After much ballyhooed discussion over chef Ferran Adrià’s future and the final fate of his famed El Bulli, the Washington Post reported this week that Adrià would join chef José Andrés at Harvard in the fall as instructors of a new culinary physics course. Adrià, who announced that El Bulli would become a foundation in 2014, will participate in a 13-week course at the Boston school, with other star chefs, like Blue Hill’s Dan Barber, joining the Andrés/Adrià team throughout the term.
“All cooking, if you look at it, is soft-matter physics,” said Otger Campas, a Harvard research fellow and native of Barcelona who is helping design the course. “This is designed to create a dialogue between cooks and scientists.”
Chef Andrés was recently awarded the Vilcek Foundation Prize for the Arts, where he was recognized for “bringing Spanish culture to the forefront of American cuisine while pushing the boundaries of food as both a sensory experience and vital component of well-being.” He was also named an Outstanding Chef finalist in this year’s round of James Beard awards.
~Jennifer Heigl