BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT with leeks, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, sugar, wine and vinegar, among other ingredients) with the sous vide version in Q&A Nathan Myhrvold Modernist Cuisine. This technique — in which ingredients are vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag before being cooked at low temperature in a water bath or combi Steakhouse science oven — plays a major part in the set, and Nathan Myhrvold trained as a quantum cosmologist with Stephen Hawking and was chief the authors go to great lengths to argue technology officer of Microsoft before founding Intellectual Ventures, a US company that funds its value. I have tasted meats cooked this inventors and acquires patents. As he publishes a six-volume work on the science of cooking, way, and am unconvinced that it is essen- Myhrvold explains why chemistry techniques could soon be seen in every restaurant. tial to home cooking. But I am willing to give the pasta marinara a shot. It calls for tomato water, which I was happy to Why did you write a six-volume discover could be produced with a sim- scientific cookbook? ple wine filter (to separate the flavourful When I was two years old, I told my mother water from the pulp after first processing that I would be a scientist; when I was nine the tomatoes in a juicer) rather than with I insisted on cooking Thanksgiving dinner. the preferred piece of kitchen equipment In the mid-1990s, I took a leave of absence in Modernist Cuisine, the centrifuge. from Microsoft and went to culinary school The format of the recipes will also chal- in France, and got back into cooking with R. M. SMITH/THE COOKING LAB lenge most cooks. Because the authors a vengeance. The only way to learn about consider that “volume measurements are modern cooking techniques now is to work not sufficiently accurate”, all ingredients, at a cutting-edge restaurant. I saw an oppor- even liquids, are measured by weight in tunity to write a book that would cover mod- grams. One recipe, for example, calls for ern techniques and the science behind them 100 g of wine — good luck with that. The [see page 574]. I hired a team and we kept amounts of ingredients are also presented getting more ambitious. I think ours is the in the baker’s percentage system, in which only cookbook in the world to cover prion a picture that I took of a lion cub eating a the weight ratios of each are scaled to a science and quorum sensing in cells. We wildebeest. Some of the technical solutions reference ingredient. Having to weigh could have gone further. We decided not to that we cover in the cookbook have led us to liquids and work with percentages will include pastry and desserts. consider inventions to improve food safety mystify most non-professional cooks, in developing countries, where adequate and will probably vex scientists who want Can you see science-driven cooking sanitation is often lacking. to relax at the end of a long day in the lab. catching on? So who is the audience for Modernist Yes. Chocolate cake with a liquid centre was In 2000, you pledged US$1 million to Cuisine? In its present form, the volumes once a novelty, but is now in every shopping help Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen fund will be bought by those who can afford mall in the United States. Some of these tech- the Allen Telescope Array in California. their three-figure price tag and have niques are incredibly convenient and tasty. Why do you believe in the private funding time for slow, precise cooking — people We have a chapter on emulsions, with an of science? who are already familiar with the chefs indestructible vinaigrette, and a rapid souffle Venture capital has grown faster than govern- and cognoscenti mentioned in volume I: recipe. I think most steakhouses should use ment science funding. If you can show that Blumenthal, Ferran Adrià and Harold sous vide cooking [slow cooking in an air- you can make money rather than begging for McGee, among others. Purchasers will tight plastic bag immersed in a low-temper- a grant, people will compete to fund you. I’m also need space to store the bulky set, ature water bath]. You can get the steak done not suggesting this is a panacea. Outside the and a table on which to rest the book to perfectly without worrying about timing, life sciences, people don’t tend to fund things delve into its pages. The volumes are so and cheaper cuts are just as tender as a prime with a level of technical risk. We’ve created heavy and large that they are difficult to filet mignon. I think science-based cooking Intellectual Ventures to do just this. We hold open. will be in every US steakhouse within a few invest in existing patents, help institutions to Modernist Cuisine is too important to years. Once you explain the science, people develop new technologies, and fund inven- be offered only to an elite audience. The will find uses for the techniques. tors and scientists to come up with new ideas. stunning visual impact of the printed vol- If we could find a way to fund more science umes supports the publisher’s choice to You have many interests, including and innovation at venture-capital growth produce the initial work on paper. Still, I palaeontology and wildlife photography. rates, that would be a wonderful thing. hope the authors bring out the book in an How do your pursuits fit together? electronic form, so that a larger audience Each makes a good diversion from the What makes an invention successful? can explore its many layers of informa- other, and occasionally they filter back into The best way to stimulate invention is to get tion. Like a good meal, this remarkable my work at Intellectual Ventures. Wildlife the right set of smart people in a room talking effort needs to be shared. ■ photography is about travelling to a beauti- to each other. What separates successful from ful place and taking pictures. Palaeontology unsuccessful inventions is not the quality of Felice Frankel is a research scientist is about going into the the idea. To be successful, an invention needs at the Massachusetts Institute of NATURE.COM desert and walking to have a passionate advocate. It requires the Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts For a Q&A with around until you find initial flash of genius — then believing and 02139, USA. She is an author, science molecular chef and a bone sticking out of investing in it. ■ photographer and serious amateur cook. chemist Hervé This: the ground. Our chap- e-mail: [email protected] go.nature.com/wdrmrc ter on meat opens with INTERVIEW BY JASCHA HOFFMAN 31 MARCH 2011 | VOL 471 | NATURE | 575 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.