I attribute a great deal of my curiosity of "How things work", the basis for the Freakonomics Radio show I podcast, to my mother, the science/math teacher. Physics experiments were a regular part of everyday life, as well as "BrainQuest", Tanagrams, and riddles in the car. So, it may come as no surprise to you, friend, that I seem to connect and find patterns in things that seem to be completely unrelated. I tell and apologize to you now, it's due to the ever pressing quest to find out just-- how things work.
This particular week on Freakonomics Radio, they showed two different ways of pursuing the next era of cooking. The first-- Nathan Myhrvold an advocate for molecular gastronomy, pushing cooking forward into the next age with new methods of scientific exploration in physics-- food science. The second-- Alice Waters, represented in the podcast by Debussy's Clair de lune. She argues for the "Slow-food" movement of seasonal fruits, vegetables, and nuts, organically grown allowing ourselves to delve into the fabric of succulent taste just waiting to be enjoyed in their natural elements.
About 17 minutes into the program, these statements are made: (Dubner is the host of the program)
Dubner: I asked her (Alice Waters) what she thinks about Molecular Gastronomy.
Waters: I can’t say that I, uh, care a lot about it. I can’t say that. …I’m trying to get back to a kind of taste of food for what it is.
Dubner: And molecular gastronomy is trying to accomplish what in your view?
Waters: In my view, it’s to, you know, make it into something you can’t imagine—to surprise you. (laughter) And it’s not to say I haven’t been delightfully surprised. It’s not that. It’s that I’m so hungry for the taste of the real that I’m just not able to get into that which doesn’t feel real to me. It’s a kind of scientific experiment and I think there are good scientists and crazy old scientists that can be very amusing. But it’s more of a museum, not a kind of way of eating that we need to really live on this planet together.
Dubner:…Alice Water’s idea of the way we eat is to reconnect with the past, not only how our food is prepared, but how it’s grown, or raised, or caught. What she’s after, above all, is simplicity. Nathan Myhrvold, for his part, loves Chez Panisse, Water’s restaurant, but he also loves complexity. And he loves bringing science into the kitchen because, he says, it’s already there.
Nathan: Well, like it or not, physics happens. So, it turns out when you heat a piece of meat, there’s a set of physical principles that are at work. Wishing doesn’t make the food hot, it’s the way molecules bump into each other that makes it hot. And if you can understand that in a reasonable way, I think, it informs how you do cooking. Now is it possible to cook without understanding? Of course it is. And for people that want to just, in a rote way, repeat exactly what they were told to do without understanding why it works, hey go for it! You don’t need me. If all you want to do is repeat the recipes of the past and you have no curiosity as to how or why it works, then you don’t need to have this physical understanding.
On the other hand, I’d say, why does it ruin the experience to understand how and why it works? …I think that informing people, whether its chefs or its foodies or it’s the average person,(informing them some of the ways that some of this stuff actually works) I don’t see how that is a problematic notion.
Dubner: Nathan Myhrvold and Alice Waters both have an obvious passion for the future of food, but radically different ways to realize that vision.
…and is there a chance that all his (Myhrvold) scientific inquiry might trickle down to you and me?
I'm currently in a class at the CTU about Liturgy that has me thinking about the liturgy in our church in fabulously new ways, under critical examination and appeal. And one of the things I continue to come back to in my mind is the difference between so much intricacy and detail-- complexity, you might say, in some liturgies. And in opposition, some of the most simple liturgies, advocated especially by the Anabaptist tradition. I see both as a pursuit after the appreciation and furthering of the faith, and yet, one seems to mutually exclude the other.
I hear the same yearning in the voices of these two interviewees. One is desperate to get back to the root of why we love food-- to understand and experience it the way it is and came to us, pure and unadulterated. The other persists that the understanding must lead to exploration and complexity.
Their questions about food help me find new modes of looking at liturgy--
-Are we trying to merely make something we can't imagine? And if so, why? And is it good?
-Are we creating for creativity's sake, "a museum", and not for a "way of" practicing that we really need on this planet for living together?
I'm currently in a class at the CTU about Liturgy that has me thinking about the liturgy in our church in fabulously new ways, under critical examination and appeal. And one of the things I continue to come back to in my mind is the difference between so much intricacy and detail-- complexity, you might say, in some liturgies. And in opposition, some of the most simple liturgies, advocated especially by the Anabaptist tradition. I see both as a pursuit after the appreciation and furthering of the faith, and yet, one seems to mutually exclude the other.
I hear the same yearning in the voices of these two interviewees. One is desperate to get back to the root of why we love food-- to understand and experience it the way it is and came to us, pure and unadulterated. The other persists that the understanding must lead to exploration and complexity.
Their questions about food help me find new modes of looking at liturgy--
-Are we trying to merely make something we can't imagine? And if so, why? And is it good?
-Are we creating for creativity's sake, "a museum", and not for a "way of" practicing that we really need on this planet for living together?
-Is reconnecting with our past ignoring the future? Or does it truly represent something to be regained? Is it merely "going back to the sources" or "reclaiming the historical Jesus"?
-Or is there something in the liturgy that is "already there" asking us to delve deeper to understand and appreciate in order to create something new? (or is there not?)
-And if so, what is our responsibility in that? What level of participation is true engagement?
-And for what sake or provocateur are we creating?
-Nathan has also gone a step further in asking, not "why don't you want to know the depths of this?", but instead-- What about knowing this would ruin your experience, instead of enhancing it?
Interesting stuff. And the analogy only goes so far. The purposes of our gathered community's ritual is not quite the same as freeze drying a hamburger, of course. But for the sake of conversation and friendly banter, I'd love to hear your thoughts. (It's helpful to listen to the whole podcast to get the background. It's something like 27 minutes.)
Who knew food could ask me so many questions about liturgy?
Interesting stuff. And the analogy only goes so far. The purposes of our gathered community's ritual is not quite the same as freeze drying a hamburger, of course. But for the sake of conversation and friendly banter, I'd love to hear your thoughts. (It's helpful to listen to the whole podcast to get the background. It's something like 27 minutes.)
Who knew food could ask me so many questions about liturgy?
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