malachi wrote:Molecular gastronomy in general doesn't CREATE technology but rather finds uses FOR it.

Agreed but only in the sense that the "third wave" does not brew coffee. If you mean Adria and others do not create technology then I think this incorrect. Certainly Adria creates technology, six months a year in the lab are spent on forming new inventions for the restaurant. This technology is eventually sold, crucial to a restaurant that could not support itself.

another_jim wrote:process technology:BAD::product technology:GOOD makes for a nice intellectual sound byte but also for a seriously messed up appreciation of history. Even if aided by all the chemists of his day, not Escoffier, and probably not even Point, could have come up with Adria's concoctions. The technology he uses is industrial chemistry

My point was far from binary or opposite, good and bad does not come in to it. In a discussion about technology pertaining to high quality coffee or food the process technology is not bad, just irrelevant.
Escoffier invented a lot more foods for us than Adria, using a lot of new technology. He could not use a microwave though, so he would be on his back foot in the throwdown.
What Adria and Heston have done is to provide a logic to eating. A great justification of why they have done these foodie crimes. It's the furthest possible extension from the old "you eat with your eyes" approach, fully realised, they argue, you eat with your brain. Grand cuisine has always been about reasoning, back in the day you simply had to take the chef's word for it that duck did go with chocolate, now he can pull you a graph to show you why. A great deal of their work is significant because of it's play on classic cooking, a fact recognised instantly by Michelin and chefs.
They do use chemistry, as well as psychology, philosophy, physics and artistry in greater measure but the idea that the borrowing of a centrifuge separates them from those gone before does Escoffier a disservice.

Great post. I love the mother country's flair at manufacturing long standing traditions: first, the last two decades' 400% increase in 18th century London pubs; now a brand new history of modern food as the scientific revolution by an unbroken lineage of heroic genius chefs stretching back to the chateaus of the Loire, tragically traduced by villainous food processors turning gold into cheez-whiz. On our side of the pond, only real estate agents and Hollywood get this inventive.

I would dearly love this story to be true. But unfortunately, actual technology hasn't managed the leap into shiny front offices of hip, celebrity post-modernism, and instead remains in back rooms, squarely modern. For every three star chef, there are a thousand earnest and anonymous technicians at food firms doing this, and ten thousand equally earnest and anonymous engineers doing this. So who do you really think accounts for the most technological change?

I repeat, Chefs are artists, they appropriate everything they can lay their hands on, including both traditions and technologies, and put a creative spin on it. This spin is designed for the grantedly mental activity of eating, but not for the completely different mental activity of knowing.

Fascinating discussion and so relevant to coffee and a machine like the Slayer too. From my farmer perspective it became about feeding rather than eating. I believe it started with the evil concept of the "feed lot". And when you think about it the American way has been to "test" on animals first. When I started raising livestock over 40 years ago the feed lot was the new rage. Some of the formulas were sickening (think of the coffee science concoctions of the 70s-80s). Use a combination of the cheapest industrial by-products including wood byproducts, corn and soybean for protein and add a little something (usually a sweetener) to make it palatable. When the public heard farmers were feeding cardboard and the price of soy was too high things changed. It was known that animals could not sustain on corn alone but then was realized that feeder stock could live long enough to make it to the packing house on a mostly corn diet. Voila! Progress! But the animals in a lot with pavement with nothing to do but wait for the mixer/grinder to dump some more feed in the troughs were a disaster. The lifespan of the breeding stock shortened dramatically. The young were born with little vigor and the mothers had little interest in the newborns. When I first started recreating the grass fed natural grazing concept many of the first animals I bought I had to resell before they died when they had to learn to manage their own eating. The ones that made it through the transition and their offsprings were some of the healthiest and happiest animals I had ever seen. And tastiest too.

In high end cooking, the technology versus nature debate for farming is long over. The best chefs after WWII located to the countryside to be close to fresh grown food they could personally supervise. The new wave of hi-tech chefs we are arguing about are back in cities, but they airfreight or otherwise overnight in their foods from farms that live up to this standard. I don't know much about the "3-star food supply chain," but I'm sure it's as interesting and fanatical as the supply chains for high end coffee.

it's far more intense than coffee (speaking as an ex chef).
my favorite example?
Thomas Keller famously won't buy fish that are not packed for shipment to him "right side up" (dorsal fin up - as they would be while swimming).

I just happened upon this quote from comments section of The Naturals Debate on James Hoffmann's blog written by Graciano Cruz that talks about a different definition of the Fourth Wave.

...I'm agree with you and we have to listen the market as a farmer, but the specialty market are the importers and the roasters, that was second wave, then we began to listen the baristas and cupping experts, that was the third wave, but for the benefit of everybody, it is about time that farmers in one extreme of the coffee chain, the importers, roasters, baristas and final customers (coffee drinkers) listen to each other, the four wave already start with some farmers telling the market some real scientific facts, which the only ones taking or developing the real on site choices to make it happens are the coffee farmers at their farms.

This is just a snipped of a very interesting debate, all the more interesting because Baristas, Roasters, and Farmers are involved in the conversation.

had a pretty good coffee today from the slayer at RBC