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  • MICHAEL: OK.

  • We should start.

  • So thank you all for coming.

  • So this is, remarkably enough, week 11 of this lecture series.

  • And we're very happy this week to have Daniel Humm from Eleven Madison Park.

  • Who will get to speak in a minute.

  • And he will give a lecture called Where is the Acid?

  • But before he does that, you have to put up with me.

  • So we have a fun game here in Science and Cooking.

  • We have a fun game in Science and Cooking.

  • We play this sometimes.

  • It's a parlor game.

  • We haven't marketed it yet.

  • No one to my knowledge has done it.

  • It's called Guess the Food.

  • So would anyone like to guess the food?

  • Yes.

  • What?

  • AUDIENCE: Peanut butter.

  • MICHAEL: Peanut butter.

  • Any other guesses?

  • Yes, in the back?

  • AUDIENCE: Chocolate.

  • MICHAEL: Chocolate.

  • Yes?

  • AUDIENCE: Bone marrow.

  • MICHAEL: Bone marrow.

  • Actually bone marrow is the closest.

  • This is beef.

  • OK.

  • So guess the food.

  • Here's another one.

  • It's a good game, actually.

  • Does anybody-- yes.

  • AUDIENCE: Olive oil.

  • MICHAEL: Say again?

  • AUDIENCE: Vegetable oil.

  • MICHAEL: Vegetable oil.

  • That's very good.

  • It's olive oil.

  • OK.

  • Very good.

  • So I mean, of course the way you play the game of Guess

  • the Food is that you all know that there are major molecules of food.

  • There are fats.

  • There are carbohydrates.

  • There are proteins.

  • There's water, which is not listed on the food label.

  • And if you look at those and you look at the percentages of the various things,

  • you can sort of guess the food.

  • So you guessed the vegetable oil instead of olive oil because it was all fats.

  • So what do you think it is?

  • The question I want to raise is what else is important for food?

  • That is, what else is important in a recipe other than this?

  • I mean, look, if you have a jar of water, right?

  • The number of molecules per liter in that jar of water is enormous.

  • More than 10 to the 23.

  • There's about 10 to 25 molecules of water that's in a liter of water.

  • It's a huge number.

  • But it turns out that-- and this is the idea

  • I want to leave you with before I turn this over Daniel--

  • is that oftentimes there are ingredients in a recipe which

  • are very, very low concentrations, but yet are extremely important for taste.

  • And just to demonstrate this, here is a typical recipe for lemonade.

  • And the question is, what makes it taste like lemonade?

  • Yes.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • MICHAEL: The acid.

  • Very good.

  • That was in the title of the lectures.

  • And where is the acid?

  • The acid is in the lemons.

  • OK.

  • Very good.

  • So in fact, the acid that's in the lemons is called citric acid.

  • Here is a picture of it.

  • And the citric acid is this complicated formula, this chemical formula.

  • And the main point of it is that acid is something that

  • more easily loses protons to water.

  • So an acid releases protons, which are H pluses, which go into water.

  • So even water, there are protons that are in water--

  • I mean in the form of hydronium ions.

  • And the concentration of them is one part in 10 to the seven

  • of the moles per liter, which is more than 1 10 millionth.

  • It's actually more than that.

  • It's like, 1 over 550 millionth of the molecules that are in water

  • are these protons.

  • But yet they are critically important for taste.

  • This is what I want to tell you, that even though there's so few of them,

  • they are critically important for taste.

  • And when you see Chef Daniel do magical things with acids, then in fact,

  • he's adding so few protons that if all of you in this room

  • were water molecules, there wouldn't be one of you is a proton in the dish

  • that he makes.

  • They're just so few.

  • But yet they're critically important for taste.

  • And you can control them by playing with things that Chef Daniel will play with.

  • And I was going to turn it over to Chef Daniel.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • DANIEL HUMM: Wow.

  • Thank you, Michael.

  • How are you guys?

  • AUDIENCE: Good.

  • DANIEL HUMM: Hey, thank you so much for coming.

  • Thank you for having me here.

  • It means a lot.

  • It's a great honor to be part of this program.

