1. health and fitness
2. disease

 DIPLOME D’UNIVERSITE DU GOUT, DE LA GASTRONOMIE ET DES ARTS DE LA TABLE DUGGAT MÉMOIRE DE FIN D’ÉTUDE A journey into the world JUIN 2009 of taste: medicine, nutrition and gastronomy side by side in health, disease and hedonism Maria Isabel Toulson Davisson Correia 1
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
- To all that have been part of this project, this is to say, the group of Hautes
Études du Goût 2008: organizers, teachers and classmates who were so
much fun, great company, and above all great friends throughout the two
intense weeks spent together in Paris and Reims. You will be forever part of
my life!
- To my three men, Mário, Marco Túlio and Gustavo, who so patiently live
through all my adventures and endeavors, always figuring out what it is going
to come next…….you never know!
- To my parents for the blessing of my existence!
- To God, Buddha, Allah and all divinities for life…. so good and so intense!
“True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and
righteousness.”
Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955
2
SUMMARY
LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... 4
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... 5
1. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ................................................................ 6
1.1. TASTE .................................................................................................. 7
1.2. MEDICINE .......................................................................................... 12
1.2.1. Art ................................................................................................. 12
1.2.2. Science......................................................................................... 13
1.3. NUTRITION ........................................................................................ 16
1.3.1 Essential to life ............................................................................. 16
1.3.2. Science......................................................................................... 17
1.4. GASTRONOMY................................................................................. 20
1.4.1 Science......................................................................................... 20
1.4.2. Art ................................................................................................. 31
1.5. HEALTH AND DISEASE.................................................................... 34
1.5.1. Eating habits................................................................................ 36
1.5.2. Commensality.............................................................................. 38
1.5.3. Learning attitudes ........................................................................ 41
1.5.4. Disease........................................................................................ 43
1.5.5. Molecular gastronomy ................................................................. 48
2. CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 54
3. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES ................................................................. 56
4. REFERENCES.................................................................................... 58
3
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Anatomy of the tongue (papillae and nerves) …………………..…08
Figure 2. Montages of a tongue tip of a non-taster versus a taster ……..….11
Figure 3. Hippocrates oath .........................................................................16
Figure 4. Portrait of Yvan Mei .....................................................................23
Figure 5. Carême’s drawing of the hermitage russe ...……………..………..32
Figure 6. Feeding the sick ………………………………………………………34
Figure 7. The map of hunger …………………………………………………...38
Figure 8. Enhancing recovery after surgery …………………………………..45
Figure 9. Food chain in the hospital setting …………………………………..47
Figure 10. Forbidden to forbid ………………………………………………….48
Figure 11. Be healthy ………………………………...………………………….52
4
ABSTRACT
Every time something is placed in somebody’s mouth one or a combination
of tastes alerts to vital information about that matter. This might justify why
Romantic gastronomers, self proclaimed professors of taste, considered the
profoundly physical pleasures of the palate to be the pinnacle of aesthetic
appreciation. No wonder why food, as approached by gastronomy, was
elevated during the nineteenth century to the status of fine arts. However,
food should also be seen as science because it has, throughout the
centuries, been the subject of many studies which have assessed its role in
the prevention and treatment of several disease states, not to talk of its social
role. In this sense, Medicine, directly associated with the existence of human
kind, should similarly be regarded as art and science, where food, taste and
pleasure are intertwined both in health and disease. To support the relevant
association of all these arts and sciences, more recently chemistry in the
form of molecular gastronomy has been added to the roll, presenting its
fascinating approach on food phenomena and as an alternative to be offered
to certain disease states and culinary experiences. It is thus the purpose of
the current review to invite people to delve into the wonderful journey of
taste,
medicine, nutrition and gastronomy placed side by side in health,
disease and hedonism.
Key-Words:
taste,
medicine,
nutrition,
diet,
gastronomy,
molecular
gastronomy, health, disease.
5 1. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
“When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature, nor high and
sharp intelligence, nor friendly gathering, nor social harmony.”
Antonin Caréme, 1766 - 1823
6 1.1. TASTE
“The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connection with exterior
objects.”
Brillat Savarin, 1755 - 1826
Every time something is placed in somebody’s mouth one or a
combination of tastes alerts to vital information about that matter. If it's sweet,
maybe it's got the nutrients the body needs to keep running for another few
hours. If it's salty, perhaps it is necessary to replace some of those vital
minerals just excreted through sweat or urine. If it's sour, there's a chance it's
not ripe and will cause a bad bellyache. If it's bitter, watch out….. it could be
poison and the next swallow will be the last. Thus, eating is associated to
neurophyscological inherited and acquired phenomena.
Deciding what
tastes "good" is anything but simple.
A food's flavor doesn't usually depend on data from a single sense1.
Rather, smell, touch, sight and even hearing often come into play, and the
best methods of pleasurably exciting those senses, during a meal or snack,
occupies the days of thousands of chefs, brewers, marketing flaks, and
scientists around the world.
Senses depend on an intricate cross talk between the different
sensitive areas enervated by peripheral nerve branches and the remaining
nervous system, medulla and brain1, 2. This is a complex system yet not fully
known which has demanded scientists to delve deeply into its mechanisms2.
In terms of taste, until very recently, a concept that has guided much
taste research is the existence of only four (or possibly five) independent
taste qualities. These four so-called basic” or “primary” tastes are sweet,
sour, salty, and bitter; a fifth quality, the taste of glutamate salts called
“umami,” has also been described1-3. All other tastes are presumed to be
combinations of these basic tastes mixed in various proportions. The idea
that taste was, as the other senses, just a mechanical action in which
7 nervous fibers played the conductors to reach the brain has also
been
rejected. A new concept has emerged showing that aside from the receptor,
this has to interact with a chemical signal or “a tastant”4.
Tastants are chemicals that stimulate receptors and ion channels in
taste receptor cells found in taste buds ( garlic clove-like structures). The
latter are contained within papillae on the tongue’s surface in the soft palate,
pharynx, larynx, and epiglottis.. Papillae types vary according to the region in
the tongue. For example, in
the anterior area of the tongue fungiform
papillae predominate, foliate papillae are located in the posterior lateral sides
of the tongue and circumvallate (rearward facing chevron across the back of
the tongue) papillae (Figure 1 ).
Figure 1 - Anatomy of the tongue (papillae and nerves)
1
Taste buds contain between 50 and 150 cells that form a discrete
ovoid structure2. These cells are divided into basal cells (from which new
taste cells originate) as well as elongated cells, some of which have microvilli
that extend through a taste pore into the oral environment. Tastants dissolve
in saliva and cross a mucus layer to reach microvilli and taste receptors.
Diminished salivary production can impair taste perception and this explains
why elderly people who, in general, have less saliva present with taste
8 disorders, as well as those individuals who have undergone chemo or
radiotherapy. The tastants then activate either ion channels (sour, salty) or G
protein
(gustucin) coupled receptors (sweet, bitter, umami), depolarizing
these cells.
These,
in turn,
set up impulses in the taste nerves. It is
interesting to note that the pleasure response to sweetness and disgust from
bitterness is present at birth and not learned. Response to saltiness develops
during the first year of life2, 3.
Branches of three cranial nerves innervate taste buds, transmitting the
electrical impulses to the medulla: the chorda tympani nerve innervates
fungiform and anterior foliate papillae and the lingual nerve innervates the
posterior foliate and circumvallate papillae. Taste buds on the soft palate are
innervated by the superficial petrosal nerve, while those on the epiglottis are
innervated by the superior branch of the vagus nerve. Each nerve has fibers
that respond best to a specific taste quality1. However, the tongue map – the
idea that certain areas respond only to certain taste qualities – is wrong; all
areas of the tongue respond to all qualities3.
From the medulla, the taste impulses reach the brain, more precisely
the primary taste cortex in the rostal insula and adjoining frontal operculum
and the orbitofrontal cortex that contains the secondary taste cortex, in which
the reward value of taste is represented. The latter area also contains the
secondary and tertiary olfactory cortical areas, in which information about the
identity and also about the reward value of odors is represented. The
orbitofrontal cortex also receives information about the sight of objects from
the temporal lobe cortical visual areas, and neurons in it learn and reverse
the visual stimulus to which they respond when the association of the visual
stimulus with a primary reinforcing stimulus (such as taste) is reversed.
Foods and beverages stimulate multiple fibers in the trigeminal nerve
(CN V): tactile sensations such as particle size, texture and creaminess
stimulate mechanoreceptors while temperature triggers thermoreceptors and,
irritants and pungent foods stimulate nociceptors. Somatosensory input is
tightly integrated with, but separate from, smell and taste input.
9 Hedonic responses to odorants are learned through positive (e.g.
pairing odors with energy, repetitive exposure) and negative (i.e. flavor
aversions) conditioning. Odors reach the olfactory epithelium via the nares
passively through breathing and actively through sniffing and via the mouth
and nasopharynx actively through chewing and swallowing. Retronasal
olfaction is as important as oral sensation, however they play different roles5.
For example, cheese that is aversive when sniffed is enjoyed when eaten.
Within the mouth, amino acids and salt stimulate the taste system and fat
stimulates somatosensation. Chewing warms the cheese and releases
volatiles. When swallowed, the latter creates a pressure differential that
pumps cheese volatiles through the oropharynx and nasopharynx to the
olfactory epithelium.
The way a person eats impacts on his/her taste perception and an
example is slowing the rate which allows time to savor the flavor. The
blending of taste, somatosensory and retronasal experiences promotes
satiation6. All these sensations are transmitted to the brain where the odor
message is compared with a template of past experiences and is enjoyed or
not according to them. Thus, the integration of peripheral inputs occurs
centrally.
Elderly and sick people lack some of these capacities and genetics
definitely interfere in each person’s individual capacity of taste. This explains
why some people become experts in chocolate or coffee tasting etc1,
3, 4, 6
.
