Culinairy Arts Blog A little History in technological applications of Molecular Gastronomy

Sauces What's the use of such formalism? Is cooking being transformed into calculus?In this section, we shall see first that the so called "CDS formalism" (complex disperse systemsformalism) can be useful to understand cooking, and, consequently, to make it.Look, for example, at the full list of classical French sauces, are given by the Répertoire général de lacuisine:"Fonds brun, Fonds blanc, Fonds de volaille, Fonds de gibier, Fonds, ou fumet de poisson, Fonds depoisson au vin rouge, Essence de poisson, Essences diverses, Glaces diverses, Glace de viande,Glace de volaille, Glace de gibier, Glace de poisson, Roux brun, Roux blond, Roux blanc, Sauceespagnole, Sauce espagnole maigre, Sauce demi-glace, Jus de veau lié, Velouté, ou sauce blanchegrasse, Velouté de volaille, Velouté de poisson, Sauce parisienne, Sauce suprème, Sauce béchamel,Petites sauces brunes composées, Sauce bigarade, Sauce bordelaise, Sauce bourguignonne, Saucebretonne, Sauce aux cerises, Sauce aux champignons, Sauce charcutière, Sauce chasseur, Saucechaud-froid brune, Sauce chaud-froid pour canards, Sauce chaud-froid pour gibier, Sauce chaud-froidtomatée, Sauce chevreuil, Sauce Colbert, Sauce diable, Sauce Diane, Sauce duxelles, Sauceestragon, Sauce financière, Sauce aux fines herbes, Sauce genevoise, Sauce Godart,Sauce grandveneur,Sauce gratin, Sauce hachée, Sauce hachée maigre, Sauce hussarde, Sauce italienne, Jus liéà l'estragon, Jus lié tomaté, Sauce lyonnaise, Sauce Madère, Sauce matelote, Sauce moelle, Saucemoscovite, Sauce Périgueux, Sauce périgourdine, Sauce piquante, Sauce poivrade ordinaire, Saucepoivrade pour gibier, Sauce au Porto, Sauce portugaise, Sauce provençale, Sauce régence, SauceRobert, Sauce romaine, Sauce rouennaise, Sauce salmis, Sauce tortue, Sauce venaison, Sauce auvin rouge, Sauce zingara, Petites sauces blanches, composées et de réductions, Sauce Albuféra,Sauce américaine, Sauce anchois, Sauce Aurore, Sauce Aurore maigre, Sauce bavaroise, Saucebéarnaise, Sauce béarnaise tomatée, dite sauche Choron, Sauce béarnaise à la glace de viande, diteSauce Foyot ou Sauce Valois, Sauce Bercy, Sauce au beurre, dite Sauce bâtarde, Sauce Bonnefoy,ou Sauce bordelaise au vin blanc, Sauce bretnne,Sauce canotière, Sauce aux câpres, Sauce cardinal,Sauce aux champignons, Sauce Chantilly, Sauce Chateaubriand, Sauce chaud-froid blancheordinaire, Sauce chaud-froid blonde, Sauce chaud-froid Aurore, Sauce chaud-froid au vert-pré, Saucechaud-froid maigre, Sauce Chivry, Sauce à la crème, Sauce aux crevettes, Sauce currie, Sauce currieà l'Indienne, Sauce diplomate,Sauce écossaise, Sauce estragon, Sauce aux fines herbes, Saucegroseilles,Sauce hollandaise, Sauce homard, Sauce hongroise,Sauce aux huîtres, Sauce indienne,Sauce ivoire, Sauce Joinville, Sauce Laguipierre, Sauce livonienne, Sauce maltaise, Sausemarinière,Sauce matelote blanche, Sauce Mornay, Sauce mousseline, dite Sauce Chantilly, Saucemousseuse, Sauce moutarde, Sauce Nantua, Sauce New-burg avec le homard cru, Sauce New-burgavec le homard cuit, Sauce noisette, Sauce normande, Sauce orientale, Sauce paloise, Saucepoulette, Sauce ravigote, Sauce régence pour poissons et garnitures de poissons, Sauce régencepour garnitures de volailles, Sauce riche, Sauce Rubens, Sauce Saint-Malo, Sauce smitane, SauceSolférino, Sauce Soubise, ou Coulis d'oignon Soubie, Sauce Soubise tomaté, Sauce Souchet, Saucetyrolienne, Sauce tyrolienne à l'ancienne, Sauce Valois, Sauce vénitienne, Sauce Véron, Saucevillageoise, Sauce Villeroy, Sauce Villeroy soubisée, Sauce Villeroy tomatée, Sauce vin blanc, Saucesanglaises chaudes, Sauce aux airelles, Sauce Albert, Sauce aux aromates, Sauces au beurre àl'anglaise, Sauce aux câpres, Sauce au céleri, Sauce au chevreuil, Sauce crème à l'anglaiise, , Saucecrevettes à l'anglaise, Sauce diable, Sauce écossaise, Sauce au fenouil, Sauce aux groseilles, Saucehomard à l'anglaise, Sauce aux huîtres, Sauce brune aux huîtres, Sauce aux oeufs à l'anglaise,Sauce aux oeufs au beurre fondu, Sauce aux oignons, Sauce au pain, Sauce au pain frit, Saucepersil, Sauce persil pour poissons, Sauce aux pommes, Sauce au Porto, Sauce au raifort chaude,Sauce Réforme, Sauce sauge et oignons, Sauce Yorkshire, Sauces froides, Sauce aïoli, ou Beurre deProvence, Sauce andalouse, Sauce bohémienne, Sauce Chantilly, Sauce génoise, Sauce gribiche;,Sauc groseille au raifort, Sauce italienne, Sauce mayonnaiqe, Sauce mayonnaise collée, Saucemayonnaise fouettée, à la Russe, Sauces mayonnaises diverses, Sauce mousquetaire, Saucemoutarde à la crème, Sauce raifort aux noix, Sauce ravigote, ou Vinaigrette, Sauce rémoulade, Saucerusse, Sauce tartare, Sauce verte, Sauce Vincent, Sauce suédoise, Sauces froides