  • And I'm excited to talk a little bit about myself, my story,

  • the story of Eleven Madison Park.

  • And a few things that I've learned along the way in the kitchen.

  • But before I start I have a confession to make.

  • Me, I never finished high school.

  • In fact, I hated going to school.

  • I hated going to classes and studying things

  • I knew I probably never going to use.

  • When I was 14 I left school to be a cook.

  • Obviously, that was not a very popular decision with my parents.

  • But it's been the best thing I ever done.

  • The things that the path of cooking has opened me to-- it's been unbelievable.

  • The people I've met along the way.

  • I've traveled the world, learned about different foods and different cultures.

  • I learned languages.

  • The opportunities just have been unbelievable.

  • Eight years ago I came to this country with two suitcases mostly full

  • of chef clothes, cookbooks, some knives.

  • I had a couple hundred dollars.

  • I did not speak English.

  • Now I'm here speaking in front of you at Harvard.

  • That's insane.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • DANIEL HUMM: This is one of the best schools in the world, maybe the best

  • school in the world.

  • This is the American dream.

  • When they first asked me to speak here, I

  • wasn't sure if I'm the right candidate because I'm not a public speaker.

  • This is totally out of my comfort zone.

  • I'm nervous standing up here.

  • I'm a cook.

  • The place where I feel comfortable is the kitchen.

  • But as I thought a little bit more about the opportunity,

  • I knew that there are definitely things I have to share.

  • It's amazing how food has changed over the past few years.

  • Now everyone in the world wants to know about food, chefs, and restaurants.

  • When I started 25 years ago, there was no food and science

  • program at Harvard, or at any school.

  • There was no Food Network.

  • There weren't all of these TV shows, all these magazines.

  • For sure, there were no celebrity chefs.

  • Back then it was just about the craft of cooking.

  • I fell in love with it because I love the energy in the kitchen.

  • I love to work with fresh ingredients.

  • I love to work with my hands, create something with my hands.

  • Cooking is very tangible.

  • Something my dad always used to say, he said,

  • it doesn't matter when you're passionate about something how big or small it is.

  • The only thing that matters is how much effort

  • you're willing to put towards that.

  • And that's what's cooking has been for me.

  • And that is what Eleven Madison Park represents today.

  • I have this clicker here in my hand, been holding it really awkwardly.

  • I've never used one of those.

  • So I just gonna give it to Mike.

  • To put something together like this, or to do anything great,

  • it always takes a team.

  • And I want to say thank you to a few people

  • that help have helped a lot with this.

  • I want to say thank you to Mike Pyers.

  • I want to say thank you to Connie Chung.

  • Both of them are chefs at our restaurant,

  • and are in charge of all the research and development.

  • I want to say thank you to Aaron Ginsberg, who is

  • our director for strategic development.

  • And he has spent hours with me practicing this, literally hours.

  • I wanna say thank you to [? Ali ?] [? Busari ?] who is a friend

  • and the scientist who helped so much with this,

  • and made sure we have all the facts right.

  • I also want to say thank you to my business partner, Will Guidara,

  • and my best friend.

  • I want to say thank you to a few things.

  • On one side, I want to say thank you to create the culture of hospitality

  • and service that has set new standards in our industry,

  • because we can talk about food and work our time in the kitchen,

  • but if the hospitality and the service sucks, it all doesn't matter.

  • So thank you for that.

  • In addition, I want to say thank you for supporting me, teaching me, pushing me

  • to do things I never thought I could.

  • I also want to say thank you to my girlfriend, Cara,

  • and her mom, who are both here today.

  • Because we can have all the support professionally and at work,

  • but you also need the support at home.

  • So please give a hand of applause to all of them.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • So let me give you a little context about the restaurant.

  • Eleven Madison Park is in the heart of Manhattan.

  • It's on Madison Avenue and 24th Street.

  • It's in a beautiful art deco building.

  • The building is occupying an entire city block.

  • In fact, the building was supposed to become

  • the tallest building in the world, when it was built in 1928.

  • But due to the Great Depression, the build was halted.

  • But what we ended up with is this incredible dining room.

