It all started with a guest lecture. World-renowned molecular chef, Ferran Adria, played visiting speaker at Harvard University, expounding on his commitment to bring science and cuisine together. But Adria won’t be considered a guest for long. Grub Street reported that he will be teaching a “Culinary Physics” class with molecular gastronomy brother Dan Barber, and old friend Jose Andres.
There may be two reasons for this career move. First, everyone knows of Adria’s passion for the relationship between chemicals and food—he invented the concept and technique of reducing foods to their very essence and transforming them from the form in which they’re presented. The second reason may not be so glamorous: Adria’s wife, Isabel, told Howard Chua-Eoan at TIME that lectures such as the one he gave at Harvard were required to help them support their projects. And with the well-known fact that El Bulli, a restaurant famous for its exclusivity and groundbreaking menu items, makes no money (it’s only open six months out of the year and has announced that it is closing for the next couple of years for research), one can only assume they need the monetary resources.
This is not the first time Adria has been considered such a national figure. He was named No. 1 in TIME Magazine’s Top 100 list in 2004. Since then Adria’s only become more popular and influential, if that’s even possible. As Chua-Eoan stated (quite accurately), “[Adria] has become a personage everyone is expected to recognize.” The world whole-heartedly agrees, and we wouldn’t be surprised if he was featured yet again as a Top 100 figure.
Sources: Time and GrubStreet
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