Integration of gastronomy and physics for innovation

At fast food counters, customers can choose between eating the meal at that place or to take it out. This food is ‘ready to eat’. Although this food serves its purpose of providing nourishment, it does not usually create a high level of enjoyment. The latter is more a signature of what is currently recognized as ‘gastronomy’ and is practised in more sophisticated restaurants. Gastronomy is sometimes defined as ‘the art of enjoyably eating and drinking’. This is usually achieved by stimulating different senses all at the same time, and/or stimulating one of the senses at different rates and levels.Historically, the first phase of gastronomy evolution has been the creation of classical recipes over many previous centuries, which, at their beginning, may be referred to as innovations. The second phase has been the improvement of classical recipes. The third phase has been the formation of new and creative recipes by means of using ingredients and/or techniques that are novel, at least to the restaurant scene. It is these recipes that produce culinary innovation and trigger the overall sensory perception.This overall sensory perception is composed of contributions from different senses. These contributions are interrelated, that is, changing one contribution can affect other contributions. In order to be efficient in achieving an overall positive sensory innovation, by means of using a new ingredient and/or technique, one needs an integrated approach regarding contributions from the different senses. Such integration should avoid that optimization if one contribution is detrimental to another. The integration is facilitated by physics, since most of the sensory contributions are physics-related: texture (relates to mechanics), fracture and breakdown during mastication (relates to sound), color (relates to optics), and smell (relates to volatile release and transport). The integration of physics with gastronomy can therefore yield innovations in an efficient manner.The a