Raymond Blanc on Professor Nicholas Kurti

0:00BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Our guest today is one of the best and most renowned chefs alive. His restaurant at Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons has consistently held two Michelin stars for the last 41 years. Self-taught, he has himself trained a host of luminaries, from Heston Blumenthal to Marco Pierre White. Raymond Blanc, welcome to Great Lives. I understand that when we asked you initially, you wanted to nominate your mother, but the producer said that wasn't allowed. I was very tempted to name my mother as the most influential person in my development as a cook, as a person, and the culture she gave me who provided extraordinary values, that food is an act of love.

0:51She taught me, of course, all the science of preserving, of growing food, of cooking food, and the joy of the table. She should have a saint food according to her. She was the most extraordinary person. Perhaps she's listening to us now. In order to bits. You never know. But given that you're not allowed to choose your mother, whom have you chosen? Well, I chose Professor Curti, who played a huge role in my life, enormous role in helping me understanding the complex impact that chemistry may have on your cuisine. And there's a story before... Sorry, I'm going to talk about me, because I opened my little restaurant in 1977.

1:35It's a tiny little place with red and white tablecloths, cheap Prince of Paris on the wall. It's this humble place. This was in Oxford. Which was French in Oxford, absolutely, in 1977. Okay. And I cooked my heart out 16, 18 hours a day. And we got a star-michon the first year, two star-michon three years. But I was meeting great difficulties. Sometimes my souffle were not quite rising. My puff pastry would be leaking. There was all sorts of little issues which prevented me to touch complete, total excellence. And I had to understand. So what I did, I bought all the books of science I could find and understood nothing because it was written by scientists for scientists, not for chefs.

2:24It took me a long time to meet Professor Curti. Tell me about it. So I started to go to all the food symposium on science and physics. And eventually I went to the Oxford symposium. I think it was 1991 or 1989. I don't remember. And there was all this great professor, Hervé Teese. You had the best of the best. And again, I was so disheartened because I couldn't understand the language until Professor Curti talked. and he started his talk by saying, we go to the moon, yet we don't understand what's happening in our souffle. Wow! I said, yes, I like that man. Because that I can understand. Because me too have got problems with my souffle.

3:14Okay? And I understood every word, every word. And at the moment, I was the happiest man on earth. And when he finished talking, I really rushed to him. and I say, Professor Curti, please, will you become my mentor? Did he know you? Did he know your restaurant? He knew my restaurant. He knew me more than I knew him because he had tasted my food quite a lot of time. And he said, without hesitation, I will be delighted to be your mentor. How old was Nicholas Curti when you met him? I think he was 83, 84. 83 or 84? 82, yeah. Yeah. Can you describe the man physically? Physically, the man was fascinating because he looked like a proper Oxford professor, born in Oxford, with all the Oxford dressing coat, with a bow tie, you know, for a professor and a suit, etc.

4:13And really what fascinated first is his stomach, OK? Because he had a stomach which was vertical. It didn't fall like most of the stomach by the force of entropy. And very strong and firm. I should explain to my listeners that Raymond Blanc is gesticulating with his hands the most enormous stomach. Not enormous. Just consequential. Consequential. Yes. Important. But it was like a muscle who had eaten too much foie gras. And so much good food. It kept working, and of course he was a gastronome, he loved his food. Our guest expert, Stephen Blundell, is professor of physics at Oxford University, but he hasn't got a bowtie.

5:02He runs the Nicholas Kurty Magnetic Field Laboratory there. Stephen, what was his area of work? He was a particular specialist in low-temperature physics. Kurt's particular insight was to realise that high magnetic field is synonymous with low temperature. What he did was to cool down these magnetic materials to very low temperature by conventional means, apply a large magnetic field to line up all the magnetic moments, to fool them, if you like, that they're at an even lower temperature, then decouple them from their environment by pumping out the air around them, and then he would reduce the magnetic field.

