When engineers become cooks: engineering high-tech food in a laboratory

When the world's best chefs want something that defies the laws of physics, they come to one man: Dave Arnold, the DIY guru of high-tech cooking

...his uncompromising conception of culinary perfection requires that gin and tonics be completely, crystalline clear...

...Carbonated watermelon. Gelatin spheres with liquid centers that pop in your mouth. Broths and sauces whipped into foams. Shrimp flesh extruded into "noodles." Hot-center desserts with exteriors flash-frozen by liquid nitrogen. Vanilla beans sizzled tableside with lasers...

..."He´s helping chefs take their food to the next level."...

...Dufresne was (and still is) interested in sous vide and other methods of cooking food slowly in liquids, at low temperatures, until the exact moment it is done...

...hydrocolloids, a class of ingredients familiar to anyone who´s perused the labels of processed foods-cellulose, xanthan gum, agar, alginate, carrageenan, gelatin-but that, until recently (with the exception of gelatin), were not a fine cook´s ingredients. Generally, hydrocolloids are used to thicken, gel, or stabilize liquids; they can also be used to great effect to change texture, enabling a chef to produce a foam that won´t collapse or, in Arnold´s case, to make a "sponge cake" with methyl cellulose that can be shot from a compressed whipped-cream canister onto a plate without requiring baking...

see the whole article at:

http://www.popsci.com/node/8923

Also, on a related note, 

Inside a high-tech laboratory that's spinning out the future of food (in a centrifuge at 13 Gs)

The 20,000-square-foot warehouse outside Seattle that houses the research lab of Intellectual Ventures. The former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft had an idea for a cookbook he wanted to write, and he needed some kitchen space.

...tour started with the ultrasonic bath that cleans the grime off whatever's submerged in the water via high-energy cavitation. The team discovered that subjecting cut potatoes to the bath creates tiny fissures in their surfaces; which, when the potatoes are French-fried, result in a much crispier exterior...

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-02/tour-modernist-cuisine-kitchen-laboratory