Compared with nontasters, supertasters taste sweet, sour, salty and bitter
compounds more intensely, as well as perceive more chemesthetic
sensations from chili peppers, black pepper, ginger, carbonation, and
alcohol. Supertasters also experience heightened tactile sensations from
high-fat milk products,
salad dressings and greater intensities from
1
retronasal stimuli . (Fig 2).
10 Food preferences and dietary behaviors seem to be related to
variation in taste, smell and oral somatosensation. These, on the other hand,
depend on complex genetic-environmental interactions. All of them are
extremely important to man’s perception of food and a link between physical
and psychological approaches.
In common parlance, moral transgressions “leave a bad taste in the
mouth.” This metaphor implies a link between moral disgust and more
primitive forms of disgust related to toxicity and disease. Some authors have
tested directly the primitive oral origins of moral disgust by searching for
similarity in the facial motor activity evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by
unpleasant tastes), basic disgust (elicited by photographs of contaminants),
and moral disgust (elicited by unfair treatment in an economic game). They
found that all three states evoked activation of the levator labii muscle region
of the face, characteristic of an oralnasal rejection response. These results
suggest that immorality elicits the same disgust as disease vectors and bad
tastes7.
Taste is directly related to nutrition and diets. It impacts brain function
across the lifespan. The importance of specific nutrients for brain function,
cognitive and mental health, and susceptibility and resistance to brain
dysfunction, as well as many other health and disease states is just
beginning to be explored. Also taste has a direct role in hedonic behavior.
Romantic
gastronomers,
self
proclaimed
professors
of
taste,
considered the profoundly physical pleasures of the palate to be the pinnacle
of aesthetic appreciation. Food was elevated during the nineteenth century
to the status of fine arts, adopting the same juridical language and concern
with philosophical principles that defined the eighteenth century discourse of
aesthetics8. Nonetheless,
taste has always been ranked low on the
philosophical hierarchy of the senses as a means to ingress to the mind.
Whereas sight and hearing allow for a proper representative distance from
the object of contemplation, taste like its closest cousin smell, is bound up
with the chemical physiology of the body. While the exertion of the higher
senses theoretically leads to more mind, the exercise of the lower senses of
taste and smell can result in too much body and its various forms of
11 sensuousness: to indulge the most basic human appetites is to risk becoming
a glutton, a drunkard or a voluptuary.
Thus, a journey into the world of taste justifies why medicine, nutrition
and gastronomy are side by side in health, disease and hedonism.
1.2. MEDICINE
“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which
your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have
nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong
upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish.”
William Osler, 1849 - 1919
1.2.1. Art
Art is the subtle or imaginative ability in inventing, devising, or
executing something9. And what does Medicine have to do with art? First,
they share a common goal: to complete what nature has not. Second, they
have a common substrate, the physical, visible world of matter. More
significant, however, are the similar qualities of mind, body, and spirit
demanded of the practitioners of each, artist and physician. Chief among
them is an eye: the ability not only to observe, but to observe keenly -- to
ferret out the tiny detail from the jumble of facts, lines, colors -- the tiny detail
that unlocks a painting or a patient's predicament. Observation demands
attention, and this is the key to both art and medicine. Attention is nothing
more than a state of receptiveness toward its object, the artist to nature, the
viewer to the work of art, the physician to the patient. It is no accident, I
believe, that clinicians -- or treating physicians, as they are often called -- are
referred to as "attending physicians." "Attention" and "attend" are both
derived from the same Latin root meaning "to stretch toward." Many more
"affinities" exist between medicine and the visual arts, but I will close with just
one: Medicine is itself an art. It is an art of doing, and if that is so, it must
employ the finest tools available -- not just the finest in science and
12 technology, but the finest in the knowledge, skills, and character of the
physician. Truly, medicine, like art, is a calling10.
1.2.2. Science
Medicine has also to be science because its role has been beyond
comforting and curing the sick ones. More recently,
a key aspect of
Medicine has been to prevent the outbreak of diseases. In order to perform
such, it has been fundamental do investigate hypothesis, to develop theories,
to spend times in the laboratories and search for better diagnosing tools and
treatments, plus creating vaccines.
Even before there were humans on earth, there was disease. Studies
of animal fossils have shown that prehistoric creatures were subject to
manifold diseases and injuries. Fossil teeth with erosions,
pyorrhea, as well as cavities were identified.
abscess and
Investigations of human
remnants from different historic periods have uncovered many disease
entities such as tuberculosis, bone fractures and parasitic infections.
The mummies in Egypt show characteristics of tubercular disease of
the spine, pneumonia, stones, parasites, urinary infections and even
arteriosclerosis. Ancient bones in the Americas have shown that preColumbian syphilis or a different spirochetal disease was a reality. Bone
wasting (osteomalacia) has been interpreted as a sign of poor nutrition in
ancient times, although rickets was rare, maybe due to great light exposition.
The healing process has also been part of man’s instinct maybe much
similar to how sick animals treat themselves. In the first century of Christian
Era, Pliny repeated the tall tale about the hippopotamus which when ill would
plunge its knee into a sharp reed to let out blood and heal itself11. The
principle of bloodletting so much adopted in human Medicine not until long
ago. Also, animals when hurt apply mud to their wounds and plunge into cold
water to relieve discomfort. Men on the other hand rub wounds using thus
heat to ameliorate inflammation and apply cold to deaden pain, principles
much identical to the ones used by animals.
13 Apparently primitive societies were subject to many of the same
diseases which still afflict humans today if we were to judge by the multiplicity
of ailments under the care of specializes shamans. These included stomach
upsets, diarrheal diseases, respiratory illnesses, rheumatic ailments and
menstrual disorders. However, with the evolution of times, other diseases
were added to this list and obesity is nowadays the biggest epidemic
worldwide.
Disease has affected men and women differently. All throughout
times, men seemed to have lived longer than women, the common
assumption being that pregnancy and childbirth were responsible for the
difference. However, even if this were true it would only justify life expectancy
for the younger ones and not the overall community. Nutrition, on the other
hand, maybe the explanation for this phenomenon, since chronic
malnutrition, starting in infancy and continuing through childhood and
adulthood made women less resistant to illness. According to this theory,
men and boys, as leaders, hunters and warriors, were considerably better fed
than women and girls who were the home laborers, crop cultivators and child
bearers.
No matter which diseases have afflicted humankind, food has always
been linked to many of them, be either related to deficiencies such as
malnutrition or excess as obesity12. Many medical bases for food prohibitions
have had their principles not only on religious principles but also on social
and anthropological reasoning.
In Nei Ching, or The emperor's book of internal medicine, written by
the Yellow Emperor, sometime in 3.000BC,
there are three kinds of
medicines: the lowest is poisonous, the middle is a little poisonous and the
highest is not poisonous. The lowest cures six out of every 10 diseases and
leaves poison in the body. The middle cures seven of every 10 diseases and
leaves a little poison in the body. Even the highest cures only nine to ten of
every 10 diseases. Diseases that cannot be cured with Medicine, can be
cured only with food13.
14 Medicine, as practiced nowadays, owes much to Hippocrates, the first
world known, reputed physician and teacher at the famous medical school
on the Mediterranean island of Cos. Hippocrates is generally credited with
turning away from divine notions of Medicine and using observation of the
body as a basis for medical knowledge. Prayers and sacrifices to the gods
did not hold a central place in his theories, but changes in diet, beneficial
drugs, and keeping the body "in balance" were the key. Central to his
physiology and ideas on illness was the humoral theory of health, whereby
the four bodily fluids, or humors, of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile
needed to be kept in balance. Illness was caused when these fluids became
out of balance, sometimes requiring the reduction in the body of a humor
through bloodletting or purging. The Hippocratic Corpus, or the collected
writings attributed to Hippocrates, contains about sixty works on a variety of
medical topics, including diagnosis, epidemics, obstetrics, pediatrics, surgery
and nutrition.
In his writings, Hippocrates introduced ethical concepts (Hippocrates
Oath – fig. 3 ) which prevail till nowadays, by pointing to the importance of
curing
sometimes,
treating
frequently
and
comforting
always.
He
acknowledged the importance of giving each individual just the right quantity
of nutrition and exercise, not too little, not too much, but just enough to lead
to healthy living habits. His famous quote “Let food be thy medicine and
medicine be thy food" has certainly confirmed that health and disease are
linked by one basic and essential determinant: Nutrition.
15 Figure 3 – Hippocrates Oath, available at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/ihm/images/A/24/222.jpg
1.3. NUTRITION
“Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food."
Hippocrates, 460 BC – 370 BC
1.3.1 Essential to life
Nutrition is essential to the survival of any living being. It plays a key
role in man’s life by covering body requirements but also supporting social
roles. Although some have tried to prove that life is possible without eating14,
by just looking at the sun, evidences from hunger strikers have shown that
among those who had lost 38% of the usual body weight , 33% died15.
Healthy individuals when undergoing a fasting state presented with loss of
20% of total body proteins which equaled 15% of usual body weight loss.
This led to muscle mass weakness and decreased respiratory function. Ten
to twenty percent of these impairments were immediately recovered after five
days of nutrition supplementation16.
16 Disease and nutritional status interact. The former might lead to
disease while the latter worsens the disease per se and the patient’s overall
clinical condition.
Past pope John Paul II
17
(1920- 1985)
stated at the inaugural
conference of the International Conference of Nutrition, in Rome, 1992 that
“Hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable in a world that has both the
knowledge and the resources to end this human catastrophe”. He also
pointed that “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had already
asserted the right to sufficient food. What we must now do is ensure that this
right is applied and that everyone has access to food, food security, a healthy
diet and nutrition education. In short, all people must be able to enjoy
personal and community living conditions that allow them to realize their full
human potential, at every point in their lives.” He finalized his speech by
saying “This is why the Pope asks you, participants at the International
Conference on Nutrition, to work for a world in which no one is denied his or
her daily bread or health care.”