5:42At that point, all the magnetic moments are in the wrong state. And the only way they can keep various things conserved, like entropy, is by sucking heat away from the atoms in the material. And this gave him the possibility of achieving these really low temperatures. In a sense, one of his big insights, which he later used in his cooking, was to realise that things don't have to be of a uniform temperature. You can have parts of a system which are at one temperature and other parts which were at a different temperature. Let's find out a few facts from his early years. When was he born and into what kind of family?

6:19Curti was born in 1908 in Budapest. He was a member of an intellectual family, but his father died when he was three years old. He was educated by governances, he learnt French and German. He wanted to be a chemical engineer, but his uncle, who ran a factory that made light bulbs in Hungary, suggested that he went into this new emerging discipline of physics and applied physics, and so that's what he decided to do. It was quite difficult being a Hungarian Jew with the anti-Semitism that existed in the 1920s to study in Hungary. He moved instead to Paris. He studied at the Sorbonne. He had lectures from Madame Curie.

6:57He then moved to Berlin and had lectures from Schrodinger, and Schrodinger in particular impressed him. He then did his PhD under a man called Franz Simon and in fact come up with the idea of the third law of thermodynamics, which says that you cannot achieve absolute zero. So absolute zero was therefore a quest for Curti for the rest of his life. You can't achieve it, but how close can you get? I have a quote here from an interview from 1968 in which he said, assuming the whole Nazi thing hadn't come, it wouldn't have been easy for me to simply write to England and say I wanted a job in a laboratory.

7:34so to some extent it was my luck that there was this very great exodus from Germany and that I was at that crucial moment in Germany, albeit a Hungarian Jew, and therefore I in some way benefited from this. What strikes me about that, Raymond, is the remarkable positivity. He's talking about Nazis, he's talking about persecution. Yes, we all know what happened in Germany with the Jews and then in Hungary as well. and since the man chose to apply his craft and his science to UK but leaving family behind, I admire him for him. He's a strong man. He's a man with huge principles. Obviously, that may have also saved his life.

8:17Interestingly, Curti, when he arrived in Oxford in 1933, it was a miserable day. It was raining and he went to a fellow scientist, Mendelssohn's house, just outside Oxford, thinking, what a miserable place. but the following morning it was a beautiful autumn day and this other scientist Mendelssohn gave Kirti a tour of Oxford and he saw in this beautiful sunshine all these wonderful buildings in a practically deserted city, I think it was a Sunday morning and he thought to himself, I'm never going to leave this place and in fact he then stayed in Oxford for the rest of his life the next 65 years.

8:54Kirti starred in Raymond's Blanc Marche and we've got a clip here from 1994. Have a listen. Nicolas Curti is a professor of physics at Oxford University. Nevertheless, he's still a man after my own heart, because he's a great lover of good food. Nicolas, you've transformed my kitchen into a laboratory. It looks so scientific. Well, I think it's time that physics was brought into the kitchen. You know, I was terribly impressed as a physicist when I watched your mother's kitchen where you made fondant de chocolat. Should have tasted it. Nicolas, what are you up to? What kind of charge are you up to?

9:29Then nose clip. Put it on your nose, please. And now, come on, put it on your nose. I'm going to blindfold you. Don't worry, we are not going to suit you. What kind of torture are you devising for me? Just a very simple experiment to illustrate that flavour is made up of taste and of smell. OK, now, here. Number one, put out your tongue, please. Just like you think that I am doctor, you see. OK, ah! And if I don't want to... No, no, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. There. Now, what do you think it is? Does that take you back? enormously, of course. It sounds like you had fun together.

10:04Oh, yes, we had fun. But also, I remember his kindness, his straightfulness. There was no nonsense about him. He came straight to the point, but in a kind way. I knew he would be a good teacher because a good teacher doesn't frighten you. He doesn't completely use his power to make you smaller. He wanted to use his power to make me bigger, to really connect deeply with me so I could somehow, his science could help me to sort out my little problems. Did he teach you how to stop your puff pastry leaking, for instance, as you put it? Yes, yes, he did. It really helped me exactly what was happening between the layering of the fat and the flour water.