  • 30-foot tall ceilings, huge windows overlooking

  • Madison Square Park, one of the most beautiful parks in New York.

  • You even can see the Flatiron Building.

  • Imagine this dining room was supposed to be the lobby of the tallest

  • building in the world.

  • There is no other restaurant with a better view than ours.

  • It's such a New York space, such a New York room.

  • So it's important that through the experience we pay homage to our food

  • and through the delivery of the food to the place we're in.

  • Our inspiration comes from fishermen, farmers, artisans all around New York.

  • What people don't realize when they think

  • about New York-- all they think of is Manhattan and this concrete jungle.

  • But we're on the Atlantic coast, which is one

  • of the most amazing waters for seafood.

  • Also, when you drive just a half an hour north,

  • you reach farmland for hours and hours and miles and miles.

  • The Hudson Valley, the Finger Lakes have some of the most amazing conditions

  • for agriculture, because of its soil, the surrounding waters,

  • and its amazing climate.

  • But in addition what we have, we have New York City.

  • Hundreds of years of history.

  • Immigrants from all over the world came to settle this place.

  • They all brought food traditions.

  • These traditions have evolved, and new traditions have been created.

  • Eating at Eleven Madison Park is the intersection--

  • I can hear my business partner, Will, laugh through the [INAUDIBLE].

  • It's the intersection between, on one side we have these amazing ingredients,

  • the amazing agriculture, and on the other side

  • we have this rich history and culture of New York, the place that is our home.

  • But that's not why I am here today.

  • I'm here to talk about acid, and acids in food.

  • Where is the acid?

  • My staff hears me say this more than they probably care to remember.

  • But where is the acid is really the central question

  • when we create a new dish.

  • When seasoning foods, everyone talks about salt.

  • I believe acid is just as important-- maybe more important-- than salt.

  • When I grew up in Switzerland, I was always drawn to acidic foods.

  • I love tomatoes.

  • I love citrus fruits.

  • I love pickles.

  • My mom's cooking-- sauerkraut, roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary.

  • She made a braised rabbit with olives, orange, and pickled onions.

  • I never knew exactly why I was drawn to these dishes

  • so much, why they were my favorite.

  • But looking back it makes sense, because there

  • was presence of acid, which gave it balance, and it highlighted the food.

  • At Eleven Madison Park, why does this matter so much?

  • Well, I think acid catches your attention.

  • I think when you taste acid, it kind of wakes you up.

  • And it just makes food better.

  • Acid just makes food better.

  • At Eleven Madison we serve tasting menus-- 14, 15, 16 courses.

  • It's important that all these dishes have acid.

  • We use acid from so many different sources.

  • But it keeps the guest excited.

  • It keeps the meal lighter.

  • And it makes the guest want more.

  • Our food is different than, let's say, traditional French food,

  • where it relies heavily on butter, cream, and fat.

  • Until a few years ago, we never really thought too much

  • about the amounts of acid we were using.

  • But then we started kind of digging into our food

  • and trying to understand our food a little bit more.

  • And we realized that the acid is the foundation of our cuisine.

  • And as we dug even deeper, we realized that acid

  • was doing so many other things.

  • And these three things I want to tell you today about.

  • Number one, acid affects the flavor in food.

  • Number two, acid affects the structure in food.

  • And number three, we use acid to preserve food.

  • Let's get into flavor.

  • Obviously flavor comes first.

  • It's the most important to us.

  • We want the food to be delicious.

  • When we add acid to food, it changes how you perceive the other basic tastes.

  • It interacts with the saltiness, the sweetness, with umami, and with bitter.

  • A great example for this-- and I'm sure you've all seen it--

  • but sometimes you get an espresso with a slice of lemon.

  • That lemon is there to squeeze lemon juice in the espresso.

  • What it does, you add sour to the bitter.

  • And it makes you perceive the bitter as less bitter.

  • Thankfully, coffee has gotten a lot better over the years,

  • so you don't see that that much anymore.

  • But that was the reason why.

  • We also looked at some manufactured foods.

  • Coca-Cola, soy sauce, ketchup.

