A New Food Pattern: Gastronomic Engineering

Abstract

The paper advances for debate the idea of “acknowledging” the food and nourishment in the sense of bringing the gastronomy from art to science level, as major theme regarding the food system evolution in XXI-th century. In the first place it emphasizes the scientific valences of food preparation, as process related, underlining the distinct branch of gastronomic engineering within food engineering. Once the food pattern is defined, the author of the paper shows the complexity of this branch as well as its development axes from scientific and technological perspectives. Gastronomic engineering is revealed as an activity and scientific field with distinct components. Subsequently, the concepts of molecular gastronomy, nutrigenomics and culinology are described. Both the common and distinct aspects of these elements are stated, in view of describing the food pattern in a coherent and unitary manner.