10:50Definitely, then my puff pastry rose so beautifully. So, yeah, also for my souffle, and coming back to his sentence, which is a beautiful sentence. We go to the moon, yet we don't understand what's happening in our souffle. And myself, my souffle, I thought you have the base, which is a bonding, like a bechamel sauce for a savory souffle. And then you've got the lifting part, which I thought the lifting part was egg white. And in my logic, when you beat egg white, you create billions of bubbles of air, by beating the albumate and trapping air into it. And I saw the egg white albumin during the process of cooking and the air trapped in these bubbles of protein of egg white would expand.

11:42Expand, yes. And it is, they do, but on a minimal level, what makes a souffle grow up is that in this bowl in which a souffle is, the mixture cannot escape. and there's about 60 % of water. So the water tries to escape. It's trapped and it just automatically helps to raise the souffle. I've understood something that I never understood before. So thank you and thank you to Professor Curti. Stephen, it wasn't until he retired, really, that Curti found television fame. Before that, he was Professor of Physics at Oxford between 1967 and 1975. What do you and your colleagues remember of him? I came to the department in the early 90s and he was at this point in his mid-80s.

12:35Yet he was coming into the department every day. He cycled in from North Oxford, a distance of about two or three miles. He was known as the slowest cyclist in Oxford. But he had a twinkle in his eye. He wanted to come into the department to talk to people, to still be involved in physics. We have some archive from a programme called Ion Research, which was broadcast in 1960. Tonight you join us in the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford for a programme on low-temperature physics. We meet Dr Nicholas Kurty. There you see him at work on his apparatus, a Hungarian-born fellow of the Royal Society. Dr Kurty, how cold for you is cold?

13:18Well, for me and for most of us in this laboratory, Cold begins at about minus 270 degrees, that is 270 degrees centigrade below freezing. And we hope to show you later in this program an experiment in producing these low temperatures. It's a rather complicated piece of apparatus. There are lots of things that can go wrong, but if it is successful, then I think for a short time at least the inside of these apparatus will be the coldest place in perhaps the whole of the universe. In 1956, he reached a temperature of one millionth of a degree above absolute zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded.

14:05Stephen, what is absolute zero and why do we want to try to make things this cold? Absolute zero is the temperature at which all motion ceases. Every atom is in its lowest energy state every system has found the lowest possible energy that it can get to. The quest for absolute zero, the quest to get as low as possible, is simply because new phenomena occur there. It's an unexplored territory. And he saw frontiers to be explored as a key objective of science. And low temperature was exactly that kind of key frontier. One of the extraordinary things about low temperatures is that the whole of space is bathed in what we call black body radiation, which means the whole of space is sitting at three degrees above absolute zero.

14:55By cooling things down well below that, you are achieving conditions that do not exist in the rest of the universe. So Curti's boast that he had created the coldest place in the universe was, apart from any alien civilisation we don't know about, probably correct. He's also credited with coining the term molecular gastronomy. Raymond, what is molecular gastronomy? Well, we all know all is molecular, and I'm not a professor, but it means something which helps the cook to understand behind the braising, roasting, cooking, slow cooking, baking, emulsions, etc., understand the process, the chemical reactions which are happening to the cook, helping the cook to be in control of his cuisine through science or physics.

15:49And in a way, I think it really expresses Curti's view of cooking. He was understanding things at the molecular level. He was looking for explanations. He didn't want just a set of rules of how you can cook some things which are passed on from generation to generation. He wanted to understand why they worked. He wanted to find new ways of achieving the same results, maybe quicker, and was wanting to see how science and scientific ingenuity could influence cooking. His whole scientific career had been about tinkering. He'd been playing around with diffusion of uranium gas, of cooling down paramagnetic salts, of doing things with radioactivity and mixing them with low temperature physics.

