Wylie Dufresne: Meat Glue is My Friend

On Monday night, I was lucky enough to attend the latest installment of Harvard's Science and Cooking lecture series.  As I mentioned before, Le Creuset is one of the sponsors of this fabulous lecture series and they invited me to attend the lectures as their guest.  My schedule has been jam-packed between work, events and traveling, so Monday night was the first lecture that I've had the chance to attend.

So who was Monday night's speaker?  None other than Wylie Dufresne, chef and owner of wd-50 in Manhattan.

If you don't already know, Wylie Dufresne is one of the leading pioneers in molecular gastronomy.  By understanding the physical and chemical processes that occur when cooking food, proponents of molecular gastronomy like Wylie experiment to test the boundaries of how to prepare food in ways you can't imagine.

Over the course of an hour, Wylie spoke passionately about his trials and errors using meat glue (also known as transglutaminase).  Meat glue consists basically of enzymes which binds proteins together.  By using meat glue in both a powder and slurry form, Wylie has managed to do incredible things like making spaghetti from shrimp, Wagyu flap steak, and barley blocks.

He even showed us some of his latest experiments - torched foie gras terrine, hybrid apples and Asian pears, and hybrid carrots and celery.  Wylie recognized that he has many critics who think he is "playing God" but Wylie simply want to use science to present the familiar in an unfamiliar way...or to present the unfamiliar in a familiar way.

No matter how you feel about the subject, it is definitely interesting to learn more about the science of cooking.  I am definitely not a science person at all but Wylie has inspired me to add trying out molecular gastronomy to my 30 by 30 list (my list of thirty things I'd like to accomplish before I turn 30!).

Thanks again to Le Creuset for inviting me to this amazing lecture.  For those of you who are interested, there are a few more lectures coming up.  While I was lucky enough to skip it, I recommend that you come at least an hour early because there are long lines for this free event (which is first come, first serve).

I'm still working on my 30 by 30 list...any suggestions on things I should try to accomplish before I turn 30?  It doesn't have to be food related...just something interesting!