What is molecular gastronomy?

Molecular gastronomy is the most well known subset of the burgeoning field of food science. The term was created by Nicholas Kurti and Herve This, two elite physicists and chemists respectively. The style of cooking itself is a seamless meld of chemistry and culinary arts, and utilizes many recent scientific advancements in its practices, such as nitrogenization of foods and the use of compounds such as transglutiminase in order to create cuts of meat that were previously impossible (for example, a boneless chicken that is made up seamlessly of white and dark meat).

The actual fusion of culinary arts and scientific study can be traced back all the way back to the second century BC, where a papyrus scroll has been recovered that compares the qualities of fresh and fermented meat in an observational, scientific manner. Further developments followed during the Enlightenment in Europe, where a small but devoted number of scientists applied the explosion of scientific knowledge to the art of cooking.

In modern times, many chefs despise the term "molecular gastronomy", but still practice it; this just goes to show how far the practice has integrated itself with traditional notions of cooking.