Not only science-art or science-gastronomy, but many more. My belief is that the interesting stuff is happening where people with different background meet. As I lack time (and also Lieven), we made a choice to put Food for design on hold and concentrate on other topics. For me that’s foodpairing and my company. For Lieven it is his PhD.

ML: Could you briefly describe your educational background and how you ended up as a project manager for The Flemish Primitives?

BL: I have a master in bio-engineering, and a master in intellectual law. But I’ve always been interested in gastronomy. As I’m one of the founders of the Foundation (Flanders Taste Foundation) organizing The Flemish Primitives and really the intermediate between industry, chefs and universities it was quite logical to become the project leader; but it is still a hobby (none of us is gaining some money with organizing this – it is really out of love for gastronomy). But all of the innovations presented at TFP come from myself, from HPP to Dominique his foams, they were all initiated by me (so quite logical I’m the project manager)

ML: I find it difficult to put TFP in a specific category – it is part gastronomy, part science. How would you in as few words as possible define The Flemish Primitives? And the company “Sense for taste” where you work, could you briefly explain the business concept?

BL: The Flemish Primitives aspires to become the most innovative and creative culinary event in the world. The way we do it is by combining different players: chefs, scientists, companies, artists,… So The Flemish Primitives wants to give you a glimpse of what is possible in the future in gastronomy and food. It is meant to inspire and let people start dreaming.

In “Sense for taste” we position ourselves as a foodlab increasing the efficiency in food product development. Foodpairing is one of the methods we use. So we do consultancy, but we also develop our own products. We work mainly for the big food multinationals, but also for farmers with a passion for products…We are with 3 partners; an ex-Michelin star chef Peter Coucquyt, a product developer Johan Langenbick and a scientist myself.

ML: Could you give one example of how science, gastronomy and art have been combined into something which is more than just the sum of three parts?

BL: The plates from Sergio Herman e.g.

ML: Very often cooking comes first and is later explained by science, possibly with a few adjustments. Do you have any examples were it started with science (or technology) sparked the creativity of a chef?

BL: The system of using pectin methylesterase naturally present to make gels out of tomato, was initiated by science and executed by chefs afterwards.

ML: What are the biggest challenges you have faced when working with TFP?

BL: We don’t lack ideas/content. But to organize an event like this you should need at least 1 or more persons working the whole year on this event to prepare and we lack for the moment the means to make this a professional organisation (it is still like a bunch of friends). We are still a private organization without any support from the Government, but hoping that will change in the future.

ML: Your debut was last year, this year amazingly all seats were sold out (BTW – how many tickets were sold?) – what are your plans and expectations for next year and the years to come? Will you remain in Belgium or “go global”? What would be a “dream come true” for TFP?

BL: We sold around 400 tickets, the rest was taken by food companies. My dreams are to build a platform with Belgian chefs, universities, companies,… The outcome of this cooperation will be shown each year at The Flemish. There are some plans and requests to go global, but these are still plans for the moment.

ML: A final question – when working all day long with food and The Flemish Primitives, how has your work influenced your own cooking at home? And what is your favorite dish?

BL: The way of using meat and fish changed at lot (now mostly low temperature). For the rest my cooking changed a lot as my using now different products inspired by what chefs are using. My favorite dish; that’s a hard question. It will probably contain fish and then some vegetables also low temperature treated.

ML: Thank you very much!

(The interview was done by email since Bernard had a pretty hectic time schedule on the day of the event.)

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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.

As mentioned in my previous post on The Flemish Primitives 2010 (TFP2010) two chefs had taken their inspiration from Asia. Peter Goossens had come across high pressure processing during a study trip to Japan, and had developed this further in cooperation with Stefan Töpfl. Korean born Sang Hoon Degeimbre (of L’Air du Temps) on the other hand had returned to his roots to study kimchi, the ubiquitious Korean staple food. It is a pickled dish made of vegetables with various seasonings, and it is a very common side dish in Korea. In fact, it’s so common that Koreans say “kimchi” when being photographed, just like we say “cheese” in English.

Sang Hoon’s idea was to take the basic concepts and modernize them. Central to the preparation of kimchi is the lactic acid fermentation, using lactic acid bacteria. And in this sense kimchi is closely related to miso, kvass, kapusta, kefir, yoghurt, sauerkraut and sour dough bread – all of which involve fermentation of sugars to lactic acid. And as a commenter mentioned, I should not forget sour beers such as Flanders red ale.

The science was very much integrated into this years event, and to help him with the science of lactic fermentations Sang Hoon had teamed up with Xavier Nicolay from the Meurice institute. Xavier briefly mentioned several scientific papers on Kimchi, most of which you can find by doing a quick google scholar search on kimchi). However, from what I manged to pick up during the presentation nothing from these publications was actually applied in the cooking being done.

Traditional home made kimchi. Photo by J.W. Hamner (CC by-nc-sa).

