The Future of Food, A Gastronomic Symposium

120th Anniversary

Students exclaim in awe as Le Cordon Bleu Kobe Cuisine Chef, Jullian Pekle, scoops out a sphere of gazpacho and places it gingerly in a spoon. The liquid sits comfortably like a pearl of red tapioca, magically defying some very basic physics.

At Le Cordon Bleu, students are exposed to simple techniques of molecular cuisine as part of their curriculum. This approach may have been perceived as revolutionary or avant-garde decades ago, but now it is a part of cuisine as it has come to evolve. This notion of evolution is particularly evident at Le Cordon Bleu. While sometimes associated only with classics and tradition, Le Cordon Bleu is a driving force when it comes to culinary innovation.

Looking at Food Differently
Le Cordon Bleu celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, and as a part of the festivities, Le Cordon Bleu Japan is hosting a symposium in collaboration with Ritsumeikan University and the National Museum of Nature and Science on October 27th. The event is titled "The Future of Food – Gastronomic Science and Innovation", and is centred on the idea of looking at cuisine through different lenses.

Among the keynote speakers invited to the event are Dr. Roger Haden, founder of the Food Business Entrepreneurship degree program in Le Cordon Bleu Australia and a proponent of Gastronomic Tourism, a new way of sightseeing or food-travel. Another is Takusuke Tada, a French chef turned Clinical Food Producer, who will share his experience on how high-level cuisine can be applied even in places as unlikely as patient-care facilities.

The most anticipated of the speakers will be Hervé This, the pioneer of molecular gastronomy. He will explain his latest cooking philosophy, Note by Note Cooking, a collaboration with chef Pierre Gagnaire, in conjunction with a demonstration of it in action. The concept of Note by Note Cooking can be thought of simply as considering food in its most basic form, but its implications are quite profound. Depending on how various components are rearranged, it's possible to create something entirely new.

Cuisine as Ever-changing
Be it drawing from other culinary traditions or areas completely outside of what many may think as compatible with food, cuisine is a dynamic entity that continually reinvents itself. Just as Chef Jullian's students expressed amazement at the gazpacho spheres holding their shape in the spoons, who knows what the following generation of students will be wowed by next. What is for certain is that it will be different and exciting.