FINANCIAL TIMES JANUARY 31/FEBRUARY 1 2004 " WEEKEND W5 FOOD AND DRINK Rather than cooking meat at a high temperature then resting it, Blumen≤ thal and Peter Barham have devised a method whereby meats are cooked at temperatures low enough (around 60 degrees) to avoid setting the protein. The big Delice of chocolate with leather, oak and tobacco chocolate follows. Blumenthal incorporates many of these principles in his book Family Food. A recipe for the perfect fried egg? Split the yolk and albumen; cook the white in a frying pan; then put the yolk into the centre of the white and put the pan in the oven. Recipe for cooking cheese of pulses? Boil them in battery water, sold at petrol stations. (Calcium and hard water are the enemy of green vegeta≤ bles and pulses.) Roast chicken? Cook it at 60 degrees for about four hours. The book is also full of experiments to involve children. “Blindfold them to eat something,” says Blumenthal, with the Fat Duck characteristic warmth. “Or make them hold their noses and taste salt and sugar to see if they know what it is.” Caroline Phillips meets Heston Blumenthal, the Willy Wonka Blumenthal’s wife Susanna, a former midwife, follows his principles when of modern British cooking, and samples his distinctive brand of she cooks at home. “She makes Sunday innovative and investigative cuisine roasts with potatoes, cauliflower cheese, either braised cabbage or broc≤ he former debt collector has Blumenthal, who sports a white jacket coli with chilli, confit of carrots and some extraordinary kit in his and a shaved head. “I feel a little peas,” he says cheerfully. The couple kitchen. A rotavapor machine guilty. My reaction is: ‘Is this have three young children. “My daugh≤ that distils natural essences, a deserved?’ Brilliant chefs like Raymond ter, Joy, loves cauliflower cheese so water and oil bath, a canister Blanc never got a third star.” much that she asked to have her can≤ Tcontaining liquid nitrogen and a gleam≤ Blumenthal, one of Britain’s most dles in it on her sixth birthday. Then ing machine that turns pure´ es into edi≤ innovative cooks, heard the news last she had her cake afterwards.” ble shaving foam. There’s a desiccator week. He was in Madrid at a food festi≤ Blumenthal grew up in London in a and pump to suck moisture out of val with some gastronomic g rande one room basement flat in Paddington. chips, test tubes, overhead stirrers, f r o mages: Michel Roux (3 star Water≤ “My sister and I shared a bedroom with mini filtration units and magnetic mix≤ side Inn, his neighbour), Gualtiero Mar≤ our parents until I was nine years old.” ers. And now he falls delightedly upon chesi (the papa of modern Italian cui≤ His father, Stephen, sold photocopiers Fishers laboratory catalogue. “Heat sine), Ferran Adria from El Bulli and when he made some money, they pads! You put them on a beaker of (Blumenthal’s cooking is often mistak≤ Blumenthal: ‘I feel a little guilty. Is this deserved?’ Jim Winslet moved to High Wycombe. Blumenthal water with magnets underneath and it enly compared with his) and Juan went to grammar school, where he keeps it stirred. Can you see the vortex Marie Arzak (the padre of modern Blumenthal dubs his scientific style Department of Experimental Psycho≤ thal points out that we taste with our took five A levels. “I kept swapping it’s creating?” he asks ecstatically. Spanish gastronomy). “Michel made a ∞ often known as molecular gastron≤ logy at Oxford. Now he’s talking about nose, ears, eyes, touch and memory; and dropping them. Finally, I just got Suddenly he sketches a brain, nasal lovely speech, saying how proud he omy ∞ investigative cuisine. Apart the late Nicholas Kurti, emeritus pro≤ and this is a flavour memory course, one A level, in art.” When Blumenthal passage and oesophagus ∞ with arrows was of me,” says Blumenthal. “Amaz≤ from a week’s trial in 1984 with Ray≤ fessor of physics at Oxford, to whom recreating the great British childhood was 16, the family went on holiday to indicating “retronasal” and “orthon≤ ing, given what a god Michel is.” They mond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Sai≤ molecular gastronomy owes much. reminiscence of jelly and cream. France and ate in L’Oustau de Beau asal”. “When we eat, the food goes in celebrated with a 12-course tasting sons, Blumenthal is self-taught: a feat Blumenthal is fascinated by psycho≤ Snail porridge arrives, a flavoursome Maniere in Provence. Blumenthal was here and all the flavour molecules go menu at La Broche. “We finished the he achieved by ingesting Larousse Gas≤ logy, the mechanics of flavour, and fla≤ dish intended to circumvent estab≤ dumbstruck by the sommelier’s handle≤ up here to the olfactory epithelium,” he main course at 1.30am.” tronomique and devouring “hundreds” vour encapsulation. His cooking relies