Science and Technology for New Culinary Techniques

Abstract

The use of new culinary tools, methods, and ingredients in the kitchen of renowned restaurants has become common worldwide. Most of these novelties have been based in equipment, ingredients, and procedures from the food industry and food labs. There are four main topics in which this cooperation between the science and the culinary fields takes place: (a) the use of scientific knowledge about perceptions; (b) taking advantage of the scientific knowledge about food composition and properties; (c) the use of nontraditional ingredients and knowledge concerning their application to culinary uses; (d) the usage of industrial and scientific technologies that are far from traditional culinary technologies. The contribution of scientific information for the evaluation of safety issues is also of great importance for these new culinary developments, because in some cases, there is a lack of normative and basic food safety working procedures. This review deals with different aspects of some of these new tools, procedures, and ingredients, including basic scientific background, technological questions, and food safety concerns.

Keywords:

• Cooking
• sous-vide
• transglutaminase
• rotary- evaporator
• senses

Acknowledgments

This research was supported with projects funded by the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (Spain, AGL2008-00890/ALI) and by the Junta de Extremadura (3PR05B032). Mar Roldán thanks the Junta de Extremadura (Consejería de Economía, Commercio e Innovación) for supporting her through a PhD grant (PRE09057).