16:27he was a great tinkerer and builder of apparatus, and in his cooking approach, he applied the same kind of methodology. I wanted you now to listen to Professor Curti's daughter, Susanna, who spoke to our producer, Ellie, about her father's determination. He had high standards. He wasn't in any way a snob, but he expected things to be done well and was very persistent. If there was something he wanted to find out, whatever it was, he would do it. And he also had on loan one of the first microwave ovens from Phillips prototype. And it was very big. And I remember my mother saying that, you know, my father had proved once again that you can't scramble an egg in a microwave oven.

17:22But, you know, he wasn't going to give up. Is that the man you remember? I don't use very much microwave myself. No, I was going to say. I saw your face. I do a little bit to tamper chocolate, to soften things down, to boil the milk quickly. But that's about the function. But obviously, yes, he's a man that constantly awakens mind, constantly curious, and constantly aiming at discovering new techniques, new ideas which could be applied to food. And the microwave, of course, we all know, heat the food from inside out, which is totally new. Curti wasn't claiming that microwave cooking was superior.

18:07He was claiming that it was another way of doing it. And he found a number of applications where he could do unusual things that nobody had done before. And that was what he was really trying to do, was to increase the palette, if you like, of different techniques that cooks can use. What sort of things did he make? My favourite one, and particularly because it relates to his research, is this inverted baked Alaska. The idea was he had a centre which was made of apricot brandy and apricots. It was surrounded by meringue and ice cream. He then froze it. Because the alcohol inside the apricot brandy reduced the freezing temperature, that would stay liquid even in the freezer.

18:49When he took it out and then heated it with microwaves, the microwaves are preferentially absorbed by the apricot brandy, even though it's in the centre. The outside ice cream and the meringues don't interact so strongly and they're already very cold. So he could make this system that had a hot centre and a cold outside. And this was very new and because it was fun to do, that's the kind of thing that Curtie liked to do. He liked to surprise people, he liked to produce dishes that were amusing and unexpected. I know what you say about molecular gastronomy, but I wonder, is there a danger that the scientific approach can lead to the ultra-processed food that we have today that I think you would not approve of?

19:35I agree with you completely. Certainly molecular gastronomy and science have helped to create fast food which is even more interfered and less healthy, modified and unhealthy. Yes. Oh, yes, there is no doubt about it. You can use it well and you can misuse it as well. Yes. Now help me out here. I'm not known for my cooking. I struggle even to cook a fried egg. Does this blending of science and cooking, does it make our lives better at home or is it just something for professional chefs to get excited about? Oh, I think there are wonderful ways, simple ways. I'm going to do two or three. That I would understand.

20:20OK, yeah. OK, let's do a steak, OK? You're going to spoil yourself because it's Saturday, you're off, OK? And you go to your butcher and you buy the best possible steak, which is at least 20 days. I should interrupt you just for a second to tell our listeners that the banging of the table is Raymond Blanc's banging. Sorry, I apologise. And I despair of stopping him from doing it. So you... When you hear the bangs... You're so English. You need to tell me. You hear the bangs. From the first. So I stop banging. You're hearing his enthusiasm. Now, come on. You were telling me more about how, at home, people like me...

20:57How you can apply chemistry and science and how you can apply in your cuisine to understand what's happening better. I'm going to give you the best steak of your life. And I think there's four ingredients. There is a steak itself, there is salt and pepper, and there is water and butter. We all know butter and water don't mix, but they mix in certain cases. So first, the meat needs to be hanged properly, okay? By hanging the meat, the moisture goes out of the meat, it tenderizes it, it breaks down the meat to make it much more flavorful and also more tasty. Put it in the fridge tonight, take it three hours before outside.

21:40So it becomes almost room temperature. Yeah. You prepare your pan, two of you, medium-sized pans, so it just fits the steak perfectly. Okay? Why? Because the batter would burn if there's too much space. Okay? So you put only 10 grams per portion of butter, unsalted butter. Why? Because it has the most fat content and the least whey. salt pepper from the mill, proper pepper, please. It's got a different flavour. Buy a big fat meal so you can grind that meal. Please, I beg you. Okay? Little things are important. Not too long before the salt will start drawing the juices of your steak. Big, lots of pepper.