1.3.2. Science
Nutrition sciences have long played a key role in humanity
development both in community and hospital settings. Famines which have
marked distinct eras throughout time, leading to the death of millions of
people, have only been diminished due to strong efforts of various scientists.
In the same line, hospital malnutrition to which many hospital complications
and deaths have been attributed has been the focuses of several studies
wordwide18-22.
Cicely Williams first described kwashiorkor malnutrition in what is now
Ghana in 193323. Her excellent publication was overlooked until J. Brock
(World Health Organization; WHO) and M. Autret (FAO) toured Africa and
reported to the second FAO/WHO Expert Committee in 1951 that the disease
described by Williams was widespread throughout Africa. This was
recognized as a condition common in Central America, also, where
Scrimshaw
24
began to study intensively both kwashiorkor and marasmus
17 using one cot and one crib for six children on an overcrowded pediatric ward
in the general hospital. With a nutritionist to supervise their food intake, the
kwashiorkor children rapidly lost edema, skin lesions, anorexia, and apathy.
However, they failed to gain weight for many more weeks. After, these
children were later individually kept in a unit of six individual cubicles in a
private pediatric hospital, never again there was a stationary period in the
treatment of kwashiorkor. It was then realized that it was the adverse
nutritional impact of multiple cross-infections in an open ward that prevented
these children from gaining weight. Based on their recently found reports, this
author together with a group of investigators developed the concept and
patent of Incaparina a free use indigenous protein supplement to be freely
used in any developing country24.
Hospital malnutrition was assessed by the Brazilian National Survey
on Hospital Nutritional Assessment (IBRANUTRI). This was a
study
designed to provide missing information regarding the nutrition status of
hospitalized patients covered by the Brazilian public health care system
(SUS). Specifically, the prevalence of malnutrition, awareness of nutrition
status in hospitalized patients, and the use of nutrition therapy were
assessed20. This study showed that almost 50% of hospitalized patients were
malnourished. In a larger study in Latin America similar results were found18.
Hospital malnutrition was significantly associated with complications,
mortality, length of hospital stay and costs19.
Eating habits and poor diets have also been linked to most major
nutrition epidemics of the current world. Of these, obesity plays a key issue
by increasing overall complications and death rates. The World Health
Organization estimates that more than two billion people are overweight and
this number has been plunging year after year25.
Although, many people are convinced of the importance of food in both
causing and relieving diseases, many doctors' knowledge of nutrition is still
rudimentary. Most feel much more comfortable with drugs than foods, and
the "food as medicine" philosophy of Hippocrates has been largely neglected.
That may be about to change! Concern about obesity, as previously
18 mentioned, is rocketing up political agendas, and a growing interest in the
science of foods is opening up many therapeutic possibilities.
One example of this could be attributed to Lucy Wills, 1931, who
described how yeast extract could be effective in preventing tropical
macrocytic anaemia of late pregnancy26. Folate was shown to be the crucial
factor. In the 1980s a series of studies showed how periconceptional folate
could prevent spina bifida. Then, later meta-analysis
studies have
established that high homocysteine concentrations were a risk factor for
atherosclerosis27. Dietary folate reduces homocysteine, raising the possibility
that a vitamin might prevent vascular disease. Next, several nucleotide
polymorphisms were found to be related to folate, meaning that folate levels
might influence the chance of developing cancer264.
These discoveries are not surprising as folate metabolism is involved
in many of the fundamental processes of life. It is important for nucleotide
biosynthesis. Thymidylate synthase, an enzyme that helps synthesize DNA,
depends on a folate derivative. Low levels of folate may thus lead to breaks in
DNA, predisposing to cancer. There are many other ways in which folate can
affect gene function, and so folate is central to nutrigenomics—the study of
the links between nutrition and gene function26.
Folate may thus be a leading contender for panacea of the 21st
century. Addition of folate to foods might reduce birth defects, vascular
disease, and heart disease—and the Americans favour fortifying bread with
folate. But folate being involved in so many of life's fundamental processes
not only leads to its possibilities as a panacea but also to the prospect that
"messing around with folate" could do extensive harm. The folate used in
food fortification is not a natural co-enzyme, and nobody knows the long term
effects of exposing whole populations to the unnatural folate. There is thus
great potential for good, some possibility of harm, and much uncertainty. The
question of fortifying foods inevitably becomes highly political, and the politics
of nutrition are just as complex as the science. The current prediction is that
we will be hearing much more about the science, medicine, and politics of
food. Hippocrates would be pleased. Therefore, it’s extremely important to
19 stimulate and finance more research into this intricate field in order to halt
such situations, of which the above mentioned ones are just few examples.
Much more could be discussed on the role of food either preventing, treating
or even causing disease.
1.4. GASTRONOMY
“Gastronomy, has been the joy of all peoples through the ages. It produces beauty and
wit and goes hand in hand with goodness of heart and a consideration of others."
Charles Pierre Monselet, 1825-88
1.4.1Science
The history of food in its most basic sense needs no justification. The
idea that a society’s soul is revealed by its cooking has, in fact, been used
since earlier times. According to Greek classical and also Chinese tradition,
barbarians ate raw and crudely cooking, and this was the essential aspect of
their barbarism. The Huns, and eight hundred years later the Mongols, were
reputed to cook slabs of meat by placing them between the thigh of the horse
rider and his mount28. As these and in many other cases, the identification of
a populace by its cuisine is the preoccupation of outside observers and their
stereotypic ideas more than an activity of self-reflection.
The Greeks played an important role in such science, binding food and
eating habits with Medicine and Nutrition in principles still validated
nowadays. Theorion, in the 5th. century BC who invented bread ovens and
bakeries, plus
Mitahecus and Sarambus, the later a wine maker, were
considered by Plato the three men who were “best at caring for men’s
bodies”. The belief that whole wheat bread is more laxative and healthful
promoter than the wheat itself comes from these Greek times, although they
themselves preferred the white bread. Furthermore, Dionysius advised that
wine drinking was to be practiced in such mode: one to health; one to love
and pleasure; and the 3rd to sleep28. It was very common to Greeks to add
wine to water at a concentration of 3% to 5%. The other Greek contribution to
human diet was olive oil, this sponsored by the Goddess Athena who planted
the first olive tree. Refinement in Greek cuisine appears to have been
20 stimulated by both eastern (Lydia and Persian) and western influences (Sicily
and South Italy). Eastern influence was marked by the best bread and cake
makers, complex dishes and perfumes. The western influence was played by
the highly sophisticated professional cooks and cookery book writers
imported from Italy. The basic difference between Greeks and Romans
seems to be that the first shared their meals usually amongst men while the
latter shared them with their wives. According to Popei “the one I do not dine
with is a barbarian for me”28.
European cuisine was born with the ingenuity of the Sicilian cooks.
Their rich cuisine of many ingredients, elaborate sauces and seductive
honey-cakes was enjoyed and admired. The Romans were eager to learn
from others, especially from the Easterns and maybe due to this, ended up
using much spices and exotic sauces in their cuisine. Garum or liquamen
was a sauce made of salting the fish and having it fermented with enzymatic
and not bacterial action. This sauce was very much similar to the South
Asian fish sauces used today. Upon this, it’s almost impossible to dismiss the
claim that the Romans had a preference for the taste of rotting food. Garum
was produced in factories all over the Roman Empire and it varied in quality,
taste, color, and of course, in price. However, it may come as a surprise that
all the foods that are considered today as characteristic of the area, such as
tomatoes, green peppers, aubergines, oranges and macaroni were not
available yet at that time. The Romans essentially ate grains, meat, fish,
venison, boar, hare and dormice (all parts of these animals were fully
consumed, nothing was wasted). They also ate different kinds of birds and
aquatic animals such as oysters, crayfish and prawns. These were available
especially in coastal areas. Everything was eaten with different sauces made
of a huge variety herbs (parsley, celery leaf, catmint), spices (pepper, cumin,
savory, marjoram), liquefiers (garum, fruit juice, wine, vinegar, mustard) and
thickeners (egg whites or egg yolks, wheat starch). In addition to the varied
and fine cuisine, Romans had the peculiar habit of selling food on the streets
and even around the baths, besides in the taverns. Mostly, they liked the
plebeian convivium.
The Romans succeed in building an empire that
21 survived and resisted internal and external crises for over thousands of
years.
Meanwhile in the far east Asia, China also played an extremely
important role in the world of culinary and its association with health status
issues
29
. “Have you eaten? “….this is the most common daily greetings in
China and attests to the central position occupied in Chinese lives by food.
The most fundamental principle underlying Chinese cuisine is its most
distinctive characteristic of fan-cai principle. This divides all foods in two
categories: fan denotes rice but it encompasses all grains and such other
carbohydrates as bread and noodles; cai denotes the dishes made to flavor
the fan, and it is of secondary importance. The Chinese also praised the yin
and yang principle of balance into their cuisine. These were not regarded as
diametrical opposites but as complementary poles on either end of a
spectrum on which any item of food would be. Foods were divided into
cooling and heating types according to their effect on the body, this is to say
not the temperature they were served, but rather their properties. Chicken
soup, for example, was ranked as a heating food while crabs were cooling
food. These ideas were further reinforced with the latter introduction of the
humoral system. According to this theory, the human body was affected by
heat and cold, and to a lesser extent by wetness and dryness, and balance
was essential to wellbeing. The humoral system might have reached China
from the West as a consequence of Buddhism spread. The Chinese divided
the cosmos into five successive phases generated by yin and yang namely,
wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Each one had a counterpart in every other
group. The most connected to food was the five flavors, that is, acidic or
sour, as in vinegar; bitter as in bitter melon and apricot kernels; sweet as in
honey and later sugar; pungent as in ginger and garlic and finally; salty as in
salt and later soy sauce. Also the Chinese paid much attention to health and
hygiene and it explains why freshness and cleanliness has always played a
central role in Chinese cuisine. The influence of Chinese cuisine on health
issues dates way back from Confucius who very much praised what he ate.