  • All of these rely heavily on acid for the same reason--

  • it balances the sugar, the saltiness.

  • But here is something else.

  • It also makes food have a better shelf life.

  • These ingredients sometimes sit on the shelf for two, three years.

  • Really, two, three years.

  • And you taste it, and you still sort of feel like they're fresh.

  • Acid also affects the aroma in food.

  • And that is really important for us in the kitchen.

  • We play with this all the time.

  • Let's say we make a lemon sorbet.

  • Let's say we make a lemon sorbet just using lemon juice.

  • That's like every lemon sorbet that's out there.

  • It's good.

  • It's a good lemon sorbet.

  • But let's say we also introduce aroma to this lemon sorbet.

  • And the way we do it, the sugar that is required to make that sorbet,

  • we take sugar cubes and we rub it on the skin of those lemons, and then season

  • the sorbet with that.

  • So now we're also introducing aroma.

  • And now when you taste that lemon sorbet, you smell that lemon sorbet,

  • and it elevates the flavor of that sorbet.

  • The same thing happens when you peel a grapefruit.

  • I'm sure you've all peeled grapefruit before, before you eat it.

  • When you peel it, the aromas, the oils, they're on your hands.

  • They hit your nose.

  • And by the time you eat that grapefruit, it tastes unbelievable.

  • The best grapefruit you ever had.

  • It tastes much better than a grapefruit you would just get served

  • on a plate that's been pre-sliced.

  • In cocktails we use it a lot.

  • If you're at the bar, and you're ordering

  • a Manhattan-- I don't know if you're old enough, everyone in here--

  • but if you have a Manhattan, the bartender,

  • at the very end of serving you that drink, adds a twist of orange.

  • That twist of orange, that aroma hits your nose,

  • it elevates the flavor of that drink.

  • All these things happen because your brain

  • is making a connection between what it tastes and what it smells.

  • It elevates the experience.

  • It's like going from black and white to color.

  • We have some bags here for you.

  • And I'm sorry, Michael, you know, we weren't

  • quite as prepared as I wanted to.

  • But we disturbed your talk a little bit to bring in these bags.

  • But here you have it.

  • Please grab in these bags.

  • There are two small bottles.

  • I want you just take out the two small bottles.

  • OK.

  • And now put the bag back down.

  • We're gonna taste these.

  • I would like to taste these as well.

  • Thank you.

  • In these two bottles we have soda.

  • We've made a lot of different sodas over the years.

  • Celery soda, cherry soda, coffee soda, strawberry soda.

  • But for here for you today, we have maple soda.

  • I want to taste the first one without the sticker on it.

  • It definitely tastes like maple syrup.

  • But it tastes really sweet also.

  • In fact, it's good, but I wouldn't really want to drink this soda.

  • It's too sweet.

  • It's not balanced.

  • Let's taste the other one.

  • And it's pretty impressive, our team filled all these small bottles

  • this afternoon.

  • And even I don't know-- yeah.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • Even more impressive is that they're still cold.

  • Let's taste this one.

  • These sodas are made exactly the same way.

  • It's the same recipe.

  • There's one change.

  • And this soda, for me, tastes a lot less sweet, a lot more balanced,

  • a lot more delicious.

  • Kind of like what you want soda to be.

  • We added, in this case, apple cider vinegar to balance this out.

  • So this is an example I wanted to give you,

  • because it kind of is a strong example.

  • And the soda goes from really not really drinkable to delicious.

  • In food it's not always this extreme.

  • It can be much more subtle.

  • But it can elevate-- the right amount of acid--

  • can elevate the experience of a dish.

  • Let's talk about our first dish here.

  • This dish is a seafood boil.

  • It's inspired by seafood boil you would have out by the water on the ocean.

  • This seafood is extremely fresh.

  • There's prawns, lobster, clams.

  • It's amazing seafood.

  • You could just steam that and eat it, and it would be delicious.

  • But what we do, we cook it in a broth of lemon, beer, and tomato.

  • We then bring it out to the dining room, and we put a big wooden board right

  • in the middle of the table.

  • We take that seafood and we dump it right onto that board.

  • We're asking our guests to eat this dish with their hands.

