Watch Nathan Myhrvold's Talk on Cooking as Modern Art

Culinary scientist/wizard Nathan Myhrvold hits the Harvard Science & Cooking Lecture Series with a talk about his new book Modernist Cuisine at Home and the entire "modernist" cuisine movement. After first geeking out a little bit about the book, which he explains is "a slim pamphlet-like 600 pages," Myhrvold discusses cooking as an art and compares the shock of modernist cuisine upon the culinary world to an Impressionist movement that once shocked the art world. Admitting that modernist cuisine has caused some freak-outs in the food world, Myhrvold explains, "Part of art is about deliberately breaking rules to understand we have rules to begin with."

Of course, Myhrvold also plays around with liquid nitrogen — noting that he's the only residential stop on his liquid nitrogen delivery guy's route — plus he explains the science of grilling and his team's cooking lab from which they served 35-course meals to the likes of Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck, and more.

Video: Modernist Cuisine at Home | Lecture 11

· Modernist Cuisine at Home | Lecture 11 [YouTube]
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