Homaru Cantu is a weird dude. Weird, but cool. His deal is that he uses his expertise in the field of molecular gastronomy to conceive food and methods of preparing said foods. He’s famous for his use of edible paper, and printing on said paper with a modified inkjet printer filled with various flavored solutions. He also seems to make heavy use of dangerous, hot lasers, and liquid nitrogen.
I had heard of the guy before, but I actually got a chance to see him in action a few weeks ago on an episode of Iron Chef America (which he won, by the way, against Morimoto). It was bizarre, to say the least, to see him over on his side of kitchen stadium with the class 4 laser, liquid nitrogen, pipettes, and other equipment that seemed to be more at home in a science lab than in a kitchen. Nevertheless, his stuff looked great, and supposedly tasted great too — or so the judges thought. Next time I’m in the windy city (yeah, like that happens very often these days), his restaurant might be worth checking out. Actually, the whole idea of molecular gastronomy seems pretty neat. I hadn’t even heard of it until last week, and have no idea how someone would prepare themselves for a career in it, other than going to cooking school and having some sort of general chemistry background. It would be interesting to know how Cantu stumbled into the field. Anyway, so long, and I bid you good eating!
Into The Weeds 