His principles were: “do not eat rice which has been damaged by heat or
damp and turned sour, nor fish or flesh which has gone bed. Do not eat what
22 is discolored or what is in bad flavor, nor anything which is ill-cooked or not in
season”29. The Chinese might also have been the ones who started the idea
of dining out. Restaurants, or better say, establishments with the same
principle of these were a reality in that country ever since the Song Dynasty
in Hangzhou (960–1279 AD).
In the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese cuisine and thus taste
was marked by a burgeoning consumer culture that bestowed enormous
prestige upon possession and enjoyment of material things, encouraging a
new market in luxuries.
This
definitely
prompted
a
full
interest
in
gastronomy. Three late Ming authors gave some sense of the epicurean life
of this period, both in terms of food itself and in terms of pleasure. Gao Lian,
one of these authors, advocated that for elegant living one must share
lengthy discourses on food and drinking. He also devoted his energies to
questions of health and longevity. In harmony with a general trend towards
articulating standards of good taste, Gao’s book “Eight discourses on the art
of living from the studio where elegance is valued” was a work of
connoisseurship suggesting ways in which one might perfect both one’s
material surroundings and one’s metaphysical existence. Out of his eight
sections, one was fully devoted to ways of prolonging life and avoiding
illness, one to medicine and one to food and drink. So, once again, taste,
medicine, nutrition and gastronomy had its destiny connected in the history of
these arts. This was later stressed by Yuan Mei29 (figure 4) a famous writer
and intellectual who was compared to the French intellectual Brillat-Savarin,
for his strong opinions about cooking and because of his insistence on the
importance of gourmet knowledge.
Figure 4 – Yuan Mei available at http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/M/MeiYuan/index.htm
23 He stressed that cooks should only and solely use the best-quality
ingredients, rejecting anything not absolutely fresh. According to him, cooks
should thrive to achieve balance in seasoning and respect the natural flavor
of an ingredient; they should also pay attention to hygiene, use separate
pans for different flavors and pour water onto tea-leaves only when it reaches
boiling point.
In summary, Chinese imperial gastronomy consisted of two main
branches, procuring and savoring the best and rarest foods and writing about
them. This was intertwined to the uncanny resemblance to the fan-cai
principle that ordered gastronomy itself to concern for flavor, health and good
taste.
In the middle East, Islamic cuisine was marked by haram (evil –
forbidden) and haial (good - permitted) principles. Muslims similar to Jewish
were not allowed to eat certain foods such as pork, blood and improperly
slaughter animals. For Jewish much of these prohibitions were presumably
made on medical basis, considering that many of these animals lived under
dirty conditions. However, there were also other explanations such as the
pigs competed with humans for water and grain (scarce commodities in a
barren land) in contrast to cattle and sheep which consume relatively little
water and graze on forage inedible to man. Since tapeworm and other
parasitic infections were also transmitted by sheep and cows, thus singling
out pigs would not be wholly logical30. On the other hand, Muslims were
enjoined by Allah in to “eat of the good things wherewith We have provided
you”.
Since the second half of the 8th century there were culinary books in
the Arab world. They were written by important people as the brother of Calif
Haroum al-Rashid, famous for having invented the eponymous ibrahymyia, a
sour meat stew made with verjuice or vinegar31. For Medieval Muslims the
most important genres of Arabic culinary literature were the poems of the
table, elaborate poetic paeans to food and dining that were recited at dinner
parties. Dining was an elaborate lavish matter, something unheard since the
24 Roman times, which direly contrasted to Muhammad’s principles of eating
only the necessary. The caliphs would boast of the fact that no less than 300
different dishes might be presented in a single sitting and by doing so they
expressed their wealth and power. However, in the same period, dissidents
of such principle of life or the so called cult of the stomach, doctors depicted
their concepts in dietary treatises which were much similar to the Greek
theories. One of such books, the book of Foods (Kitãb al-aghdbiya) written by
doctor Ishaq B. Sulayman al-Isra’ili was even translated into Latin and was
worth of consultation by many European physicians. The principle was to
object to the conspicuous consumption of so much food based on moral
grounds since excessive devotion to the stomach prevented true
enlightenment. This philosophy was spread to Europe by Ziryab31, a freed
slave and musician from Baghdad who found a position in Spain. Although
hired as a musician, he became one of the greatest arbiters of taste the world
has ever seen. He set the standards for matters of etiquette, fashion and
dining. He taught chefs new dishes from the east and introduced some
delicacies such as asparagus. Some of these specialties are still in use in
current Spain, such as the ziriabi, a dish of roasted and salted broad beans.
He also introduced the practice of dining in courses in which soup should be
followed by fish, and then fowl or meat, then desserts, ending with a small
bowl of pistachios or almonds. In other words, a meal from soup to nuts, a
style of dining that has persisted till nowadays.
Muslim food was much characterized by intense and diverse flavors
always with a touch of rose water to be sprinkled in the very last minute.
Interestingly, rice was not all that much prized until mid 16th century when
was then elaborated in different pilafs. On the other hand, bread was
tremendously prized and the more there was served, the better judged was
the host. To complement such specialties, Muslim cuisine was very rich in
candies. There were all different kinds which were exported to countries
invaded by them, including India. Furthermore, it was a Muslim custom to
wipe the sides of the pans with a clean cloth, for no reason other than it
would enhance its presentation, characterizing not only the art of cooking but
also the art of serving.
25 Meanwhile, in Europe, with the fall of the Roman empire, Christianity
played an important role in food habits. This was represented by a swing
away from luxury life where gluttony prevailed to a more monastic selfmortification model32. The principle that the human body depended on four
related humors seems to have been influenced by eastern philosophies.
These were: choler or yellow bile; phlegmon; black bile and; blood. Medieval
food matched the individual to foods with the optimum characteristics to
achieve a temperate state – warm and moist. Cooking changed a food’s
nature: heat dried food; boiling would moisten it. Digestion was a form of
cooking to be conducted in a measured way to translate the food into blood
or other humor. Over-indulgence at the meal might produce imbalance of
humors. So, once again food regains its importance in health and disease.
Late medieval medical theory considered that there were eight flavors: sweet,
greasy, bitter, salty, sharp, harsh, salty like the sea and vinegary. The eight
tastes were linked to humoral analysis and may underlie some of the working
of medieval cookery books. Physicians in great households were expected
to make this connection. An example of this is present in the history of Duke
of Burgundy who when at the table had his physician surveying the foods
served to him and advising which would be most profitable to him33. The
preserving of meat was developed and fruits were widely consumed as they
were indicated as a therapy to invalids.
Medieval cookery also revolved around the use of spices under the
influence of Muslims. More than 300 spices were described by Florentine
Francesco Pegalotti and these were used not only in cookery but also in
medicine and beauty products33. Spices played such an important role and
were considered the “oil” of the middle ages32. Some authors even
advocated that the world of crusades was no quest for Christianity but rather
a need to guarantee the supply of these ingredients to an Europe deprived of
them due to two great barriers: one political and other geographical. The
Ottoman empire would not allow anyone to travel through their domains to
look for spices. So, there was no possibility of making the journey that the
Polos had made earlier. The other barrier was geographical as no one knew
how far south the African continent stretched. The Arabs were at that time
26 the best geographers but they had little desire to escape from the Ptolemaic
conception of the world as it was known to the ancient Greeks and they were
not prepared to speculate about possible routes to unknown continents.
Furthermore, they had a horror of the western ocean beyond Europe and
Africa which they referred as the “Green Sea of Darkness”32. Henry the
Navigator, the Portuguese infant (1394-1460) was a member of the
crusading expedition sent to Ceuta, in North Africa in 1415, with the goal to
interrogate the Arabs of the extent of the great trans-Saharan salt trade. Salt
was also a very important condiment known by the Arabs who traded it
across the Sahara, usually returning from those far sides with leather, goat
skins and ivory.
The information provided by the prisoners of Ceuta enabled Henry to
build up a mental map of the great continent. Surrounded by Jewish and
Arab cartographers, he created the beginning of the ocean discovery era of
the far sided continents. Henry not was only interested on the spice trading
but also on inflicting a decisive defeat on the Muslims, from whom Portugal
had only recently freed itself. After Henry, not only Europe was for sure
different but also, a world globalization was rocketed. New food ingredients
were brought into Europe from the colonies but also new food techniques
had to be developed to attend the demands of long months in the seas. The
first nutrition deficiencies were reported and ascribed to fresh food deficient
intake, such as vitamin C deficiency leading to scurvy. This inflicted so many
deaths on sailors.
European cuisine was much influenced by the Arabs and it’s possible
that the creation of sherbets and ice creams, in Italy, were under the
influence of them. Sugar, originally from India, was probably one of the most
important new ingredients that changed European habits. Sugar was also
recommended by doctors to their patients on account of it health-giving
qualities. According to Platina “nothing given us to eat is so flavorless that
sugar does not season it”34. It’s interesting to note that the English used less
spices than the French but on the other hand ate more sugar. As for the
French, spices such as grain of paradise were used in two out of three
recipes. One plausible explanation could be the idea brought about with the
27 thought of heaven. Corn, potatoes, chocolate, turkeys were all new
ingredients brought to Europe together with a variety of new fruits. Some of
these food were changed by European habits.
Chocolate was a cold delicacy, not liquid, but frothed to a thick
consistency like that o honey, so that it had to be eaten with a spoon, h was
taken by the Aztecs as an aphrodisiac beverage. This was brought to Europe
by Cortez, a Spanish, who introduced it to the court of Spain. Chocolate
continued to be later regarded as aphrodisiac by English and French people,
also. Casonova, the famous French playboy was reputed for given his lovers
chocolate and guaranteeing his status of a true delicate and honorable lover.
