Interview: Kurt Vandemaele

Bernard looks boyish but he’s dad to those three children scampering around. And you practically choke on your drink when you realize that this young man is a leading food expert, a guest of honour at just about any top restaurant in the world. He’s on a first name basis with masters such as Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal. After all, he opened up a whole new world for them. How exactly? Well, on his website ‘Foodpairing.be’ the flavour profiles of hundreds of common food products are revealed. Chefs can see which ingredients can be combined with each other and above all: which can’t. Lahousse is the driving force behind the gastronomic trade fair ‘The Flemish Primitives’, but he earns his bread – with perfect crust and sublime texture no doubt - with 'Sense for Taste', the company he founded with a neighbour: Johan Langenbick, and the former sous-chef for Peter Goossens: Peter Coucquyt. Together they are on a mission to put their good taste to profitable use... But why not let Bernard Lahousse tell us about it.

A scientist in the kitchen

Bernard Lahousse: 'I was trained as a scientist: bioengineer, specialized in food and environmental science. But I’m passionate about gastronomy. When 'El Bulli' became the big thing about five years ago, I asked local chefs if they might be able to use my scientific knowledge of ingredients. Before that, the chefs that I approached had a hard time imagining what a scientist could possibly do in the kitchen.


In 2005 I finally started to get somewhere when two chefs realized that I had something to offer them. I began working together with Kobe Desramaults of 'In De Wulf' and Sang-Hoon Degeimbre of 'L’Air du Temps' in Eghezée. Sang was already working together with Hervé This at the time, the French scientist who put the term ‘molecular gastronomy' on the map. When other chefs heard about our collaboration, they came to me for advice too. And that’s how my network grew to include Gert De Mangeleer of 'Hertog Jan', Filip Claeys of 'De Jonkman', Vicky Geunes of 't Zilte' and Roger Vandamme of 'Het Gebaar'.'

Asparagus with strawberries and coffee

Bernard Lahousse: 'I wanted to discover combinations without having to test them out. Ferran Adrià of 'El Bulli' tried out hundreds of combinations only to keep just a couple in the end. He didn’t have a scientific method, but one did exist... Two people made the discovery: Heston Blumenthal - the chef from ‘The Fat Duck’ - at the time number one, currently number three in the world – and François Benzi – a scientist from the Geneva-based firm Firmenich, one of the largest flavour concerns in the world. Benzi combined liver with jasmine, Heston, caviar with chocolate. The researchers at Firmenich studied the flavour profile of the products and saw that in both liver and jasmine, there was indole, a fruity molecule, while caviar and chocolate shared trimethylamine among other things. Could products with common aromatic components fit together? My interest was piqued, and I immediately started collecting flavour profiles.


These days, we get universities to analyze products and give us the flavour profiles. Based on that flavour profile, we see which molecules are important for beer or coffee, for example. There are over 800 molecules in coffee, of which 30 to 40 are crucial for the flavour, such as vanilla. That means I can combine vanilla and coffee. But vanilla is also present in strawberries and asparagus. So asparagus, strawberries and coffee could also be combined. In other words, based on what the computer tells us, we can see whether products can be mixed with each other, without having to taste everything first.'

Pushing the envelope

Bernard Lahousse: 'We spent two years investing huge amounts of time and money in having hundreds of flavour profiles created. In 2007 I decided - by popular demand – to start a website on which anyone could use my results for free. On the first day, I had 8000 visitors, and by the end of the first month, there were 100,000. Top chefs around the world are regular visitors. The world of high-level gastronomy appreciates that I have put all that data on on the Web for free. The doors of the world’s best restaurants were suddenly open for me.


The company 'Sense for Taste' which does research related to food and gastronomy is our bread and butter business. Peter is the chef, Johan is the product developer and commercial guy, and I am the scientist. Together we do things that astound people. At the food corporation Sara Lee, they say that in Belgium we are pushing the envelope...


Everyone talks about the carbon footprint. Well, we have developed a tool that can reconstitute flavours based on local products. For example: importing mangoes is bad for the environment. The solution? Mix local products in the right way and you can taste mango, if you close your eyes. Flavours are not bound to a given product. It’s the combination of a number of molecules that makes a certain flavour. We look for solutions that are environmentally friendly, without having to sacrifice taste. Do you love steak, but would rather not have to see animals die for it? Then in the future, we will be able to help you.'

You know everything about flavour so you must be the guy to tell us where to eat out in Kortrijk.

Bernard Lahousse: 'No, not at all actually. If you’re used to eating at ‘The Fat Duck’, and at Filip’s or Gert’s, then the standards are way up there. I want to be surprised, I won’t stand for it if the chef simply slaps something on the plate. There are some promising young people around, like Matthieu Beudaert of ‘Table d’Amis’ on Walle, but I think it’s a shame that there’s so little top level gastronomy in Kortrijk. There is enough money and taste around in Kortrijk to make it work.'

www.foodpairing.be

www.sensefortaste.com