People Health & Medicine

Exploring the science of cooking

By Roberta Kwok

When a group of women in Lisbon, Portugal, entered a cooking contest in 2006, they decided to put their own spin on a Portuguese fish soup. The team created green fettuccine from gelatin flavored with coriander and garlic, meant to mimic an algae bed. Egg yolk–sized spheres, made of algae extract and filled with fish soup, nestled on top.

In a novel take on Portuguese fish soup (on left), this bed of fettuccine is made from gelatin and topped with balls containing the soup. On the top right is vegetable juice “spaghetti” and below is mango juice “yolk.” Courtesy of Cooking.Lab

The contestants had been asked to apply ideas from molecular gastronomy, a field exploring the science of cooking.