Molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline, and note by note cuisine is the next culinary trend

In 1988, a new scientific discipline, molecular gastronomy, was defined as ‘looking for the mechanisms of phenomena occurring during dish preparation and consumption’ [1,2]. This new definition presented the opportunity to discuss the precise content of molecular gastronomy and its relationship with other existing fields of science.There has always been much confusion between science and technology when it comes to food, including over exactly what food is. Dictionaries give the definition: ‘any substance that can give to living beings the elements necessary for their growth or for their preservation’ [3]. However, one has to recognize that human beings very seldom eat non-transformed tissues or natural products; raw materials are transformed so that chemical and physical changes determine the final composition of all food as well as its ‘bioactivity’, a term which we propose to describe the sensory effects, nutritional value, eventual toxic effects, and so on, of the various compounds released by food systems [4].During food preparation, plant or animal tissues are at least washed and cut, and most food are thermally processed. For example, even for a simple carrot salad, which requires no thermal processing, there is a big difference between the raw product in the field and what is consumed - that is, grated carrots on a plate: this is because cutting the tissue triggers enzymatic reactions [5] and because compounds get transferred between the dressing and the plant tissue [6]. This analysis leads to the conclusion that reagents and products of ‘culinary transformations’ (transformations performed in the kitchen) should not both be called food. The specific transformation occurring from the raw materials to the final prepared dish is worth studying, both for scientific and technological reasons.Making the difference between science and technology clear is particularly important for molecular gastronomy because of the confusion between science and cooking (see, for