Reported by: Tanya O'Rourke Photographed by: Greg Singleton Web produced by: Laura Hornsby Hot ice cream and fizzing fruit are not items you see on your favorite restaurant's menu or at the grocery store, but they could be very soon.
We think you will be impressed, amazed, maybe even a little alarmed by what some avant garde chefs are doing in the kitchen.
It's called molecular gastronomy, but you can just think of it as "science meeting cooking," and it's making taste buds sit up and notice.
From now on, all you need is a liquid such as grape juice and some food-derived chemicals.
Chef Grace Yek is on the cutting edge of culinary arts. Yek is a professor at the University of Cincinnati and also teaches at the Midwest Culinary Institute, teaching molecular gastronomy, or, the understanding how different cooking methods and ingredients change food.
"This is absolutely outside the box," Yek said. "This is a show of technique, ingredients and equipment that haven't been on the culinary map before."
And almost always, you will be surprised by the outcome.
This "science cooking" is new, but you may have seen it on Ellen when a Chicago chef demonstrated cold fusion cooking using a surface so cold, it cooked pancake batter.
And, dine out at restaurants like at Cumin in East Hyde Park, and you may be enjoying molecular gastronomy and not even know it.
"I see it as a way to enhance a dish, rather than make a dish with it," said Jason Jenson, soux chef at Cumin. "I like to surprise people, give people something they've had before," he said. "But in a new form so it keeps it interesting."
The staff at Cumin are using naturally derived chemicals like maltodextrine and carojean to turn peanut putter into powder and making what you mind thinks should be a cold whipped cream, into a warm foam.
One dish displayed for 9 News was eggplant curry. It may not have looked like eggplant curry, but it certainly tasted like it.
So where is this avante garde cooking heading?
"I don't know where it's gonna go," said Yajan Upadhyaya, chef proprietor of Cumin. "I'd like to see it go far. Chefs are using it in their cuisine now. It's being done worldwide."
Back in the "lab" with Yek, she's carbonating "fizzing" fruit. Actually, she's adding carbon dioxide to fruit, and it's amazing.
"It's like it explodes in your mouth!" said 9 News anchor Tanya O'Rourke.
Yek is adding edible bonding ingredient methylcellulose to an ice cream base to make hot ice cream- yes, hot ice cream.
Your mind has no frame of reference for these taste experiences, and that's the point- to push the boundaries of what food is supposed to taste like, whisk it up in the professional kitchen, and see what forms a following, perhaps, into your kitchen.
"That's exactly what I've been doing," Yek said. "I've been mixing and whisking, except I'm using different ingredients which are not common to the household just yet to create new forms of food. It's just a matter of time."
All of the chefs we talked to assure us that the "chemicals" they're using are safe to eat and, in lots of cases, have been used in the food processing industry to decades.
While carbonated fruit or hot ice cream seem really odd, don't be surprised if you see peanut butter dirt or some other food with roots in molecular gastronomy in your pantry in the next few years.
Chef Grace Yek welcomes emails about people who have tried or are interested in learning about molecular gastronomy. Click here or email her at fizzygrapes@yahoo.com.
Chef Grace Yek's Recipe For Carbonated Grapes:
1. Rinse grapes and split grapes into halves.
2. Fill a whipped cream dispenser up to about 2/3 full with grapes. Screw on the top securely.
3. Charge with one carbon dioxide charger, and leave in the refrigerator preferably overnight. Remember to release the pressure from the whipped cream dispenser before unscrewing the top!
4. Empty the grapes into a serving bowl and serve immediately.
Note: You may use other fruit, preferably fruit which has been cut to expose it to the carbon dioxide gas.
Have a comment on this story? Email Tanya O'Rourke at torourke@wcpo.com.
