Molecular gastronomy is neither "molecular" nor "gastronomy." Discuss

This is Hervé This. He's telling us that the whisk in his hand is a medieval tool.

You pronounce his name not like “this” but more like “teece.” He is one of the dudes that sired the modern-day field of molecular gastronomy which is turning 20 this year.

The distinguished French chemist visited Pasadena’s California School of Culinary Art, aka CSCA, aka the Cordon Bleu, on a surprisingly sunny Wednesday in February to demonstrate some basic principles of molecular gastronomy.

Now the geeky, left-brain side of me was super stoked to get an invite. A seminar on the molecular properties of food and the physical and chemical process that occur in cooking? Count me in…twice!

No disrespect to Monsieur This, but after an hour, my notes amounted to series of questions like this:

What does green mean? What does greener mean?
What is the relationship between robustness and the number of precisions?
What does “cooking” mean exactly?
When is the final product of cooking determined? Is it when the chef tells you, “Eat!”? Is that the chef’s way of saying “I love you”?

Whaaat? Yeah, it kind of blew my mind too. One good thing: It did make me want to curl up with one of This’ books, if I’m ever able to get like 100 straight hours by myself. I will share my one major piece of enlightenment, however.

According to This, the premiere avant-gardists of the culinary world Ferran Adrià, Homaro Cantu and Wylie Dufresne “do not make molecular gastronomy.” They are molecular “technologists.”

So these pretty critters from El Bullí:

is "technology."

And this PhD-determining doohickey:

and this masterpiece from This' kitchen:

is "gastronomy."

Yum.

—Jiyeon Yoo