  • But before they do, we're asking them to squeeze some fresh lemon

  • over that seafood.

  • So now we're introducing aroma to already the acid

  • that we introduced during cooking.

  • It elevates that seafood and makes it a better dish.

  • Our next dish is a roasted duck.

  • This dish is on the menu all the time.

  • These are these amazing ducks we get up from the Finger Lakes.

  • We're really proud of the product and the preparation.

  • It's glazed with honey.

  • On this picture we serve it with rutabaga, whipped honey, some bee

  • pollen, and then a sauce that is made with caramelized sugar, duck choux,

  • and there's four acids in this sauce.

  • We have lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, and vinegar.

  • The duck is gamy, meaty, fatty, and rich.

  • Now we're also adding sugar in the form of the honey and in the sauce.

  • So it's really, really important that we're playing with a lot of acids.

  • And it's sort of like the sensation of sweet and sour.

  • Here we have oysters.

  • We get these oysters from Long Island.

  • They're two hours away from our restaurant.

  • We get them every day.

  • And they're as fresh as an oyster can be.

  • You could just shuck them and eat them right out of the shell.

  • And it would be delicious.

  • These oyster are served with champagne grapes, a [? snow ?]

  • that we make with Concord grape juice and red wine vinegar.

  • And we also have sorrell.

  • A lot of the guests come up to me and say, wow.

  • These are the freshest oysters I ever had.

  • Or they come to me and say, wow.

  • The combination of oysters and grapes is unbelievable.

  • And that's cool.

  • But what they're really responding to is the high amounts of acid

  • that is in the [? snow ?].

  • And it makes them believe-- they've had oysters this fresh before--

  • but the high amounts of acid makes them believe that these

  • are the freshest oysters they ever had.

  • It's the same thing that we talked about manufactured foods.

  • They add acid to make shitty food taste better.

  • But if we use that, and we use the best ingredients

  • that we can get our hands on, and we're adding acid in the right amount,

  • we can make a great product into an unbelievable product.

  • Here we have the second one.

  • Structure.

  • Just like we did with this spoon, acid changes the structure in food.

  • We took this spoon, we bent it, it changes the function of the spoon.

  • Here we have milk.

  • We're adding acid.

  • We're changing the structure of the molecules in that milk,

  • and it turns it into curd.

  • This is the basics of cheese-making.

  • I want to show you this in one of our dishes

  • where we use that to our advantage.

  • Here, are all the way on the left side, you see a pot with milk.

  • And there's some hay in it.

  • And the hay is there to flavor the milk.

  • And there's also lemon juice in that milk.

  • Now we're bringing that milk up to temperature.

  • And you can see how it starts to separate.

  • Then we're straining it.

  • So now we have the curd on one side, and the whey on the other side.

  • The whey usually is a byproduct, and it gets thrown out.

  • But what I love about this dish is how we bring these two ingredients

  • back together.

  • We're making a gnocchi.

  • We're taking the curd and we roll it in semolina.

  • We're taking the whey and make it into a really flavorful broth.

  • We serve the gnocchi with some beautiful greens.

  • And we pour the broth table side.

  • This is a dish of scallops.

  • And it's a raw scallop just marinated.

  • We get these amazing scallops.

  • We open them fresh out of the shell.

  • They're still alive.

  • We marinate them with green apple juice so the scallop firms up.

  • It changes the structure in those scallops.

  • And Michael was just flying through this thing, but he touched on ceviche.

  • But it's the same thing that happens with ceviche.

  • The lemon, lime, or pineapple juice.

  • It changes the structure in that seafood,

  • and it gives it a different texture.

  • The apple juice that we use to marinate this scallop is also affected by that.

  • We're adding citric ascorbic acid to this apple juice.

  • And we use it because it's close to flavor neutral.

  • But the addition of ascorbic acid keeps the apple juice from turning brown.

  • This is the same thing that happens when you make a guacamole.

  • You add lemon to that avocado so it doesn't turn brown.

  • The same thing can happen with mushrooms, or when you peel artichokes.

  • Here we have egg yolks.

  • I love eggs.