Other drinks as coffee and tea were also important at European tables where
water, on the other hand, was seldom present, maybe due to the conditions
under which it was kept.
Coffee and tea, as well as an afternoon snack meal when chocolate
was drunk were habits incorporated into the European world. The reputation
of coffee as drink that enabled students to burn the midnight oil helped
promote the sale of the new exotic beverage. But soon this was questioned
by physicians who warned their patients that coffee drinking was the road to
ruin32. When towards the end of the seventeenth century a coffee house
opened in Marseilles, the town physician held a public meeting to explain to
the townspeople just how pernicious a drink coffee was. According to him,
the brew was a hot dry substance, which deprived the body of its natural
juices, plaguing the drinker with eternal wakefulness, exhaustion and, worse,
impotence.
The new world agriculture and habits impacted on social ideas and
issues. Slavery was a consequence of this new era. Twenty million black
men, women and children were carried overseas to plantations in the West
Indies, Brazil or America32 and there, they lived under the worst ruthless
conditions ever. This raised humanist attitudes in the old continent and the
first food boycott ever in history was held by abolitionists who started
sweetening their coffee with cream instead of sugar, and asking for French
brandy in place of rum.
28 The development of the printing era certainly influenced the world of
taste, medicine and gastronomy (not yet used as such). Many books were
out on the subject. The first modern cookery book by Maestro Martino de
Como (1450) was an asset of gastronomy and medieval commentaries on
the philosophy of taste34. Martino’s book was a practical manual for courtly
cooks and was later adopted by the humanist writer Bartolomeeo Sacchi
(pseudonym Platina) as a reference in his treatise on the science and the art
of eating. The Bonessa Voluptate was the first book to be published in three
different idioms34. The highlights of this book were moderation and frugality,
galenic medical principles that in fact had not really fully disappeared
throughout all of those years when gluttony and extravaganza were mostly
defended by powerful ruling people.
Dietetic concerns ruled out certain foods as dangerous to consume.
Platina noted that the properties of mushrooms, for example, were cold and
damp and for this reason have the force to poison. In general, meat and fish
were considered to be more nourishing and healthier than fruit and
vegetables. He also oriented that vegetables should not be eaten after
consuming fruit because digestion is hampered by eating so many cool and
damp items. According to the galenic dietetic principles every person’s body
has its own complex set of humors and properties which must be balanced
by various different combinations. One can assume that this was potential
the first attempt to individualize nutrition treatments.
The table also became a place to show and share social manners.
Erasmus in his “De civilitate moreum puerillium”34 advised that “it’s neither
polite nor safe to drink or speak with ones mouth full”. Continuous eating
should be interrupted now and again with stories.” He also offered his
readers practical advice such as “It is boorish to plunge your hands into
sauced dishes. You should taste what you want with a knife or a fork; nor
should you select from entire dish as epicures do but should take whatever
portion is in front of you”. The fork was at that time a rather rare utensil. The
first record of a fork comes from Italy, sometime around the XIVth century, but
it only became of use around the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Catherine
de Medici35 was responsible for its introduction into the French court.
29 Despite the efforts of humanist food writers to emphasize the
importance of good taste and good society at the tables, it’s is clear that the
princes of the time valued magnificence and ostentatious display at their
meals, so Platina’s book was a lonely cry in the wider intellectual culture of
the Renaissance humanism and cooking, although important and related to
health,
did not achieve at that time such a high status as painting and
sculpturing.
Renaissance involved, at least in its earlier stages, a closing rather
than an opening of the mind. The veneration of antiquity became more
slavish, authority staked fresh claims against experience. So, the art and
science of eating was not as valued as those pieces of art that would call
attention to the eyes or to the other senses and to hedonism. It took about
two centuries for this to be changed! But things did start moving on when the
new science of the seventeenth century, a consequence of the overseas new
lands, encouraged an interest in novel foods and drinks. This was based
exactly on the previously above mentioned new products brought in from the
new world. Many scientists became curious and thus interested in studying
the commodities of tobacco, chocolate, tea and coffee. Their familiarity with
the Galenic medical model offered them a language they could explain the
health benefits of the new exotic products. Coffee, for example,
was
remarked with the cure of small pox, as well as sugar was prescribed for
many disease states. Sweetness was thus transforming the European diet!
The birth of a new cuisine was paved by the moto “savory and sweet”.
These were the basics for the beginning of the French haute cuisine and the
introduction of dessert as the closing of a meal. Till then, most cookery books
focused solely on medical and dietetic advice but offered very little practical
orientation on how to prepare food. This was to be changed by the book “Le
cuisinier Francois” authored by Francois Pierre35 whose pen name was La
Varenne. It was the first book which provided recipes to prepare food and not
anymore a dietetic manual, despite its still conservative introduction on the
importance of good eating habits and, food impact on health and disease. He
definitely paved the way to modern gastronomy and introduced important
recipes still famous nowadays such as the fricassee and the ragout. Cooking
30 was now a competition and an area of serious debate. It’s perhaps the
beginning of a new era: cooking as an art and not solely science anymore!
1.4.2. Art
“The discovery of a new dish does much for the happiness of mankind as the
discovery of a new star….tell me what to eat and I will tell you what you are. “
(Brillat Savarin – 1755 – 826)
Gastronomy is then the link between taste, medicine and nutrition in
the scientific arena of the sustaining principles of life maintenance: eating
the basic element of human life! Eating, a hugely complex activity, involves
innate biochemical processes and cultural phenomena. Thus,
gastronomy
plays a lot more when it is also linked with the cultural and artistic side of the
three other sciences. Thus no better words to describe it: “art of arts”.
The word gastronomy per se only appeared around the year of 1800 in
the title of a poem by Joseph de Berchoux (1775- 1838).
The noun
gastronome dates from 1803 and in the Manuel des amphytryons (1808),
gastronomy was a means of legitimizing the new social hierarchy that had
emerged from the French Revolution36.
Antonin Caréme, the first celebrity chef37, chef of the kings and king of
chefs, was the landmark of such new phase of this art. Author of many
books of which “Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien” was the first, he advised that
food should be served on hot plates and insisted in strict hygiene. He also
began to form theories about the marriage of wine and food. He also
suggested the liberal use of champagne wit food within recipes. Caréme was
a master in sculpturing his food assets, mainly desserts and he himself would
spend hours in libraries reading and later drawing his future masterpieces
(figure 5)
31 Figure 5 - Carême's drawing of the Hermitage Russe which
Jacobin
constructs
for
the
Prince
Regent's
dinner
in honor of the Russian Ambassador
Available at
http://www.mirandaneville.com/antonin_careme.php#cherries
.
His cooking was tempting and once the Prince Regent teased him by
saying that “his cooking would be the death of him”. Caréme replied “Your
highness, my concern is to tempt your appetite; yours is to curb it.” Caréme
praised very much quality and quantity and was firm saying that “the man
who calls himself a gourmand but eats like a glutton is not a gourmand. He is
a glutton”. His genius was to deploy methods that brought out the natural
flavors of food, for example, vegetables should be cooked a little firm. It was
his goal to create a gourmand’s paradise while at the same time producing a
feast which could, visually live up to the most opulent settings. His influence
was all over Europe as he served in England, Russia and Austria. He was
able to impact on Russian sauces, by introducing cream instead of only
vinegar to make them and supposedly for successfully ridding Russian cooks
of their over-reliance on pickling. To western Europe, he brought back the
Russian style use of flowers where porcelain and fruit had dominated table
decoration. He also imported to France the borsch and koulibiac (a pie with
either fish or chicken, boiled eggs and rice). He also endorsed of service à la
russe which is the predominant way of serving till nowadays.
By the Russian style each course is served to each guest individually.
French service was generally used up until then. Under this method, the
usually large menu (as many as 32 courses) was brought to the table in two
or three parts, and all of the dishes of each part would be placed on the table
at once. Guests would help themselves to each dish, most often in a
confused and combative manner, those with the longest arms getting their
32 favorites first. Frequently by the time you got too much of the food, it was no
longer hot. Then all of the dishes from that part of the service would be
cleared from the table and next part or 'service' would be placed on the table
in the same manner. Caréme somehow mingled the two systems.
The chef’s hat was also introduced by Caréme, and this seems to
have happened throughout his Austrian times. By then, Caréme was working
for the Ambassador of England, lord Stewart. Every morning, both would
meet to discuss the day’s menu in the kitchen, Caréme’s domain. It was
when Stewart first noticed his chef different appearance. Antonin had taken
to wearing a raised hat, a sort of toque, in contrast to white nightcaps usually
worn in kitchens those days. When Stewart asked why, Caréme promptly
replied he felt a chef should not dress as for a sickbed. This habit was
followed by other chefs in Vienna, then in Paris and then everywhere.
The French sauces were revolutionized by Caréme who had on them
the basis of its cuisine: velouté, béchamel, espagnol and allemande were all
his creations. Furthermore, Caréme had his finger on the role which
marketing and later the media would have on the world of gastronomy.
People were eager to be with Caréme, to share his company and eat his food
and this was mostly used by the French aristocracy to call attention to their
society. The Rothschilds were Caréme’s supporters in this new venture,
when inviting Lady Morgan to dine and later to write about the chef’s
qualities. According to lady Morgan, the once abandon urchin of Rue du Bac
had a Paris townhouse, his own coach and his own box at the Paris Opera37.
The era where the chef, not the writer or the critic, becomes a celebrity
is a culture where food, too is in revolution. This was mostly proven by Brillat
Savarin, the French intellectual who wrote the Physiology of Taste38. Savarin
discoursed not only on the qualities of food but also on the perceptions and
sensations it would bring altogether. He set principles on
taste, senses,
appetite, food in germs, thirst, drinks, pleasures at the table, impact on sleep
and many other topics, including philosophical history of kitchens and even
death. Once again, the link between taste, medicine, nutrition and
gastronomy was stressed!