22:26You press it in on both sides. Then you take your saucepan, you put your 10g of butter per person. On a medium heat, You melt the butter. So what's going to happen? The butter will melt first through the heat. The butter will then form, and you bring this butter to a slightly knotty colour. The form stops, and you will see a colouration like hazelnut, pale brown. Pale brown, not black brown, because you burn your butter. You can smell it. Your kitchen will smell beautiful. Then you add your steaks, and you can hear the song of the sizzling within the frying pan. And that's called the Maillard reaction, which was a French, Monsieur Maillard, who discovered this reaction in 1912, where basically the butter browns amino acids and protein within the meat, giving that wonderful browning that we love, we all love it.

23:26And your tummy will start, ooh, no, because that's connection, all connects. So you burn it, just medium ray, three minutes. You turn it around, and another three minutes. Make sure it doesn't burn. It mustn't be black. So control your heat a little bit, and listen to the song of the sizzling. It mustn't be aggressive. It's a perfect song. But I'm waiting for the water. And then, when you have done that, add the water, remove, and it creates what's happening. So leave the steak in, and add the water. you're going to say, Raymond, but you're going to boil it? No, no, no, no, no, no. It will finish heating completely.

24:06The steam will go on to finish. And what's happening? The butter and the water, which don't normally mix, once there's a heat strong enough, they create an emulsion. Yes. And the butter particles go into the water and they create the most extraordinary jus. So you move the steaks straight away. You don't leave them in. rest your steak, OK, because you might murder your steak by overcooking it, OK? So it's going to be chewy and you're going to hate me for it and I hate to be hated. Did you ever cook for Professor Curti personally? Yes. Was he a critical...? No. He loved what I did. We're two geniuses, imagine.

24:52It's a joke because I've learned to be very humble in England, OK? That's one of the qualities he acquired, which took me a long, long time. But since that was a joke on myself... Your humility is shining through. Absolutely. Yes, I cooked for him. And actually, I cooked him that steak, actually. And I cooked a beautiful puree of potatoes and I showed him how not to work the starch of the potato. He learned. I would like to think as much as I learned from him. Yeah, it was a joy to be with him with a nice bottle of Pinot Noir, I remember Geoffrey Chambertin, I want really for the best. And we had a great time.

25:32And he loved his food, he loved people. I love his professor because his love of people was extraordinary. His love of finding more, discovering more, making people happy. Nicholas Curti died on the 24th of November, 1998, at the age of 90. He was still experimenting up to the end. And here's his daughter Susanna remembering her father's unique blend of silly and serious. He was very much a performer. He really liked being a showman and loved having people around, entertaining people for meals. And then after the meal and they were having coffee and perhaps liqueurs and things, he would sort of disappear.

26:14Where's he gone? He'd appear with his white shaggy wigs. think of Boris Johnson's worst hairstyle, because everybody knew him as being bald, which he was bald from a young age. And it was just, you know, he loved doing that, you know. He was silly. You know, he had a great... He had a sense of fun, worked incredibly hard for it, knowing what he would do, but the appearance would be of someone who was totally at ease, and doing it with humour as well. Stephen, how will you remember Nicholas Curtie? I went to a lecture that he gave, I think only a year or two before he died, where he demonstrated the physics of cooking to a packed audience who just adored him.

26:58He was full of anecdotes, he was full of joy. I would add maybe something, because we had a different relationship, OK, from almost pupil to mentor. but he helped me enormously in making my food even more creative, more extraordinary, more... He gave me so many ideas and techniques. I remember him fondly as a person that I love very, very much. My thanks to Professor Stephen Blundell and to Raymond Blanc for celebrating the life of Nicolas Curti. Bless him. Goodbye. Thank you.