lished reference points. (“Snail por≤ bar moustache, cheese chariot, smell of says. “That’s how we’ve been trying to Blumenthal opened The Fat Duck in of other cookery books. Above all, his on unexpected mixtures of textures, ridge?” grimaced a pensioner last week lavender and lobster sauce poured into create the perception of tasting a 1995. It has a “very ungrand” pub din≤ approach was born of Harold McGee’s tastes and contrasting temperatures. on BBC News. He was standing at Hes≤ souffles. That was when he decided to smell.” Last month he experimented ing room. The tasting menu costs £85, 1984 seminal book, On Food and Cook≤ All his dishes are a challenge to pre≤ ton service station, from whence Blu≤ become a chef. with Felicity Dahl (widow of Roald) excluding coffee, and there are 1,200 ing, which outlines the chemical pro≤ conceptions. He has anarchic plans to menthal jokes his name came. “There’s Last year, Blumenthal organised an and the actress Jane Asher. “One way bottles on his international wine list, cesses that take place during cooking. serve food that has the taste of one only one thing you do with snails,” he Alice in Wonderland mood-altering din≤ to deliver a flavour into the mouth is to including an £1,150 vintage Chateau McGee’s opening sentence ∞ that meat ingredient and the smell of another. ner. The borderlines between food, put a drop of essential oil into a bal≤ Margeaux. A card written by Blumen≤ doesn’t have to be browned to seal in He’s even talking about putting head≤ nutrition and drugs were blurred, to loon and breathe it in. They had a hoot thal sits on the table. “As smell, fol≤ the juices ∞ inspired Blumenthal to phones on diners for them to experi≤ highlight the ways of delivering a fla≤ inhaling helium, then talking in lowed by taste, are the strongest mem≤ start debunking other culinary myths. ence a course where sounds change the ‘Heat pads! You put them on vour. “The main course was rabbit squeaky voices.” ory jolters of all the senses, I thought it Peter Barham, a Bristol University way they eat. “You’d eat something tea,” he laughs. “Women dressed as This Willy Wonka has worked in the would be a great idea to come up with physics professor, corroborated Blu≤ soft and listen to something crisp,” he a beaker of water with Alice poured tea into braised rabbit Swiss laboratory of Ferminich, the some nostalgia dishes,” it reads. “If menthal’s early discovery that salt is says. “Your brain would make you containing caffeine, while men with third largest flavour company in the you’re interested, please indicate the unnecessary in water to preserve the think you were eating something magnets underneath and it ears sprayed coffee in the room, which world. “I wanted to make a mouthful of decade in which you grew up and foods colour of vegetables. Nowadays, Bar≤ crunchy.” was changing to yellow.” food with four separate flavours. You that evoke your childhood memories, ham and Blumenthal brainstorm. And Green tea (to cleanse the palate) and keeps it stirred. Can you see He served food injected with Siberian use four sheets of jelly, each with a be it Heinz tomato soup, boiled egg and Blumenthal incorporates into his menu lime mousse with a shot of vodka ginseng, betaine (to tickle the libido, different fat level. The more fat, the soldiers, rice paper-wrapped chocolate the findings of Professor Edmund Rolls arrives. It is “cooked” in liquid nitro≤ the vortex it’s creating?’ but disguised in rabbit rillettes) and slower the flavours release,” he cigarettes . .” and Dr Charles Spence, from the gen and brought to the table in a canis≤ ............................................................... tryptophan ∞ the so-called happy explains with fast enthusiasm. “We did ter, trailing disco-style dry ice. It tastes continued, “squash them with your amino acid, found in Prozac and, on basil, olive, caramellised onion and intriguing, like an exploding frozen feet.”) Instead of grey gloop, it is green this occasion, in Blumenthal’s choco≤ thyme.” His restaurant ∞ in which he meringue. “It dissolves like a cloud, (parsley), red (jabugo ham) and white late ganache. It was for the Chelten≤ works a 100-hour week ∞ is funded by no?” asks manager, Didier Fertilati. (fennel). “It reminds me of eating ham Festival of Science. Does he plan such consulting work. An amuse bouche of orange and beet≤ snails at Christmas,” says Fertilati, his to do this at The Fat Duck? “I would The speaker is Heston Blumenthal, root jelly follows. The orange-coloured eyes misting. “Diners have to deal with for a private party.” 37, the chef-proprietor of The Fat Duck jelly is golden beetroot and the red one barriers before eating,” explains Blu≤ Five years ago, Blumenthal ran a bis≤ in Bray, Berkshire ∞ which this week is blood orange ∞ underlining how menthal.