anglaises, SauceCambridge, Sauce Cumberland, Sauce Gloucester, Sauce menthe, Sauce Oxford, Sauce raifort ».How to deal with such a variety? Physical chemistry gives a possibility. Let's recognize first that someof these sauces are solutions, i.e. made of water with various molecules dissolved. The case occurs injus, demi-glaces...Some other sauces are more complex, such as mayonnaise which is, as we have seen, an emulsion,made of tiny oil droplets dispersed in water. And so on.We now see clearly that the CDS formalism can be used to describe sauces. Indeed the work isfinished since August 2004, and the result is now there: there exist only 23 categories of classicalsauces.The list is:W, O, W/S, O/W, S/W, (O+S)/W, (W/S)/W, O+(W/S), (G+O)/W, (G+O+S)/W, (O+(W/S))/W,(S+(W/S))/W, ((W+S)/O)/S, (O+S+(W/S))/W, ((W/S)+(WÉS))/W, (O + (W/S)/W)/S, ((O+(W/S))/W)/S,(O /W) + ((G+O)/W), (O+(W/S)+(WÉS))/W, (S+(W/S)+(WÉS))/W, (((W/S)+(WÉS))/W)/S,(O+S+(W/S)+(WÉS))/W, (O+S+((G+O)/W))/W.This list is interesting, because each category includes sauces that do not look like, from the culinarypoint of view. Seeing similarities can give ideas. Moreover, the same processes leading to identicalcategories, new processes of doing classical sauces can be devised.Such a list also invites to culinary innovation. As W applies to any aqueous solution (coffee, the,orange juice, wine, meat stock...), O to any liquid fat (melted butter, plant oil, nuts oil, melted foie gras,melted cheese...), and S to any solid, one formula of the list can lead to an wealth of new "moderntraditional sauces", having the same formula.Moreover, it is easy that simple formula such as (G + (W / S)) / W are not in the list, but could makesauces. This last formula, in particular, would correspond to a foamy velouté, that can easily be made:for example, cook butter and flour in a pan, then add some milk to make a velouté, and just beforeserving add whipped egg whites or whipped cream in the velouté. Such a sauce, not being"traditional", is modern, and we see that there are a great number of possibilities for inventing "modernmodern sauces" also.Meat, fish, eggs, sauces... Cooking vegetables and fruits but what about vegetables and fruits, which are so important for health?Many advances remain to be done with these food ingredients. In particular, it seems clear that justboiling them is not the end of the story, as the result is as poor as just boiling meats.In 2003, we proposed to consider that some plant tissues, such as carrots roots, contain sugars, butvery few amino acids. As these last compounds are missing to make Maillard reactions giving flavour,the proposal was to add some amino acids to carrots and cook in the same conditions that when meatis roasted, to make the same kind of processes. The result was called "demi glaces" of vegetables.Of course, this is only one example, and a lot of other ideas come when one considers the chemicalrichness of plant tissues. All the culinary processes used for meat can be used, as long as theconditions are appropriate.But vegetables and fruits also are a wider spectrum of properties that have to be taken into account.Color is one of them.For example, green beans are appreciated for their special flavour, consistency and color. In thekitchen, cooks make efforts to keep this color: they avoid cooking with a lid, they stop the thermalheating by dropping the beans in water with ice when they consider the beans cooked, etc. Are theyright? At a time when the Earth seems to be warming, energy preservation is crucial, and cookingwithout lids is a waste of energy. In our laboratory, and in many lectures, we demonstrated that thereis no color difference when cooking with or without a lid (for beans, broccolis, romanesco). And wealso showed that putting the beans in cold water after cooking does not keep a better green color.How should cooks behave using these informations? First they should cook in pans with a lid (betterenergy efficiency), and they should only stop the cooking process some time before having the righttexture, soaking the beans to get finally the appropriate texture.We also tested some "culinary precisions" on red fruits: it was written that red fruits should never beenput in copper vessels lined with tin. As tin metal is unlikely to react chemically with the compounds ofred fruits, this culinary precision seemed dubious... and it was first shown that it was wrong: puttingraspberries or gooseberries, or strawberries in contact with tin does not make any visible difference.However, could tin ions have an effect? Yes! If you add some Sn 2+ ions to raspberries, they getalmost immediately a dark purple color, because of complexation of anthocyanin molecules(responsible for red colour) with tin ions.Let's consider a last example with pears. It wa