US-SPAIN: Promoting science via the kitchen

Harvard University has teamed with a Spanish cook, Ferran Adriá, considered by many to be the best chef in the world, to promote science. Adriá is known among his disciples as the 'chemist of the kitchen' for the extraordinary way he goes about creating new dishes.


Last month, Harvard scientists travelled to Roses, in the north of Spain, to visit Adriá's three-star Michelin restaurant known as 'El Buli'. There they studied his method of chemically separating out the elements of the food "to provide unexpected contrasts of flavour, temperature and texture... to provoke, surprise and delight the diner".

The scientists found their new colleague shared many of their traits. Adriá, for example, is so dedicated to researching exotic new combinations of flavours that he closes his restaurant for six months every year and heads off to his workshop near Barcelona to experiment.

His methods are so avant-garde that many have described it as molecular gastronomy but he has indicated he is uncomfortable with the label, preferring to describe his cooking more simply as "deconstructivist".

The resulting collaboration with the Harvard scientists is expected to lead to a book which could be used by cooks and scientists and, additionally, to a course for students of 'cookery and science'.

In between meals, the chemists hoped to draw on their experience in the laboratory to offer Adriá fresh suggestions as to which new flavours and combinations might further stimulate his and his diners' taste-buds.

The idea for the collaboration came from a group of scientists at Harvard after they listened to Adriá give a lecture to 2,000 people at the university. With their palates whetted, the academics met the following day and decided to form a group called 'Dialogues between science and cooking'.

"It is the first time that scientists and cooks have worked together," said Adriá. "I think the agreement gives a lot of credibility to what is happening in Spanish cooking in terms of creativity and research."

There are critics, however, who have sought to cook up a storm over Adria´s methods. One of his competitors who runs a three-star restaurant nearby said Adria's experimentation with food was pretentious and potentially a 'health hazard'.

Others have been whipped up by Adriá's unusual combinations that include tobacco-flavoured blackberry crushed ice, frozen whisky sour candy and a dish that combines Rice Krispies, shrimp heads and vanilla-flavoured mashed potatoes.

Adriá himself - who is well-known in Spain for his laid-back sense of humour - is unlikely to get himself in a stew about the comments: "The ideal customer doesn't come to El Bulli to eat but to have an experience," he says.