A lactic fermentation induces several changes in foods. Firstly the acidification aids the preservation as food spoilage microbes generally can’t grow at low pH. Important flavour changes include the lactic acid with a hint of carbonation and other fermentation products such as diacetyl and ethanol. The texture of lactic fermented products is also quite unique as the vegetable or fruit becomes tender without beeing oversoftened. In fact they retain a remarkable crispiness. Interestingly the colors turn brighter, and in some special cases even change (green garlic was the topic of Harold McGee’s first column for the New York Times)

Sang Hoon used the following procedure when preparing his modernized kimchi:

• blanch vegetables (this releases sugars for the fermentation)
• add 1-8% salt
• add a lactic starter (no specific info was given on type and source – hints form readers are welcome!)
• vacuum pack – this is definitely a novel use for your sous vide plastic bags (compare with traditional German way of anaerobic fermentation in “ceramic pot” with water lock rim)
• the vacuum pouches were then left to ferment for 1 week @ room temperature
• to aid creation of flavors starch was added
• yeast autolysate was also added for flavor
• final preparation was clarified in a centrifuge

As a result, Sang Hoon had arrived at a “more sturctured” kimchi (sorry – no picture as of now, but the blog Cuisiner en Ligne does have a nice picture of the finished kimchi inspired dish).

For comparison you may check out these kimchi recipes. Note that none of these uses specific starters (i.e. starting culture of lactic acid bacteria). They all rely on the bacteria naturally present on the cabbage leaves.

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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.

The available litterature in English (including blogs) on popular food science focuses mainly on Western cooking, although the academic litterature on Asian foods is catching up quickly. Although widespread and apparently “well known”, Asian cooking is still largely being referred to in broad categories such as Chinese, Indian etc. Having spent 10 years of my childhood in Asia I’ve always had the feeling that this wasn’t quite right, and I do indeed look forward to learn more about the science aspects of Asian food in the years and decades to come. In one of the breakout sessions (more about those in a separate post) Alok Nandi made a point that Indian cuisine is as diverse as the European cuisine. With this background it is interesting to note that two of the chefs presenting at The Flemish Primitives 2010 had taken their inspiration from Asia.


Japanese pressure treatment vessel (picture from Peter Goossens powerpoint presentation)

On a study trip to Japan, Peter Goossens (chef at Hof Van Cleve) and 15 other chefs were apparently the first Europeans admitted to the Hattori chef’s school (Wikipedia entry – I’m not 100% sure if this is the right “Hattori”) for a 3 day intensive course. One thing they were served were sardines treated at a pressure of 1000 bars. They were surprised by the texture and flavor, and when talking to Bernard Lahousse about it he put them in contact with Stefan Töpfl at the German Institute of Food Technologies. Töpfl’s group works with food processing, and one topic of interest is high pressure processing: it turns out that treating food for 2 min @ 6000 bar is an efficient way of pasteurizing (see for example an article from the institute on poultry pasteurization).

Stefan Töpfl being interviewed by Bernard Lahousse. Peter Goossens in white jacket relaxing at the bar. Photo by Piet De Kersgieter

But there is more to high pressure processing than pasteurization. Oysters, clams and shellfish in general for instance are vacuum packed and the pouches are water cooled throughout the process. This allows for “cold pasteurization”. Apart from the fact that no heating is involved (and hence the flavor remains unaltered) there are several other benefits of the heating process: oysters nearly double in size and “fill the shells”, shellfish are generally easier to open, crustaceans are easily descaled, taste is enhanced and there is less need for salt. The technique can also be applied to other foods such as fruit which turns sweeter after the high pressure treatment. The explanation for the enhanced taste and sweetness is that the water binding capacity of the foods increases, and hence there is more free water to dissolve and carry tastes. Other applications include treatment of guacamole for retention of the green color and flavor impregnation (i.e. oysters impregnated with champagne!).

Every single attendant to TFP2010 was served a plastic tray with four different high pressure processed clams/shellfish/oysters (I admit that I’m confused by the nomenclature here – seems there are differences between languages as well as to how generic the terms are used)

Quite surprisingly shellfish samples were handed out as you can see from the pictures. In my opinion they were very juicy, not stringly, a little salty and had a fresh taste. But I have to admit that I eat shellfish so seldomly that it’s hard for me to really compare the high pressure treated ones to more conventional shellfish. As Bernard Lahousse was called up on the stage he also presented a flavor pairing tip for oysters based on methyl hexanoate, which they interestingly share with kiwis (and passion fruit!). Many more flavor pairing tips can of course be found on the the foodpairing website. And the foodpairing blog published the recipe for Kiwître in 2007, a dish invented by Sang Hoon Degeimbre (chef of L’air du temps) which combines oysters and kiwi.

Bernard Lahousse explaning how kiwis and oysters have methyl hexanoate in common.

Further reading: A quick google search yields numerous hits on high pressure processing of food, including the companies High Pressure Dynamics and Avure which manufacture the processing equipment. There are many scientific publications on the topic (including one on high pressure induced gel of sardine – perhaps this is this what Peter Goossens and his colleagues were served when visiting Japan?), and wikipedia also has a nice introduction to high pressure food preservation. Youtube has several videos demonstrating HPP.

Next up from TFP2010: more Asian inspiration with Sang Hoon Degeimbre and kimchi!

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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.