  • Eggs Is probably one of the most versatile ingredient that we work with.

  • And all the way on the left side, the top part is a raw egg yolk.

  • On the bottom, we open it up so we show you the consistency.

  • Egg yolks are extremely creamy.

  • But we try to find a way, how can we make it even creamier?

  • In the middle, we took the egg yolk on the top,

  • and we marinated it in white balsamic vinegar for two days.

  • On the bottom, in the middle, we open it up

  • to show you the change in consistency.

  • That egg yolk got thicker, creamier.

  • And then we took it even further.

  • All the way on the right is an yolk that's

  • been sitting in white balsamic vinegar for seven days.

  • And you can see on the bottom picture, all the way on the right,

  • that now the egg yolk is barely liquid anymore.

  • It's gotten a lot firmer.

  • And that's pretty cool.

  • Here, this is an experiment that we did just for today.

  • This is red cabbage.

  • And red cabbage is functioning like a natural pH meter.

  • We added acids and we added alkalines.

  • And just based on those colors, you can see the change in pH.

  • All the way on the left, we added white wine vinegar, the most acidic things

  • we added off all of them.

  • Then we added white wine.

  • The third one, we actually just added cabbage juice as being the neutral one.

  • And then we're adding alkalines, which the blue one is baking soda.

  • Then we added lye.

  • And then we added bleach.

  • Obviously you don't want to eat this.

  • But this is really cool.

  • Just by the change of pH, the color changes-- and these

  • are bright colors-- dramatically.

  • This happens with other things, too.

  • For example, a blueberry muffin.

  • You've all had blueberry muffins.

  • When you look at a blueberry muffin, sometimes you see around the blueberry

  • a small circle of green.

  • The blueberry is starting to turn green.

  • This happens because the baking soda is interacting

  • with the acid in the blueberries.

  • When you see that, it's usually not a good sign.

  • It's not the best blueberry muffin you ever had,

  • because it means there's too much baking soda in it.

  • But that's what happens.

  • And the same thing happens right now.

  • You walk outside on the streets, and you see

  • all the leaves changing on the trees.

  • There's other things that go on there, but one

  • of the biggest reasons that these leaves are changing color

  • is because the pH level in these leaves is changing.

  • Preservation.

  • Acid is involved in two types of preservations.

  • On one side we have pickling.

  • And on the other side we have fermentation.

  • If you take this cucumber here, if you just let it sit,

  • bad bacteria will grow.

  • And I know the picture of this bacteria is kind of ridiculous,

  • but, somehow I wanted to make this point.

  • If you let this cucumber sit, these bacterias will grow,

  • it will destroy the cucumber, or it will destroy you.

  • In the presence of acid, bad bacteria dies.

  • Come on.

  • In pickling, we simply add acid in form of vinegar.

  • In fermentation, acid is naturally produced,

  • which will keep the bad bacteria from growing.

  • We use this all the time.

  • Here on this picture we have pickled purple egg plants.

  • The one on the right is just the raw slice.

  • The one on the left has been pickled.

  • What's really cool here too is because of the egg plant's purple skin,

  • it penetrates that color throughout.

  • And it looks really beautiful.

  • Here we have pickled plums.

  • Sometimes we use the sous-vide method for pickling.

  • Pickling under pressure speeds up the process of pickling.

  • Here we have fermented mustard greens.

  • We simply let these mustard greens ferment

  • by adding salt, water, onions, and ginger.

  • And again, through the fermentation process, acid is produced.

  • And it will keep bad bacteria from growing.

  • Here we have a foie gras dish that we serve in the restaurant.

  • It's a foie gras dish with sunchokes.

  • I love this dish.

  • And it's a dish that we serve during the winter months.

  • And I love this dish so much because preservation

  • allows us here to use ingredients that are out of season.

  • On this dish we have fermented mustard greens.

  • And they're a little hard to see, and I think

  • we could have picked maybe a better picture,

  • but I promise you they're there.

  • We have pickled sunchokes, and we have a relish of onions and mustard seeds.

  • I love how preservation is helping us in this dish.

  • We're using ingredients that are out of season.

