Executive Pastry Chef joins Hervé This and Dr. Mark Post at major science conference in Dublin...President Obama's favorite pie maker, Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, is not just a simple sugar master: He is also an expert at molecular gastronomy, the science of food. After lecturing on the topic in the past few years at Harvard University and in Washington, DC--and earlier this month at UCLA in Los Angeles--Yossses is taking his genius to Dublin, Ireland next month. There, he'll join two of the world's preeminent food scientists when he participates in a panel discussion at the Euroscience Open Forum 2012. The five-day conference features the world's most acclaimed theorists and practitioners--including many Nobel Laureates--giving presentations on major global scientific challenges. (Above: Yosses during a South Lawn cooking demo)
Yosses will be appearing with the man hailed as the father of molecular gastronomy, Hervé This of AgroParisTech in France, and Dr. Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, the scientist responsible for developing the process for growing meat in test tubes. Their panel, titled "Science and the Future of Cuisine," will cover "the progressive role that science is playing in the advancement of cuisine and the way we look at food."
The event will be on Thursday, July 12, at 12:15 PM, and audience members will get to "sample some futuristic cuisine" after the panel. The full program description:
"Cuisine is both an es
sential daily dose and a strong marker of national identity. It is also an ever changing entity. In recent years the workshop for new foods and new cuisine is taking food out of the kitchen and in to the lab. Indeed the role for those who wish to create new haute cuisine is really changing from ‘head chef’ to ‘head scientist’. The scientific approach to food became popularised as something of a novel notion for the elite in society, yet now it has become the norm in approaching everything that we eat. Sustainability too brings about a necessary task in changing the way we look at and source our food. This teases us to find new ways and new solutions to how we maintain both ourselves and our food sources. This session will look at the progressive role that science is playing in the advancement of cuisine and the way we look at food."Information for attending the conference is here.
Check out Yosses'
recipe for Steamed Lemon Pudding, the most "molecular gastronomy-esque" of his creations released by the White House. In addition to having recipes in First Lady Michelle Obama's book American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, Yosses, one of America's top pastry chefs as a private citizen, is the author of his own stunning cookbook, The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion, published in June of 2010 by W.W. Norton. It is a compendium of his favorite recipes from his massive personal repertoire, and is available wherever fine books are sold. More of Yosses' recipes are on the blog sidebar. Yosses is not the only member of the Obama Administration appearing at the conference: Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., Administrator of NASA, will give a keynote address on July 12, titled "NASA and A New Era of Space Exploration."
Watch Yosses lecturing on food science at Harvard in 2011:
*Photo by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama; Harvard University video
