MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY.......

Molecular Gastronomy.... it's been around for a while, but luckily, Australia has survived the rarefied wanker-osisty that is this phenomenon, mostly intact.

Sometimes called "the science of deliciousness" **ahem** , it is also an excuse for the uneducated and the pretentious, the trendy and the faddie, to wax lyrical and drop words like "Alinea" and "el bulli" and "anti-griddle"

The sooner it's gone and we can all move on to the Next Big Thing, the happier I'll be. Even Blumenthal says MG is dead... and not about time, too.

If you've missed this god-awful phenomena, here's a sample:

Spherification. Also known as ravioli (not the kind you eat with marinara sauce), spheres are what you get when you mix liquid food with sodium alginate, then dunk it in a bath of calcium chloride. A sphere looks and feels like caviar, with a thin membrane that pops in your mouth, expunging a liquid center. Popular experiments from the chefs above have included ravioli made from purées of things like mangoes and peas.

or what about this little offering:

Bacon on the line. Alinea’s multicourse tasting menu often includes a crispy piece of bacon decorated with butterscotch and dehydrated apple, served threaded on a horizontal wire. The famous dish exemplifies Alinea’s use of creative serveware, and molecular gastronomy’s enthusiasm for dehydrators and savory-sweet combinations in general.

and this, from Sydney Morning Herald (thankfully back in 03)

Adria will serve you the most perfect-looking vanilla ice-cream. You take a bite: the first impression is of delicious creaminess and your taste buds prepare themselves for the sweetness to follow. Suddenly they are caught off-guard by the tang of Parmesan. Your brain is telling you that you shouldn't like what you are eating but your taste buds insist it's divine.

These days he is concentrating on his latest inventions, such as "air" of carrot or pine nut. Take a spoonful of carrot air and your mouth is at once filled with the most intense carrot flavour imaginable and at the same time utterly empty, the froth having vanished on impact. It's an eerie sensation.

The experimental highlight for 2003, however, must be "apple caviar", which has the appearance and texture of caviar but is much lighter in colour. It is made from apple juice together with a mysterious "product A" and "product B", and is the subject of much speculation among other chefs. What does it taste of? Just apple juice really but captured in jelly-like "bubbles" which burst in the mouth exactly like caviar.

Here is a list of ingredients used regularly in MG.. All readily available here in Melbourne..

Agar Agar Powder	Calcium Chloride Granules	Carrageenan Iota & Kappa Powder
Citric Acid Granules	Egg White Powder	French White Kaolin Clay
Guar Gum Powder	Lactose Monohydrate Powder	Maltodextrin Powder
Methyl Cellulose Powder	Sodium Alginate Powder	Sodium Citrate Powder
Xantham Gum Power	Lecthin Granules - GMO Free (pcr -ve)

Noice, hey?? Sounds more like Year 10 Science with Jackie and Mrs Mabbett, than food prep.

Here in Melbourne, Raymond Capaldi, darling of the MG movement is still touting chicken liver parfait, cocoa, salted lactose caramel, hazelnut biscotti and beetroot salad, at Fenix, but it's a far cry from his previous offerings of

scallops: fat, barely seared adductor muscles without roe, studded with faintly sweet, small chewy pieces of liquorice. They are laid out in a line with discs of excellent black pudding and plops of traditional pureed potato, drizzled with an emulsified dressing of "cooked grapefruit".

or:

A dessert of intense beetroot and blackcurrant jelly, capped with a candied-dried beetroot disc and a quenelle of parsnip and coffee icecream sprinkled with sea salt; a berry and beetroot soup is added to the dessert bowl on serving at the table.

Here are some other random samplings from MG restaurants across the globe.

cockles coated with white chocolate

Or garlic and coffee creme brulée

Or dark chocolate petit fours infused with pipe tobacco

or Warm chocolate fondant with peanut ice-cream and artichoke caramel

or Sardine on toast sorbet

or Fig and black olive tartin with brie ice-cream

WHEN, oh when is the food movement going to give up on this ridiculous fad and embrace the real, wholesome, richness of REAL FOOD FOR REAL PEOPLE!!!!

Oh, BTW.. Furry and I are having a deconstructed Pal/Alpo creme brulee with a soupcon of aloo ghobi sorbet, strung on a bit of barbed wire, dusted with jock-rash powder and a dirty ashtray foam for dinner tonight.

Wanna come over??