  • But in addition, also preservation is bringing acid

  • to the dish, which helps balance the flavor of that the rich and creamy foie

  • gras.

  • We could talk about this an entire lecture and more.

  • It's a really complex topic-- fermentation preservation.

  • And I know a week from today Jody Adams will

  • give an entire class on fermentation.

  • Let's get back to our original question.

  • Where's the acid?

  • We use many different acids from all kinds of places.

  • So let's look into our pantry.

  • This is a picture of our dry storage.

  • We have bottled vinegars that we buy from balsamic vinegars, [INAUDIBLE]

  • vinegars, sherry vinegars, red wine vinegars.

  • We have all kinds of vinegar powders that we're using.

  • Malic acid powders, lactic acid powders, citric acid powders.

  • We're also making our own vinegar.

  • We have a vinegar machine, and then we age the vinegar in barrels.

  • Making our own vinegar allows us to be very specific to our dishes.

  • In our walk-in, we have all the fresh dairy

  • that brings us the lactic acid from creme fresh, yogurt, cream, and milk.

  • And then of course we have all the fruits.

  • Citrus fruits, apples, pineapples, they give us acid.

  • We're using a pH meter at the restaurant.

  • And we're using it as a measure to give us more consistency, more accuracy.

  • We're using it in a way we use a scale, or in a way we measure temperature.

  • I want to talk a little bit about some of the pH levels

  • that we've learned about.

  • And I want to start with water.

  • And remember-- I'm sure you probably all know this,

  • but I want to remind you-- that the lower the number in pH,

  • the higher the acidity.

  • So we took our still water-- and this is the water we serve with our meal--

  • we took still water, and we measured it at 7.5.

  • 7 Is neutral, so it's very close to neutral.

  • Then we measured our sparkling water.

  • And our sparkling water is highly acidic.

  • And then we even ask ourselves, is it just the bubbles?

  • Or when it goes flat, will the acidity remain?

  • And it does.

  • What's cool about here is that we actually

  • learn that CO2 is a source of acid.

  • So we can add CO2 to anything, and the acidity in that will increase.

  • But then there's something else.

  • When you go have dinner, the most simple question in the beginning of your meal,

  • do you want still or sparkling water?

  • This question is not that simple anymore,

  • because it changes the experience of your meal dramatically.

  • We also looked at the manufactured foods that we talked earlier.

  • And we measured those.

  • They're highly acidic, all of them.

  • But the most surprising here was Coca Cola.

  • Everyone in the world drinks Coca-Cola.

  • Everyone loves Coca-Cola.

  • Coca-Cola is more acidic then red wine vinegar.

  • Just imagine that.

  • Isn't that crazy?

  • You eat that with your meal.

  • It's more acidic than red wine vinegar.

  • That's unbelievable.

  • And when you drink Coca-Cola, you never think of it as being acidic.

  • And that's because there's so much sugar to balance all that acid,

  • it makes it a beverage that everyone loves.

  • I talked about this dish earlier.

  • Our duck dish.

  • And I told you the sensation of sweet and sour, and how crucial the sauce is.

  • The perfect level in this sauce of pH is 4.6.

  • So I wanted to see if we take our cooks, are line cooks,

  • and we have them make this sauce over a period of three weeks.

  • Make it blindly without a pH meter, just by taste.

  • And this is what they came in, in those ranges they came in.

  • Between 4.3 and 4.9.

  • It's pretty close, don't you think?

  • It's really close.

  • And it's just by taste.

  • So then I wanted to see, OK.

  • Let's take our more experienced cooks, our sous chefs.

  • And let's have them do the same thing, and see if they could get it closer.

  • And thankfully, They did.

  • But hey, just to be clear, when I make this sauce-- But so, that's great.

  • We have pH levels.

  • And it helps us to make it more accurate.

  • And it's a great tool.

  • But even if that sauce has the perfect pH level,

  • it doesn't mean the sauce is delicious.

  • It can taste totally off.

  • And I think that is where the magic of cooking comes in.

  • We can have all these scientific tools, but it will never

  • replace the palate or the talent of the chefs who are in the kitchen.

  • Talk about wine.

