Foam Over Function

Why don't we "get" molecular gastronomy?

by David Snyder

David Snyder IN THE CLEAR: Chef Jonathan McDonald examines a bag of translucent shallots he pickled in passion fruit juice using a Cryovac machine. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Snackbar chef Jonathan McDonald uses tweezers to carefully arrange peppery nasturtium leaves over a cucumber and blood orange salad. A puffy marshmallow adorns one end of the rectangular plate.

But this is no ordinary marshmallow. It's a lime caramel coconut marshmallow McDonald created using two hydrocholloids — xanthan gum and Versawhip, a whipping agent invented by Kerry Bio-Science — he measured to the tenth of a gram on a digital scale.

McDonald stares at his dish. "Would Philly eat it? I don't know," he shrugs. "But it tastes good."

Modern plates like this were the norm at Snackbar (235 S. 20th St.) when it opened more than a year ago. But Philadelphia didn't bite right away. "I was cooking for an empty dining room for six months," McDonald says. Today, his menu is decidedly more conventional. "We changed [to] fit the demand," he adds. "Bottom line is that we want to cook for people. I'm not too worried what it is that we're cooking — as long as I get to cook."

Philadelphia, despite its growing reputation as a great food city, can be stuck in its ways when it comes to adventurous eating. The city pioneered trends like BYOBs, yet tends to snub foams, gels and the use of "chemicals" in food. These techniques and ingredients have been popularized in the U.S. by chefs like Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea and Wylie Dufresne of New York's WD-50. But why are many of this city's diners so perplexed by all this?

One hurdle may be the label attached to this forward style of cooking: molecular gastronomy. The term carries the stigma of form over substance — something that intimidates diners and frustrates chefs.

But according to Shola Olunloyo, the term is a misnomer. "All cooking involves molecular gastronomy," says Olunloyo, known in Philadelphia for running private dining room Studiokitchen. "To use the term selectively for some high-end, esoteric preparations just seems silly."

But what separates these techniques from traditional thinking — in McDonald's kitchen, at least — is rooted in a philosophy of openmindedness. "All of this stuff came out of cooks asking why," McDonald says. "[It's] a scientific approach to cooking. That's all it means."

In fact, many of the ingredients associated with the techniques have long been used in food. "This is agar RS-100 powder," McDonald explains, grabbing a jar from his shelf. "They've been using this for years to thicken sauces in Chinese restaurants."

Some believe this new cookery is merely a trend, but McDonald disagrees. "It's just the next step in cooking. A lot of this stuff is going to be around forever."

To illustrate, McDonald places a bag containing a sliced shallot and passion fruit juice in his Cryovac machine for a few seconds; it removes the air from the bag, infusing the two components. "Now, they're pickled shallots," McDonald says, holding the bag up to the light. "They're completely translucent."

The process is called cold sous-vide (French for "under vacuum"), and it maximizes the passion fruit flavor while keeping the shallots raw — results he couldn't achieve through traditional methods. It also saves time and money. "You do definitely get an extra day or two days from that oxygen-free environment," McDonald says.

Philadelphia's reluctance to embrace molecular gastronomy is not surprising to Alinea's Achatz. "People are afraid of everything that's new — until someone tells them that it's good," he shares. "People shy away from it," Achatz adds, "because the media has painted it as [a] soulless style of cooking. [But] if you really look at the people who do it well, it's from the emotion, from the soul."

At the end of the day, Achatz says, it all comes down to one thing: taste. "Whether the restaurant's in Chicago, Spain, Philly —wherever — the food needs to taste good. Otherwise, it's a miss."

Indeed, taste may have already gotten the Philadelphia dining public to support molecular gastronomy without them even knowing it. McDonald mentions a popular dish chef Michael Solomonov used to serve at Marigold Kitchen — sweetbreads wrapped in chicken skin. Solomonov used an enzyme called Activa to bind the skin to the sweetbreads. Diners loved it. "That was the only thing that stayed on the menu," Solomonov says.

"What I think the Philadelphia dining public doesn't realize is that they like it a lot more than they think they do," McDonald says. "They're eating it a lot more than they realize they are. There are places where you would not expect it's going on."

Solomonov plans to use more comparable techniques at his upcoming restaurant Zahav, particular in a separate, 24-seat dining room called The Quarter. "We'll use modern cooking when it is appropriate — not for the sake of doing it," Solomonov says. "Only when [it] makes sense."

Ultimately, that may be the best way for Philly to approach molecular gastronomy. The city may not be on the forefront in terms of experimentation. But by incorporating forward cooking techniques into traditional fare, we may be ahead of the curve when it comes to application. "No one here is pushing the envelope," says aroundphilly.com restaurant critic Brian Freedman. "But whatever aspects of molecular gastronomy that have found their way into the Philadelphia dining scene are being applied in a sensible way that exposes people to it but doesn't force it on them."

Freedman cites the Rittenhouse Hotel's Lacroix, where chef Matthew Levin offers both an a la carte menu featuring classical dishes and a tasting menu that employs nontraditional techniques.

"I try to do things that are molecular and add them into regular cuisine," says Levin. For example, he recently served abalone with dashi "caviar," made by mixing a liquid (in this case,the Japanese broth, dashi) with sodium alginate and releasing drops of the mixture into a calcium chloride bath, creating tiny spheres that resemble fish eggs.

According to Levin, applying the techniques in small touches "allows people to see the uniqueness of what you're doing, but still have something they can put their head around. That's what people in Philadelphia are looking for — food that they, in some respects, understand."

(d_snyder@citypaper.net)