He wrote this a few months ago but I just discovered it and coincidentally have been discussing this topic briefly with a few people lately, so I thought I'd post it; as with learning languages or anything else (for a case in point, see Picasso's early work), a solid grounding in established techniques and the foundations of your discipline is essential if one wants to succeed in efforts at abstraction and experimentation.
Specifically with regard to molecular gastronomy: I'm all for experimenting with flavors, but at this point, when I'm hungry I would vastly prefer to tuck into something which looks like it's guaranteed to sustain me, as opposed to a few wispy pieces of intriguing but not-immediately-identifiable-as-food emphemera...
Specifically with regard to molecular gastronomy: I'm all for experimenting with flavors, but at this point, when I'm hungry I would vastly prefer to tuck into something which looks like it's guaranteed to sustain me, as opposed to a few wispy pieces of intriguing but not-immediately-identifiable-as-food emphemera...
