In today’s NY Times food section, there’s an article (”Kitchen Chemistry Is Chic, But Is It a Woman’s Place?”) that asks where the women are in the male-dominated world of molecular gastronomy, the application of science to culinary practice. (Never mind that the same thing was done by women in the late 19th century when it was called “home economics” and not at all the big rage in restaurants.)

Anyway, the article begins with the premise that using too much precise chemistry in the kitchen is not very soulful, and therefore women won’t take to it. But then they round up a few young women who are working in top molecular gastronomy restaurants, and they’re taking to it just fine, thank you very much:

Pamela Yung, for instance, didn’t have to steel herself to face a hostile French kitchen, nor did she train in California. She didn’t train anywhere. After majoring in computer science and design at the University of Michigan, she was working in a Detroit design firm when she saw a notice on eGullet, the food-maven Web site. Mr. Goldfarb was about to open Room 4 Dessert and needed a stagiaire, or trainee, who would work long hours for low pay. “On a whim, I e-mailed him,” said Ms. Yung, 24.

She started work the day the before the restaurant opened. “I was completely overwhelmed,” she said. “I just did whatever I was told.” But she wasn’t intimidated by the machinery, and today she’s a believer, perfectly comfortable turning out white beer sorbets, Earl Grey tea panna cottas and apricot flake salt.

“The machines just give you more options,” she said. “They’re not traditional cooking utensils, but they’re cooking utensils, and they’re going to become the norm.”

And here’s another woman who refuses to succumb to gendered notions of who wants to cook what:

What’s more, women working in the new mode say they don’t feel they are missing out on the elemental satisfactions of traditional cooking. Elena Arzak, the much-praised Spanish chef at her family’s century-old Restaurante Arzak in San Sebastian, was profoundly influenced by El Bulli and is developing her own take on Mr. Adrià’s innovations. But she insisted that a chemistry-based cuisine can be as warm and personal as any other. “The science just helps me cook,” she said.

And the article does acknowledge that men didn’t start the idea of the laboratory in the kitchen:

But many women dreaming of a restaurant career still may not see the appeal of a laboratory kitchen. Ms. Yung and Ms. Sanchez have been struck by how few women are in high-end restaurant kitchens of any sort. “We’re always wondering where the girls are,” Ms. Yung said.

Maybe settling on an official name for the movement would help. The chief contenders — “space age,” “hypermodern” or “extreme” cuisine — come straight from boys’ comic books. But in America, at least, the movement has a history its partisans never talk about — a history that happens to be packed with women.

It was the home economists of the late 19th century who first had the idea of transforming the old-fashioned kitchen into a sleek, modern chemistry lab, so that cooking would no longer be seen as traditional women’s drudgery but would rise to the status of a science worthy of the finest male mind. Why not acknowledge these roots and call it “Celebrity Home Ec”?

Yes, let’s give credit where credit is due! Though I have to admit, aspects of the molecular gastronomy phenomenon, such as designing specialized tableware for evanescent purposes, seem a bit recherche to me.

This entry was posted by Kristin A. on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under Inspiring women, Progress and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.