33 According to Brillat Savarin, the sensation of taste is a chemical
operation produced by humidity. That is to say, the savorous particles must
be dissolved in some fluid, so as to be subsequently absorbed by the
nervous tubes, feelers, or tendrils, which cover the interior gustatory
apparatus38. He was also persuaded that without the interposition of the
organs of smell, there would be no complete degustation, and that the taste
and the sense of smell form but one sense, of which the mouth is the
laboratory and the nose the chimney; or to speak more exactly, that one
tastes tactile substances, and the other exhalations. Most of his thoughts
have been backed by recent discoveries in the science of taste.
Savarin defended that gastronomical knowledge is necessary to all
men, for it tends to augment the sum of happiness and gastronomy itself is a
scientific definition of all that relates to a man as a feeding animal. For him,
the most indispensable quality of a good cook is promptness.
1.5. HEALTH AND DISEASE
“Every human being is the author
of his own health or disease.”
Buddha, 565 B.C.
Science validates what our grandmothers and ancestors knew. Rich
homemade chicken broths have been used to cure colds.
Figure 6 – Feeding the sick. Available at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/ihm/images/A/21/484.jpg
34 Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just
calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace
minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons—
stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive
supplements for arthritis and joint pain, which not necessarily function as sold
out for. Of course that the intake of such substances, in a short period of
time, does not impact on disease, but sure enough plays a placebo role in
the treatment of the sick and guarantees a fairly well good intake of nutrients
to the anorexic sick patient.
Fish stock, according to traditional lore, helps boys grow up into strong
men, makes childbirth easy and cures fatigue. “Fish broth will cure anything,”
is another South American proverb. Broth and soup made with fish heads
and carcasses provide iodine and thyroid strengthening substances. When
broth is cooled, it congeals due to the presence of gelatin. The use of gelatin
as a therapeutic agent goes back to the ancient Chinese. Gelatin was
probably the first functional food, dating from the invention of the “digestor”
by the Frenchman Papin, in 1682. Papin’s digestor consisted of an apparatus
for cooking bones or meat with steam to extract the gelatin.
Gelatin held a position in the forefront of food research some 200
years ago, just as vitamins and other nutrients (for example, omega-3 fatty
acids) occupy the center of the stage in nutritional investigations today. At
that time, gelatin was universally acclaimed as a most nutritious foodstuff
particularly by the French, who were seeking ways to feed their armies and
vast numbers of homeless in Paris and other cities. Although gelatin is not a
complete protein, containing only the amino acids arginine and glycine in
large amounts, it may act as a protein sparer. During the siege of Paris, when
vegetables and meat were scarce, a doctor named Guerard put his patients
on gelatin bouillon with some added fat and they survived in good health.
The French were the leaders in gelatin research, which continued up
to the 1950s. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of
diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases,
infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive
problems when gelatin was added to their milk. However, nowadays, no one
35 would keep patients solely on gelatin for any kind of treatment and as it has
happened with many other such food supplements used to treat everything
and anything, it is now an out fashion topic in the literature.
Nonetheless, the nourishing properties of soups have been advocated
by many people. Even the epicures recognized that broth-based soup did
more than please the taste buds. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said, “Soup
is a healthy, light, nourishing food, good for all of humanity; it pleases the
stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares the digestion.” Escoffier said :
“Indeed, stock is everything in cooking. Without it, nothing can be done.”
A cure-all in traditional households and the magic ingredient in classic
gourmet cuisine, stock or broth made from bones of chicken, fish and beef
builds strong bones, assuages sore throats, nurtures the sick, puts vigor in
the step and sparkles in love life—so say grandmothers, midwives and
healers. For chefs, stock is the magic elixir for making soul-warming soups
and matchless sauces. Meat and fish stocks play a role in ill traditional
cuisines worldwide—French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, African, South
American, Middle Eastern and Russian.
1.5.1. Eating habits
Eating habits have been influenced by the history of evolution of man.
Man probably felt compelled to get up on his hind legs, so as to have to use
the two hands to carry out some eating process. Later on, by abandoning his
original food gathering for a hunting diet man left instinct behind him and he
had now to work out everything for himself. So, he began to acquire shaper
intelligence and a larger brain39 to cope with the new problems forced on him
by a change of diet32. Larger brains are energetically expensive, and humans
spend a larger proportion of their energy budget on brain metabolism. The
high costs of large humans brains (we have the largest compared to total
body surface) are supported by our energy and nutrient rich diets. Consistent
with an adaptation to a high quality diet, humans have relatively small
gastrointestinal tracts39. In addition humans are relatively under muscled and
over fat compared to other animals, features that help us offset the high
energy demands of our brains.
36 The change to a meat diet undoubtedly made man more productive
and probably altered his whole physique for the better. However, a meat diet
presented with drawbacks and salt dependency was one of them. Salt is
present in meat in great quantity. Also cannibalism is thought to have been a
consequence of protein shortage. It’s true that cannibals also devoured their
victims with the hope they would inherit the mama
32
or magical power that
they attributed to some of their victims.
The discovery of fire rocketed food variety and also the idea of
commensality. Cooking also increased the nutritional quality of tubers by
making more of the carbohydrate energy available for biological processes.
According to Carleton Cook32, fire may have been a decisive factor in leading
man from primarily animal existence into one that was more fully human. In
summary although dietary change may not have been the prime force
responsible for the evolution of large human brain size, improvements in
dietary quality appear to have been a necessary condition for promoting
encephalization in the human lineage. Therefore, whatever man inherited
from his ancestrals, he has carried out till nowadays into his basic eating
habits.
Socio-economical aspects have also played a role on eating habits.
This has been much seen throughout the centuries but currently is still a
huge problem worldwide, when poor countries in Africa, Asia and also Latin
America present with higher rates of malnutrition due to lack of food. The
map of hunger (figure 6) is an uncontested proof of how underdeveloped
nations are plunged by lack of food resources.
37 Figure 7 – The map of hunger available at http: //www.cdc.gov/
Subjective variables such as genetic and learning aspects are also
related to eating habits. Innate predisposition towards tastes, such as sweet
tastes, measured by observation of facial expressions present in neonates,
as well as aversion to sour or bitter tastes seem to be related to adaptive
human evolution40.
Sweetness indicates the presence of sugars and
valuable calories, whereas bitterness or sourness may signal the presence of
harmful toxins or bacteria. Whilst not present at birth, preference for salty
tastes appears at around four months of age.
1.5.2. Commensality
Commensality is eating with other people, and commensal eating
patterns reflect the social relationships of individuals. When man started
gathering around fire, this new concept was born. The invention of fire which
was important in every sense, specially because the climate was becoming
much colder, brought man together around it to warm himself up and to cook
food. Eating hot food raises a well-being which might be rooted in a strong
recollection feeling, perhaps of mother’s milk.
38 The first reports of banquets date back from Sumeria, in ancient Near
East. Sumerians shared public and private banquets for both political and
social reasons. To eat and drink together was a way of strengthening
relationships and doing good business.
This has raised the idea of
ceremony, which according to the dictionary is a formal act or series of acts
prescribed by ritual, protocol or convention. Ceremony refers to activities
that take place on special occasions and that are consciously designed to
produce beneficial effects41.
Food-related ceremonies have marked humanity in a way that they
have been the center of joyful moments as well as of sad ones. Birth is
celebrated with food and death also. In many ancient and yet current cultures
the dead are buried with food offers next to them. Food has always been in
the center of man’s festivities, no matter what. Certainly due to this, man’s life
has been marked by food not only for its basic life sustaining role but also
for man’s
well being. These ceremonies can be passed down as family
traditions or religious practices and can range from something as simple as
saying a blessing before eating to elaborate processes surrounding the
hunting, gathering, preparation, and eating of food.
There is a growing body of evidence that the consumption of food as
part of a functional ceremony has distinct health benefits. Even as early as
the year 1180, Moses Maimonides, a noted physician and rabbi, remarked
that one “should not gorge himself, but leave the table before his appetite is
fully appeased, using one fourth less food that what would completely gratify
him”41. Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of gluttony: “gluttony
denotes, not only desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate
desire….leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue
consists”41.
Several more recent studies have depicted how important the role of
commensality is on a society’s development and on individual life style
patterns and health issues. In a recent study, meal partners in commensal
units and frequency of eating with others in commensal circles among 663
adults was assessed. Meal partner data revealed that most respondents ate
alone at breakfast, alone or with co-workers at lunch and with family
39 members at dinner. Commensal frequency data revealed some eating at the
homes of other family members, little eating at friends' homes, and almost no
eating at neighbors' homes. Few demographic variations existed in
commensal eating, except that unmarried individuals more often ate
breakfast and dinner alone and more often ate with friends. These finding
suggest that contemporary work-oriented society may lead people to eat
alone during the day but share evening meals with family, and that people
maintain commensal relationships primarily with family members rather than
friends or neighbors. Peoples' social worlds appear to be focused on the
nuclear family, and family members are also the people they usually eat
with42.
Family bounds play an important role on the upbringing and eating
habits of tomorrow’s adults. A recent study43 showed that girls who ate three
to four family meals per week were at approximately one third the risk for
extreme weight control practices, and girls who ate five family meals per
week were at approximately one fourth the risk for extreme weight control
practices. It also revealed that boys also benefit from family meals, but the
association was not as strong as it is for girls. In another study44, in which
approximately one quarter (26.8%) of respondents ate seven or more family
meals in the past week, and approximately one quarter (23.1%) ate family
meals two times or less, the frequency of family meals was inversely
associated with tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use; low grade-point
average; depressive symptoms; and suicide involvement after controlling for
family connectedness. These findings suggested that eating family meals
may enhance the health and wellbeing of adolescents.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University’s (CASA) Family Day survey showed that of 1,987 teens ages 12
to 17 years, the number of teens who have regular family dinners drops by
50% as their substance abuse risk increases sevenfold. The survey
demonstrates the importance of regular family dinners, finding that,
compared with teens who have family dinners twice a week or less, teens
who have dinner with their families five or more nights in a week are 32%
likelier never to have tried cigarettes (86% vs 65%, respectively), 45% likelier
40 never to have tried alcohol (68% vs 47%, respectively), and 24% likelier
never to have smoked pot (88% vs 71%, respectively)45.
From historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives, the gathering,
preparation, and consumption of food seems inextricably linked to religious
and ceremonial beliefs and practices. The growing body of evidence
supporting the health benefits of family meals is compelling and should point
us toward integrating ceremonial approaches to current and future
educational nutritional programs.
1.5.3. Learning attitudes
Poor nutrition is a leading lifestyle factor related to the development of
several noncommunicable diseases. One strategy for eliminating health
disparities and promoting long-term health is to get children to eat and like
healthful foods (eg, fruits and vegetables) from an early age. This (learning
attitudes) has been proven to be the factor mostly related to adequate eating
habits. Children are influenced by their mother’s eating and drinking patterns
while still in their mother’s wombs. More than one glass of beer, wine or
spirits per week during the pregnancy can be detected at birth. Alcohol in
early pregnancy--just when many mothers are unaware they are pregnant
can produce significant physical malformation, especially in the face.
Prenatal exposure to alcohol has significant effects on the intelligence and
behavior of the child. Many of these children are very restless46. Thus, the
impact on food preferences has also been attributed to mothers’ eating
patterns and habits.
Prenatal developmental events appear to influence infant and child
preferences for salty tastes47. Some studies suggest that severe maternal
emesis can have an enduring influence on response of offspring to salty
taste. Similarly, several behavioral measures related to salty taste preference
were inversely related to birth weight over the first four years of life. In
contrast to flavor compounds detected by the sense of taste, preferences for
flavor compounds detected by the sense of smell are generally more highly
41 influenced with learning early in life, even in the uterus, being particularly
salient.
The sensory environment, in which the fetus lives, the amniotic sac,
changes as a function of the food choices of the mother as dietary flavors are
transmitted and flavor amniotic fluid. Experiences with such flavors lead to
heightened preferences for these flavors shortly at birth and at weaning.
Specifically, prenatal experiences with food flavors, which are transmitted
from the mother’s diet to amniotic fluid, lead to greater acceptance and
enjoyment of these foods during weaning. In an experimental study, infants
whose mothers were randomly assigned to drink carrot juice during the last
trimester of pregnancy enjoyed carrot-flavored cereals more than infants
whose mothers did not drink carrot juice or eat carrots48.
The best predictor of how much fruits and vegetables children eat is
whether they like the taste of these foods. The most salient feature of the
foods and beverages we consume is flavor. We define flavor as the
perceptual combination of three anatomically distinct chemical senses: taste,
smell, and chemosensory irritation, as previously depicted in this review.
Health organizations worldwide recommend five
to 13 servings of
fruits and vegetables per day, depending on one's caloric requirement
Despite such recommendations, adults are not eating enough fruits and
vegetables and neither are children. The 2004 Feeding Infant and Toddlers
Study49, designed to update knowledge on the feeding patterns of American
children, alarmingly revealed that toddlers ate more fruits than vegetables
and one in four did not even consume one vegetable on a given day. Instead,
they were more likely to be eating fatty foods and sweet-tasting snacks and
beverages and less likely to be eating vegetables. None of the top five
vegetables consumed by toddlers was a dark green vegetable, those that are
usually most bitter.
As a consequence, scientific evidence has placed community nutrition
among the front line strategies in health promotion. Traditional food habits
have progressively changed in the last few decades. The combination of
42 changes in food patterns and sedentary lifestyles has contributed to a
significant increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity. Efforts in
community nutrition should now focus on three key aspects: nutrition
education in schools and in the community, food safety and enhanced
culinary skills in all age groups.
School meals and other catering services provided at work or
community sites should be consistent with the educational message.
Catering services should ensure adequate nutritional supply, foster healthy
eating practices and encourage participation in gastronomic culture and
social learning. Food safety includes the procurement of a safe adequate
food supply in sufficient amounts to cover the nutritional requirements of all
individuals. It has become a priority for Public Health.
Social changes along new scientific developments will introduce new
demands into community nutrition and request a more important role for
individually tailored advice. In order to face these challenges, community
nutrition professionals need to be highly qualified and skilled.
1.5.4. Disease
Every disease represents a stressful situation, thus an imbalance
milieu. Stress is a term applied to the fields of physiology and
neuroendocrinology to refer to those forces or factors that cause
disequilibrium to an organism and therefore threaten homeostasis50. The
stressors might be a consequence of physical injury, mechanical disruptions,
chemical changes or emotional factors. The body’s response to these factors
will depend on the magnitude of them, on the duration of the events and also
on the nutritional status of the patients. Complex sensory systems trigger
reflex nervous system responses to the stressors that alert the central
nervous system (CNS) of the disturbance. In the CNS, neurons of the
paraventricular nucleous of the hypothalamus elaborate corticotropinreleasing hormone (CRH) and activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
axis (HPA). In addition, other areas of the brain
signal the peripheral
autonomic nervous system. These two latter systems elicit an integratedresponse, referred collectively as the “stress response”, which primarily
43 controls bodily functions such as arousal, cardiovascular tone, respiration,
and intermediate metabolism. Other functions such as feeding and sexual
behavior are suppressed, as while cognition and emotion are activated. In
addition, gastrointestinal activity and immune/inflammatory responses are
altered.
Therefore, it’s crucial to understand that the disease process per se
impacts on eating patterns, by causing anorexia, thus hampering intake. The
disease may also raise basic energetic requirements and interfere with
absorption and excretion of nutrients. This explains the high prevalence of
malnutrition among hospitalized patients18-20.
Nutrition although fundamental to anyone’s survival has had for many
years a supporting role in patient care and, it still is nowadays not seen as a
sustaining therapy to most patients throughout the world. Even in referral
centers in the USA or other first world countries, it’s incredible to notice that
its importance from the administration perspective is not as relevant as
sophisticated procedures such as small bowel transplantation or new
diagnostic tools, not to mention the lack of medical awareness towards basic
nutritional issues such as the prevalence of malnutrition18,
51, 52
. Major
investments in such sophisticated procedures are a reality, in detriment of
nutrition therapy teams which have decreased in American hospitals and in
some countries don’t even exist. One potential explanation for this is that
malnutrition/undernutrion is still under assessed
18, 20
and, with the booming
of obesity, diagnosing such condition is even more difficult for those not
aware of the problem. In addition, we lack good powered prospective clinical
trials to show that malnutrition is directly associated with poorer outcome,
longer length of hospital stay, higher mortality and increased costs. Upon
such reality, one is prone to question what have we missed to justify that
about 30 years after Butterworth’s paper “The skeleton in the hospital closet”
52
, the prevalence of such condition is still highly prevalent in hospitalized
patients worldwide 18, 20, 53?
Putting more fire into the woods…..old paradigms still mark patient’s
nutritional treatments in the hospital setting as well as in the community.
Long fasting hours/days before and after surgery are a routine practice
44 worldwide, despite its related reported side effects54,
55
. In current surgical
practices it is advised that patients be treated under multimodal practices as
the ones proposed by Fearon et al in the enhancing recovery after surgery
protocol (Figure 8)54.
Figure 8 – Enhancing recovery after surgery protocol
54
Eating or being fed as soon as possible after surgery has also been
recommended as ways of decreasing post-operative intestinal dysfunction
(paralitic ileus), bacterial translocation and by so concomitantly decrease
overall complications, death rates and length of hospitalization. In the most
recent study on postoperative feeding, Lassen et al.
56
have shown that
patients undergoing major abdominal surgery who were early fed with
regular diets resumed bowel function significantly earlier and had decreased
total number of major complications, length of stay, and rate of post
discharge complications. Allowing patients to eat normal food at will from the
first day after major upper gastrointestinal surgery does not increase
morbidity compared with traditional care with nil-by-mouth and enteral
feeding.
45 In hospital nutrition, unfortunately, is still based on mass treatments.
This is to say, very seldom are patients’ food preferences respected
individually. In such sense, this is another factor that contributes to the high
rate of malnutrition and great wastage of food in this setting. The provision of
good quality food, fluids, and nutritional care should be an integral part of the
therapeutic care in a hospital. Meeting patients’ nutritional requirements will
help them get well. Optimizing menu design, adapting menus, and improving
the mealtime atmosphere are vital steps to fight malnutrition in the hospital.
When a menu is planned, disease- or therapy-related feeding problems such
as loss of appetite, changes in taste perception, or difficulty chewing and
swallowing must be taken into account. On the one hand, the hospital’s
catering department must be able to deal with individual patients’ needs and
preferences as well as offering a balanced menu that meets the patients’
nutritional requirements. On the other hand, from an economic point of view,
food wastage should be minimized, since wastage can be as high as 67%57.
The term food chain (figure 9) has been adopted to emphasize that all stages
in the provision of food must be adequate, from screening of patients and
planning of menus to the distribution and serving of the food.
It is desirable for hospitals to appoint a multidisciplinary and
multiprofessional nutrition steering group, including the clinical nutrition team,
to oversee all aspects of nutritional care, from catering to artificial nutrition. A
failure at any point disrupts the system. The system on the ward should be
designed to prevent interruption of meals by procedures, rounds etc. Food
taste and intake should be monitored and audited regularly, with modification
of policies as necessary. Furthermore, quality control initiatives should
evaluate whether recommendations for adequate hospital nutrition are met.
Various aspects of food provision should be monitored regularly, including
portion control, presentation, flavor and texture, temperature, timing of
service, and patient satisfaction.
