Introduction
Note by Note cuisine is a style of cooking based on molecular gastronomy, created by Hervé This. Dishes are made using pure compounds instead of using animal or plant tissues. Hervé This said the cuisine is like "a painter using primary colours, or a musician composing electroacoustic music, wave by wave, using a computer".
According to Hervé This, Note by Note cuisine began in 1994. In the French edition of Scientific American, This wrote that he dreamt of the day when recipes gave advice like "add to your bouillon two drops of a 0.001 percent solution of benzylmercaptanin pure alcohol". This said promoting the cuisine was a struggle, between 1994 and 1999 (he gave the name in 1997) and he got no remuneration out of it (and even today, he is not selling anything, nor products, or machine, or education). After 2006, he convinced his friend the French chef Pierre Gagnaire to develop Note by Note dishes, and after about one year of work, Pierre Gagnaire served the first Note by Note dish ever served in a restaurant. They presented the first Note by Note dish ("Note à note N°1") in Hong Kong the 26th of April 2008. Then, after more common work, Pierre Gagnaire named the second Note by Note dish called "Chick Corea", after the jazz pianist of the same name.
In 2012, This published La cuisine note à note, where the concept of Note by Note cuisine is discussed. Every year, This, with the chefs and students at Le Cordon Bleu prepare a note by note dinner. Every year, Hervé This organizes the international note by note contest at AgroParisTech. Candidates have to create a recipe consistent with the theme of the contest (fibers and acidities in 2017) and are assessed by a jury of chefs, such as Andrea Camastra and scientists.