Paris

Conventional culinary wisdom has it that a soufflé rises because of the dilation of air. In fact, it rises because water vapour is generated inside it — implying that the mould should be heated from the bottom, so that the rising vapour can push up through all the levels. A good crust helps too, as it prevents the vapour escaping.

Now Hervé This — the chemist who, with the late physicist Nicholas Kurti, explored soufflé thermodynamics a decade ago at the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford — is to set up a laboratory of 'molecular gastronomy' at the Collège de France in Paris. The new facility will be in the Laboratory of Molecular Interaction run by Jean-Marie Lehn, the 1987 Nobel prizewinner in chemistry, who also has an interest in the field.

This's own long-standing interest has been in making cooking as much a science as an art. His PhD thesis was called 'Molecular and physical gastronomy', and the passion remained even after he left research in 1980 to join Pour la Science, the French edition of Scientific American, of which he later became editor. His return to research has been facilitated by a full-time position offered by INRA, the French national agricultural research organization.

The term 'molecular gastronomy' was coined in 1992 by This and Kurti. Now an international group of scientists who share an interest in the science of cookery plans to establish it as a scientific field. The researchers already hold an annual international meeting on the subject in Erice, Sicily (see Nature 400, 17–18; 1999).

The group defines the field of molecular gastronomy as a distinct subdiscipline of food science. Its main goal is to test scientifically the cooking practices enshrined in the culinary wisdom that has resulted from centuries of empirical work by chefs.

There is no shortage of research questions. Hervé This and his colleagues intend to analyse the factors involved in the many kitchen activities leading to a successful dish, and invent new methods for preparing food. The results will be made available to chefs and to the public.

This himself has published several books, including the French best seller Les Secrets de la Casserole, and his frequent public lectures and television appearances have a large following.

He points out, for example, that microwave ovens often yield disappointing results because the temperatures obtained are too low to provoke the famous Maillard reaction between sugars and amino acids that generates many aromas and flavours.

But take some duck thighs, fry at a high temperature until brown, then take a syringe of Cointreau and inject it into the centre of the meat. Put it in a microwave oven for a few minutes and voilà: a perfect canard à l'orange, Maillard reaction included.