  • And this is based on the people I worked with on this.

  • You might drink different wines at Harvard, but--

  • We can't talk about acid and not mentioning wine.

  • Wine is such a big part of our restaurant, of the dining experience.

  • And acid in wine is so, so, so important.

  • We have the wines on the left that we pair with our food.

  • And then we have the wines that you might drink in college.

  • And we measured those.

  • And for our pairing, remember our food is highly acidic, so what we need,

  • we need the wine to be a perfect pairing.

  • To pair food, you need a wine that is just as acidic, maybe even more acidic.

  • And what that does is it lets the flavor of the wine come through.

  • It lets the wine be wine, and not be overpowered by the food.

  • Although the wines on the right, that was a surprise to us,

  • because these wines, they are highly acidic.

  • When we drink these wines, we think of them

  • as extremely sweet, very high in alcohol, and very low in acidity.

  • So we were surprised to see these numbers.

  • So again, the pH level is not-- you can't taste the pH.

  • In these wines of lesser quality, there is

  • acid added artificially to balance all that sweetness and that sugar.

  • And that's why when you drink cheap wine,

  • you have a way worse hangover than when you drink good quality wine.

  • There is a common theme.

  • Manufactured foods add acid to make bad food taste better.

  • The wine industry takes this really sweet, high alcoholic, bad grape juice,

  • they add acid, and they can sell it.

  • If we take that knowledge and we add it to the best ingredients we have,

  • and we use it carefully, we can make food from great to unbelievable.

  • It affects all levels of food.

  • On every level, acid changes and highlights the ingredients.

  • So I've been talking a lot.

  • But I want to talk about one more dish.

  • And this dish I'm really excited about.

  • This is a dish that we serve at the restaurant.

  • We've been serving it for a long time.

  • It's a dish that a lot of people talk about, and people really love.

  • It's a dish of carrot tartare.

  • This dish is inspired by a classic New York steak tartare.

  • And we worked on this idea for a while.

  • This is what we came up with.

  • Also, I think it's what we talked about earlier,

  • the intersection between great ingredients

  • and the history of New York.

  • I think it's demonstrated in this dish really well.

  • We have these amazing carrots from upstate New York,

  • from the Hudson Valley.

  • We get it from a farm, his name is Alex [INAUDIBLE].

  • This guy's been growing carrots for the last 40 years.

  • He grows about 40 different types of carrots.

  • These are the best carrots I have ever tasted.

  • We wanted to make them the star of this dish.

  • And the way we serve it, we bring out this meat grinder into the dining room,

  • and we clamp it on to the table.

  • At this point the guests don't really know what to expect.

  • They expect to be meat.

  • But then we come out with these amazing carrots.

  • And in this dish we demonstrate all three things

  • that we talked about today.

  • In this dish, acid affects the flavor in food.

  • In this dish, acid affects the structure in the food.

  • And also, we're using acid to preserve food.

  • So the cook comes out and grinds these carrots table side into that board.

  • And on that pallet of ingredients, we ask our guests to be their own chefs,

  • and add these ingredients to their liking, and mix it together.

  • We have a marinated egg yolk-- what we talked about earlier.

  • We have pickled mustard seeds.

  • We have compressed apples.

  • We have a mustard of apple.

  • And we have a carrot vinaigrette.

  • And now, in your bag, there's a jar with this dish already mixed.

  • We also have a little bag of some rye crackers.

  • You can dip them in.

  • I would have loved to bring like, 300 meat grinders and make that dish

  • for you, but I couldn't.

  • So this is already mixed.

  • And please taste it.

  • Acid is so important in this dish.

  • You can taste it.

  • And acid in a way, it's such a simple thing, adding acid.

  • But then also acid does so many complicated things that we didn't know,

  • and we simply took for granted.

  • There is one more thing in that bag for you.

  • And everyone, anyone who leaves a restaurant at Eleven Madison

  • leaves with a jar of granola.

  • The granola has nothing to do with acid.

  • But we're also in the hospitality business.

  • And we just wanted you to have a delicious breakfast.

  • Thank you guys.

MICHAEL: OK.

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