46 Figure 9 – Food chain in the hospital setting
57
Food restrictions are routinely applied to certain groups of patients,
such as those with cancer, diabetes and renal diseases based on old
principles not supported anymore by current evidences (figure 10).
Physicians should be forbidden to forbid their patients from eating whatever
pleases them, especially in situations that anorexia prevails. There is very
few evidence to support most of the nutrition recommendations directed at
these groups of individuals.
As an example, renal patients are generally those suffering some of
the most restricted diets prescribed to any individual. These diets are very
much
arguably
and
many
of
the
restrictions
contradict
current
recommendations for healthy eating. Some of the most notably restrictions
are around consumption of fruit and vegetables due to their high potassium
content. However, most of the times, according to the patient’s treatment
regimen, this type of restriction is not at indicated at all. A recent study58
highlighted issues and beliefs, such as the importance of receiving dietary
advice at diagnosis from a renal dietitian, to limit confusion and conflicting
advice. It also identified the importance of diet as perceived by patients in
relation to their renal disease and the changes in perceived importance
47 associated with disease progression. Dialysis patients ranked dialysis as
more important than diet whilst nephrology patients, although perceiving diet
to be important, had received little or no nutritional advice. Confusion and
frustration was expressed in trying to implement the restrictive dietary advice
especially if renal disease was coupled with other comorbidities.
Figure 10 – Forbidden to forbid. Available at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/ihm/images/A/12/867.jpg
1.5.5. Molecular gastronomy
Physicians try to understand the origin of certain diseases such as
cancer for example, molecular biologists explore the genome, embryologists
study the build-up of living organisms, nutritionists try to associate nutrients
with health and disease and chemists unravel the details of chemical
processes. Cooking is such an important part of our world (even the smallest
48 flat has a room for it) that it is worth specific scientific studies. The scientific
discipline devoted to culinary transformations, and to gastronomical
phenomena in general has been called Molecular Gastronomy59.
This
discipline is part of food science, but research is focused on (mainly home or
restaurant) culinary transformations and eating phenomena rather than the
physical and chemical structure of ingredients. As recipes describe culinary
transformations, it is useful to examine recipes, in order to understand the
scientific strategy of the discipline.
According to This59, the following recipe is from a culinary book
published in France at the beginning of the 20th century (Anonymous, 1905):
“Take a dozen pears of middle size, remove the skin and put them
immediately in cold water. Then melt 125 g of sugar with some water in a
pan at low heat: as soon as the sugar is melted, add the pears, add some
lemon juice if you want to keep the pears white; if you prefer them red, do not
add lemon juice and cook them pan lined with tin.”
In this recipe, the words in bold characters give a definition of the
dish; it can be observed that this definition here is less than 10% of the
recipe. The words in italics add ‘precisions’ (orders, orientations, steps to be
followed), a category that includes old wives’ tales, proverbs, and sayings. . .
Depending on the recipe and author, the precision content of recipes can
vary considerably; for example, in some recipes from the French cook Jules
Gouffe´ (1867), the precision percentage is nil. The pear recipe indicates the
scientific strategy of molecular gastronomy: it should model the definitions
and explore the precisions.
Describing ingredients and dishes is only one part of the modeling
process, the other part being culinary transformations. What does ‘cooking’
mean, in particular? Cooking is a complex chemical process that according to
the way it’s performed enhances tastes, disperses flavors, softens or hardens
ingredients and at the end offers one something that might be either
extremely delicious or something not even worth a try. To exemplify what
has been said, This
60
tells us that “chefs cook green beans in boiling salty
water; when the beans are cooked (decided either by smell, texture or flavor),
49 they are strained, then immediately refreshed in icy cold water in order to,
chefs say, “fix the chlorophyll”. When asked, chefs admit that “fixing the
chlorophyll” means keeping the brilliant green color of vegetables — but they
forget that raw green beans are actually less green than when they are
cooked! Is icy cold water useful to keep the green color?
This59 and his group investigated the matter further in terms of
chemical reactions. Chlorophyll pheophytinization (the replacement of the
magnesium atom by a proton, at the centre of the chlorophyll molecule)
changes the green color of chlorophyll into an olive–brown color. It has been
shown that the correlation between chlorophyll pheophytinization and the
green color (as measured by colorimetry) of cooked beans is poor. By UV
spectroscopy of extracted pigments, it has been found that cooling the green
beans in ice has no effect on the color.
Another very good example of cooking alchemy is the story of
mayonnaise. Discussion of mayonnaise could fill books, because the sauce
is very popular and it has generated many culinary precisions with different
assumptions and explanations for such phenomena that either explain or
justify its success or failure. It also helps to understand the reason why
culinary precisions arose.
Most modern mayonnaise recipes say to add oil to a mixture of egg
yolk and vinegar (definition), but many authors add precisions (orientations).
Some state that the temperature of the room where the mayonnaise is made
should not be too hot or that the sauce should be made in a vessel lying on
ice cubes; others state, on the contrary, that a cold room temperature is
responsible for failure; and others state that oil and eggs should be at the
same temperature. Other causes of failure are frequently given: for example,
many cooks, in particular in France, think that mayonnaise fails when it is
made by women having their periods, or that the cook should always turn the
spoon or whisk in the vessel in the same direction.
This tested all these precisions60 and it was easily seen that women’s
periods and the direction of whipping do not lead to failure. The question of
temperature was also checked, with eggs from the fridge (4 °C) and oil at
50 room temperature (35 °C), or the reverse, and no effect of temperature was
observed. This was expected, because mayonnaise is ‘only’ an emulsion,
that is, a dispersion of oil droplets in water; the temperature range of the
emulsion stability is quite wide, and so temperature becomes only the main
factor for stability under the crystallization temperature of oil, or above protein
denaturation points (the first one is at 62 °C, for gamma livetin). However,
some precisions were correct. For example, it was sometimes written that oil
should be added ‘drop by drop’ at the beginning of the sauce preparation. It
is true that mayonnaise fails if too much oil is added first, as water is then
dispersed into oil, instead of oil into water. The latter is more stable because
of the particular nature of the surfactants from the yolks: proteins and
lecithins, which curve the oil/water interface so that oil forms droplets.
So what is the future of food once we start to explore it scientifically?
The difficult thing about the future is that it is hard to predict. We should avoid
making the same mistakes that French chemist Marcellin Berthelot made
about a century ago: he predicted that the success of organic chemistry
would allow us to abandon traditional food and, by the year 2000, eat
nutritive tablets instead61.
He was obviously wrong—humans are living
organisms, with an extremely sophisticated sensory apparatus that has
evolved over millions of years to detect odour, taste, consistency,
temperature and more. The pleasure of eating involves all our senses and it
is obviously important for our wellbeing, as depicted throughout this review.
Obesity and other related diseases are growing, hospital nutrition is
still a huge challenge and the pleasure of eating cannot be measured based
solely on daily nutritional requirements. Hedonism must be a part of this
process as well as the chemistry of cooking. All these justify why scientists,
physicians, nutritionist, psychologist, chemists and cooks should all endeavor
efforts to understand each one’s role into this intricate process and should
develop strategies to help promote good healthy eating habits. For many
years and still current practice,
most guides against obesity and other
related diseases have focused solely on eating habits, exercise and related
variables (figure 11). Nothing has been directed to scientific cooking as
51 understanding the alchemy involved in the cooking and preparation process
of healthy meals.
Fig
Available
11 – Be healthy. Available at http://wlewihm.nlm.nih.gov/ihm/images/A/25/622.jpg
Figure
Such efforts should be started early in life, as children must get more
information about food and food preparation, its benefits and consequences,
avoiding thus the fatal attraction to junk food, soft drinks and sweets.
Consequently, health programmes that promote a balanced diet cannot
succeed if people are unable to make intelligent choices about food.
However, traditional cooking is not a guarantee either for healthy food or for a
rational preparation of food. This is where the scientific programme of
molecular gastronomy can be useful. If we are able to use the knowledge
gained on food preparation, we might find new ways to make healthy food
more attractive, we might persuade more people to cook better food and, last
but not least, we might convince society to regard eating as a pleasure rather
than a necessity61. Without more knowledge, culinary books cannot be
regarded as reliable. Moreover, educational programmes cannot rely only on
traditional recipes, because products, methods and ingredients have
52 changed over time. Cooking has to be explored scientifically if we want to
improve educational health programmes.
53 2.
CONCLUSION
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop
questioning.”
Albert Einstein, 1879 -­‐ 1955 54 2. CONCLUSION
“We are not certain, we are never certain. If we were we could reach some conclusions, and
we could, at last, make others take us seriously.”
Albert Camus, 1913 - 1960
Taste, nutrition, medicine, food, chemistry, gastronomy and molecular
gastronomy all intermingle. They are part of a science of many sciences
enrolled in the act of eating. They represent human history and evolution!
Therefore, it’s extremely difficult to separate them from this intricate web,
into science or art…….perhaps, they shall be the two! Somehow, similar to
health and disease, which are also two complete opposing words, although
almost paradoxically similar as they are side by side in the reality of life. So
should be taste, medicine, nutrition and molecular gastronomy…….
55 3.
FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so
regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell, 1847 - 1922
56 3.
FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”
Helen Keller, 1880 - 1968
I would very much like to see a future where all these arts and
sciences were approached by multiprofessional teams of experts rather than
individuals competing for the success of one over the other. Basic principles
of each of these arts and sciences should be taught to the general population
providing them with cornerstone information, so important to health, disease
prevention and treatment, not forgetting the crucial aspect of hedonism.
Courses such as the “Hautes Etudes du Gout” are a step towards this future.
57 4.
REFERENCES
“No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point”
Jean Paul Sartre, 1905 - 1980
58 4.
REFERENCES
“Eat and drink such an exact Quantity as the Constitution of thy Body allows of, in
reference to the Services of the Mind.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1796 – 1790
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