On March 21, 2011, Science & the City and the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science hosted Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, as he unveiled Modernist Cuisine: the Art and Science of Cooking, co-authored with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet. In conversation with Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo’s Top Chef, Myhrvold revealed the philosophy behind and the work that went into this magnificent series of volumes on modern gastronomy. Along the way, he also shared some of his own cooking and eating adventures—his sampling of Sardinian “maggot cheese” and Icelandic Hákarl (made from dried Greenland shark), for example. The audience also had the opportunity to taste a much more delectable treat, a specially prepared pistachio “ice cream.”
Sharing some of the beautiful images from the book with a packed house at the event titled The Art and Science of Modernist Cuisine, Myhrvold explained his scientific approach to cuisine. No process, no food, no technique was too mundane to be understood and perfected. This approach yielded new understandings of old techniques along with some fascinating new recipes such as strawberry gazpacho. It also required some intriguing machinations to make it all come together. The Modernist Cuisine team needed a state-of-the-art machine shop, upwards of 20 people, thousands of lines of computer code, an impressive array of experts, and much more to produce this 2,438-page tome.
This event is brought to you by The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science and Science & the City.
