Flavour and the New Nordic Cuisine

Start: 6:30 PM (approximate duration 90 minutes) 

Flavour and the New Nordic Cuisine is a seminar to celebrate the launch of Flavour, a new interdisciplinary journal covering the psychophysical, psychological and chemical aspects of eating food, as mediated through all the senses. Jointly hosted by the London Gastronomy Seminars, the Centre for the Study of the Senses and BioMed Central, the speakers will explore how flavour shapes our world, including samples of new food and flavourings developed by Noma and the Nordic Food Lab as part of the New Nordic Cuisine.

Speakers:

Per Møller is Associate Professor of Sensory Science at the University of Copenhagen and Editor-in-Chief of Flavour, a new open access journal that publishes research on the psychophysical, psychological and chemical aspects of eating food. Flavour encourages contributions not only from the academic community but also from the growing number of chefs and other food professionals who are introducing science into their kitchens. Per’s particular interest is the psychology of food choice, examining how the sensory parameters of food appearance, texture, odour, and pungency shape consumption habits. His work considers the memory of odours and flavours, and has recently begun probing the critical periods for food habit formation, from the breast-fed infant through to early childhood. He is a major contributor in the emerging field of Molecular Gastronomy, having published over 50 articles since 2001.

Ole Mouritsen is Professor of Biophysics at the University of Southern Denmark where he is director of the Centre for Biomembrane Physics. In his spare time, he cooks and furthers his knowledge of molecular gastronomy. Ever since his first encounter with sushi, he has been addicted to it and has indulged this passion in restaurants around the world, culminating in a book on the topic published in 2009. Currently he is engaged in exploring the use of seaweeds in gastronomy, and he recently published a book on seaweeds as foodstuff. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, and the Danish Gastronomical Academy and is on the Advisory Board of the Nordic Food Lab, the research arm of Noma. He is the recipient of a number of prestigious prizes for his work, most recently the Danish National Prize for Research Communication (2007) and the British Royal Society of Chemistry Bourke Award (2008).

Lars Williams trained as a chef at several of the world’s top restaurants including WD-50 in New York, The Fat Duck in England and Noma in Copenhagen. He is currently Head of Research and Development at the Nordic Food Lab, a non-profit self-governed institution established by head chef of Noma, Rene Redzepi and gastronomic entrepreneur, Claus Meyer with the purpose of exploring Nordic Cuisine, cornerstones of gastronomy and disseminating results from this exploration. His main research interests are fermentation and new umami flavours.

Tickets £10.