Tasting Menu II - Food for Geeks

I've been working on several ideas for another tasting menu, this time ratcheting up the geekiness and looking at science in the kitchen. Kitchen science is a continually upcoming field of study, although most people attribute it to foams and other oddities ala Top Chef. But there is so much more than just cool food tricks (although those are cool enough). I strive to understand how cooking works, and believe this foundation helps my creations. Understanding things like what happens to meat when you cook it, the chemicals and common tastes in herbs and spices, the structure and fundamentals of whipped cream, and so on.

Of course I turn first to the three pillars of understanding cooking (in my mind). America's Test Kitchen and all their fantastic cookbooks, Alton Brown - the kitchen's preeminent nerd, and the absolutely best, Harold McGhee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.

But although I may bore you over a meal as I try and describe the ultra-cool science of your appetizer, I wanted to take it to the next level. So I looked at a tasting menu that steps it up and helps the eater experience the science in an easy way. So I present the next tasting menu.

• Flavors: Sour, salty, bitter, sweet, savory, (hot): a mix and match test tube set to experience each taste as a drink and together
• Flavors - chemicals: Taste unique pairings with common volatile chemicals: pineapple and blue cheese
• Cooking - the effects of heat in 2 flights: Fish tasting - raw, seviche, braised and pan seared. Cheese - cold, room temp, melted, crispy
• Chemicals: Heat - ginger, pepper, chile, horseradish (common substances) plus the cures for heat
• Chemicals: Hot and cool - spearmint and heat
• Liquids: mix and eat a dilatent fluid (thickens with agitation)
• Reactions: Cooking & mixing your own at the table - carbonation of a desert
• Chill: make ice cream with liquid nitrogen

I still need to flesh out the details, but I think the idea is coming along nicely.

HRP