A packed room of chefs, scientists, and food enthusiasts gathered at the University of Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre on Sunday to hear from Nathan Myhrvold, the visionary behind Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, a six-volume, 2,400-page cookbook series that tackles topics from the history of commercialized processed food to using a centrifuge to make butter from green peas.
Myhrvold recognizes that most professional or home chefs don’t have access to a centrifuge, telling the assembled crowd that the books are really about teaching the fundamentals of time and temperature (although he enjoys the party trick of decanting wine in a blender).
Before understanding modernist techniques, first you need to understand how traditional cooking works, Myhrvold said.
Click on the slideshow for highlights of the event, which was hosted by The Cookbook Store.
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- The lab's machine shop was outfitted with an abrasive waterjet cutter to slice cooking vessels in half, demonstrating how food appears as it is cooked. <br /> <br /> For one photo, a Weber barbecue is dissected, which Myhrvold says was dangerous and messy, but it only needs to look good for 1000th of a second to take a stunning photo.
- Photography
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- Myhrvold came up with the idea for a cookbook in 2004. He wanted to write about the process of sous vide - cooking vacuum-packed food in plastic bags in a water bath “ but the scope of the book expanded. He worked alone for two years before bringing in 44 writers, editors, and art staff. Myhrvold's Cooking Lab (also the name of his publishing company) employed 20 people to test various techniques. For example, the crew cooked hundreds of eggs to create a reference table on making custard.
- The Cooking Lab
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- Any food is worthy of attention and worthy of time to optimize and improve it, says Myhrvold, including the hamburger (see left).
- Modernist philosophy
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- <i>Modernist Cuisine</i> contains over 1,150,000 words, the length of which Myhrvold says would stretch 7.5 miles. Released in March, the book (which retails for $635) is in its second printing, and has been translated into French, German, and Spanish.<br /> <br /> <p>Some readers were surprised that Myhrvold published a print book given his background in technology, but he likens the decision to a high-end restaurant serving meals with linens and silver, rather than in Styrofoam containers. Also, tablet and e-reader displays didn't provide the graphic quality or physical size he desired.</p>
- The books
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- Nathan Myhrvold's resume will make most people sweat. The child prodigy began studying math, geophysics, and space physics at UCLA when he was 14. He did a post-doctoral fellowship with Stephen Hawking before being hired at Microsoft, where he was promoted to Chief Technology Officer. <br /> <br /> While working at Microsoft, Myhrvold spent one night a week cooking at a high-end French restaurant in Seattle, preparing for chef school in France. <br /> <br /> Myhrvold is co-founder of the patent-development company Intellectual Ventures and an affiliate research associate of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies. He is also a noted wildlife photographer.
- Nathan Myhrvold
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- <a HREF=http://modernistcuisine.com/about-modernist-cuisine/printing-the-book/><i>Modernist Cuisine</i></a> is printed using a technique called stochastic screening. While traditional half-tone printing uses dots placed in a rigid pattern, stochastic screening places more dots in darker parts of an image, producing sharp images with deep colour.<br /> <br /> Photography plays a key role as well: It's what seduces people into a book, Myhrvold says. Various digital cameras, lenses, and fibre-optic lights were used, as well as a high-end video camera, which shoots up to 6,200 frames per second.
- Printing and photography
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