Modernist-Cuisine-Vol.-1-Small

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For more on gargouillou, see page 3·294.
Because the Nacka system did
not cook food fully in the package,
it was not quite true sous vide
cooking. The AGS system took
that leap.
Vacuum-packed food developed by NASA
for the manned space program.
distinctive cuisine, which flirted with rebellion
against culinary norms. These chefs made some
very exciting dishes, such as Bras’s famous coulant,
or his gargouillou, and those dishes influenced and
inspired many other chefs to create similar items.
But none of these other chefs ignited a movement
that others followed. Instead, each chef’s signature
style remained confined largely to his own
restaurant.
For Adrià, the story was different. As we will
see, several parallel developments in the culinary
world helped give his innovations greater resonance
and a wider reach.
From the Vacuum of Space to
Vacuums in the Kitchen
It was the 1960s, and NASA had a problem. The
manned space program required that astronauts
eat in outer space, perhaps on missions that lasted
weeks or months. But the agency did not want to
stock spacecraft pantries with bulky metal cans of
food, which would weigh down the craft. So
NASA began to experiment with sealing food in
heat-safe plastic bags.
Similar experiments occurred around the world
as people looked for more convenient ways to
prepare food for various institutions. In the early
1960s, two Swedish hospitals worked with the
Stockholm City Council to develop the Nacka
system. The idea was to centralize the preparation
of fresh meals at one large kitchen facility. The food
would be packaged so that it could then be distributed
to hospitals within the city.
In the Nacka system, main courses were
prepared traditionally and then vacuum-sealed in
plastic bags while still hot (at temperatures of at
least 80 °C / 176 °F). After sealing, the bags were
boiled for an additional 3–10 min, then refrigerated.
At service time, the bags were reheated, and
the food was served. Swedish hospitals provided
more than 5 million of these meals to patients in
the early 1960s. Patients and other testers found
them to be a considerable improvement over
standard hospital food.
Next came the Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg
(AGS) system, developed during the late
1960s by a partnership of three South Carolina
hospitals and the plastic-film manufacturer Cryovac
(then a division of W. R. Grace). Like Nacka,
the AGS group’s goal was to improve the quality of
centrally prepared hospital food.
The group’s project manager, Ambrose T.
McGuckian, initially reviewed every existing
method of preparing convenience foods. Although
the Nacka system was selected as the most convenient
and economical, the cooked food rated barely
satisfactory in tests of taste and quality. McGuckian’s
insight was that raw ingredients could be
vacuum-sealed and then cooked inside the bags by
using carefully controlled temperatures and times.
The results were vastly superior.
The AGS system is the first example of a cooking
method, now called sous vide, that is widely used in
Modernist cuisine. The AGS system was not
adopted by hospitals ultimately, and McGuckian
went on to consult with other food-service companies.
In fact, the first meals prepared sous vide in a
restaurant almost certainly were served in 1970 at
the Holiday Inn in Greenville, South Carolina,
where McGuckian was a consultant.
Commercial applications of the sous vide
method began to pop up around the world. The
first appearance in France was in 1972, when
hams were cooked sous vide. At the time, French
law did not allow restaurants to serve refrigerated
food products with a shelf life of more than six
days, so this novel approach did not gain much of a
following. This case is an early example of culinary
technology, innovation, and scientific knowledge
outpacing legislated food standardsa theme that
is continually repeated in sous vide cooking.
Toward the end of the 1970s, sous vide technology
crossed the English Channel to London,
where the French chef Albert Roux began a
collaboration with Groen and Cryovac to promote
the new cooking method. In 1983, Roux opened a
factory in southwestern France to supply low-cost
meals made sous vide to the French national
railway system (SNCF) and to British Airways.
By the late 1980s, Roux brought sous vide to the
restaurant industry in Britain as part of an early
quick-service restaurant chain called Rouxl
Britannia. The concept was simple: high-quality
food could be economically prepared at the Home
Rouxl central kitchen by skilled cooks using sous
vide technology. The refrigerated meals would
then be distributed to restaurant outlets around
England, where they would simply be reheated
and plated by less-skilled cooks.
Unfortunately, for myriad reasons, Rouxl
Britannia eventually failed in the early 1990s. The
most frequently cited issue was that the public
never warmed up to the idea of restaurants that
just reheated food made elsewhere.
In France, cooking sous vide caught on more
successfully. At around the same time that Roux
was starting his early experiments with sous vide
cooking in England, the French chef Georges
Pralus was experimenting with it for a decidedly
smaller culinary audience. During the early 1970s,
Pralus worked with the pioneering Nouvelle
cuisine chefs Pierre and Jean Troisgros at their
restaurant in Roanne (see next page).
Pralus set out to solve a problem they were
having with their terrine de foie gras: shrinkage and
weight loss from the juices and fat that ran out
during cooking. Initially, Pralus approached the
problem by using the time-tested technique of
cuisine en papillote, in which foods are wrapped in
oiled paper bags and then cooked, a method that
helps to retain the aromas and contain the juices.
Next, he began to experiment with wrapping the
foie gras in heat-resistant plastic. Although the
initial results were not successful, perseverance
eventually paid off. By encasing the foie gras in
multiple layers of plastic and cooking it at low
temperatures for a long period of time, Pralus
reduced shrinkage from about 40% by weight to
about 5%. The extraordinary results, obtained in
1974, led to better terrine de foie gras at Maison
Troisgros, and it also led to a collaboration between
Pralus and Cryovac. Ultimately, multilayer,
heat-resistant plastic bags were produced to retain
substantial vapors and juices during cooking.
Sous vide cooking caught the attention of the
most influential food critic of the Nouvelle
movement, Henri Gault. In the early 1980s, SNCF
hired Gault to oversee the creation and execution
of world-class cuisine for the launch of its Nouvelle
Première trains. Although SNCF had a long
tradition of outstanding service and cuisine on its
luxury train lines, providing high-end cuisine on
numerous routes was a culinary and logistical
challenge. After some consideration, Gault
decided that the only way to meet the challenge
was by using sous vide cuisine.
Gault recruited Robuchon to oversee recipe
development. He also contracted with the food
researcher Bruno Goussault to provide technical
support. Robuchon developed exceptional recipes
for the rail service but insisted on cooking foods at
54–68 °C / 129–154 °F. Goussault helped convince
the French health authorities that food
safety could be assured at those temperatures.
These early experiments with cooking sous vide
were developed in the context of institutionalized
food service, primarily to reduce costs and ensure
quality control. But the next phase of sous vide
cooking marked a turning point, as a few high-end
chefs began using sous vide as a culinary technique
in its own right. Part of this shift was due to tireless
campaigning and education by Pralus and Goussault.
By the early 1990s, the long road from NASA,
The first sous vide meals served in a
restaurant likely were made in 1970 at the
Holiday Inn in Greenville, South Carolina,
pictured here in a postcard from the era.
Their use of sous vide techniques was an
outgrowth of the AGS system developed
first for South Carolina hospitals by
Ambrose McGuckian.
40 VOLUME 1 · HISTORY AND FUNDAMENTALS
HISTORY 41