"Food" in quotations: Are people going to get sick of Spanish avant-garde cuisine?

by Emily Matchar, Posted Apr 2nd 2008 @ 1:00PM

Will Spanish avant-garde cuisine, as epitomized by the creations of legendary El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià, stand the test of time? Lisa Abend ponders spherified mango "caviar" and Parmesan "air" in Slate. Some critics criticize the reliance on form over substance, Abend writes, and feel that intellectually-driven, techno-heavy cuisine has gone as far as it's going to go.

Abend catalogers the signs that's Spanish molecular gastronomy is, like, totally over: foams are everywhere (when nondescript hotel restaurants are serving chorizo foam, it's probably not cool anymore); new kits of algin and xantham gum allow home cooks to make their own solidified squid ink (some logic: mass accessibility = no longer cool); popular chefs like Mario Batali and Mark Bittman are into it (same logic again).

I don't know, I suspect if the foodie elite is tiring of laser-caramelized paper and liquid nitrogen beet "balloons," chefs will just come up with something more innovatively weird. Abend also thinks so, but she doubts that diners are game for platinum-coated oysters, and may be ready for some real food.

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Filed Under: Trends, Chefs & Restaurants, Celebrities, Restaurants
Tags: Avant-Garde, El Bulli, europe, featured, Spanish, Trends

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-02-2008 @1:16PM Julie said... It's very hard to get sick of something that you can rarely ever have or be able to afford. To go and experience some of these cooking techniques one would need to take out a small loan. These things are fascinating to see and to hear about, they are more science than anything else.
http://www.noshtalgia.blogspot.com/
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4-02-2008 @1:21PM Marisa McClellan said... I do sometimes wonder about food like this. I love to cook and eat, but the precision and occasional insanity of molecular gastronomy seems to me to take some of the earthy joy out of the process.
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4-02-2008 @6:34PM Gobo said... Molecular gastronomy is being abused by less-talented chefs more and more. I've been to restaurants that try to half-ass the Alinea experience by making icky 'foams' and nitrogen-freezing things, and it always comes off badly.

Chefs need to learn how to cook well first before abandoning tradition for a laboratory.
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4-03-2008 @10:19AM Beany said... Haven't we heard this before?:

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/03/26/adios-to-foam/
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4-04-2008 @4:35AM Joe B said... My problem with molecular gastronomy is two-fold: a) I barely consider the results food and b) it leads to the crap we keep seeing on this season of Top Chef with the guy who seems to be obsessed with "infusing" a "fragrant" steam in his dish and topping the plate with plastic wrap to hold it in.
Perhaps I'm just a fan of simplicity or tradition, but I like food that is presented to me in the most basic preparation possible. Don't get me wrong, I love complex and intricate flavors, but when you start throwing in science people just tend to get very showy.
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