Hi, yeah I’m back.

Anyway, let’s just get straight into it.

Heston Blumenthal.

I’m sure his food’s really nice and all but this white coat science nonsense really isn’t doing anyone any favours, (esp. as he seems to have very little idea about simple bits of science, like the properties of vaccuums) except I expect Heston’s bank balance. What Heston is doing isn’t really much different from what food technologists get up to (you know the guys who make all the wonderful new types of confectionary/disgusting new varieties of ready meal and so on), i.e. whilst it’s carried out, on the whole, by trained scientists in labs with white coats on (the scientists, not the labs) it’s not actually science because it’s not about producing falsifiable hypotheses based on observations, it’s about making scrummy food (or, as the case may be long lasting food). It’s more like engineering really, using a knowledge of properties of materials to design artifacts for a specific purpose (the aforementioned scrummy food). But that wouldn’t work from a marketing perspective would it? Engineering sounds brutish and dirty, machines covered in grime and oil, YUCK! Science on the other hand sounds delicate precise, pristine, white and fresh, YUM!

Also, Molecular Gastronomy, seriously, whenever you cook something that thing will more often than not change on a molecular level, calling it a special name and pretending to be able to measure temperature in an oven to 3 decimal places just makes you look a bit stupid. But then I guess scientists/engineers etc. aren’t the market here. The market is the offensively rich, a group which i assume from the salarys on the job pages of New Scientist are mutually exclusive from the rich guys.

Also, separated at birth?