Culinology: Applying Food Science to Culinary Art

Newswise — It's one thing to read of, hear of, see, and ultimately taste the latest items making their way onto favorite fast-food and full-service restaurant menus. But it's quite another experience to observe in real-time, and taste immediately, the culmination of research efforts focused solely on creating new food products for review by professionals in the field from around the globe.

This science-meets-culinary interaction is what the Institute of Food Technologists, in cooperation with the Research Chefs Association, will offer for the first time during the 2004 IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo® in Las Vegas, at the IFT/RCA New Product Development Pavilion.

For three days during the IFT Food Expo®, July 13-15, IFT and RCA will present this unique and interactive pavilion designed to showcase the blended disciplines of food science and "culinology," a new term describing the juxtaposition of culinary art and science underway in research kitchens worldwide.

Chefs from the retail, quick service, and full service restaurant market segments will work side by side with food technologists on center stage during the Food Expo® to create new culinary dishes using popular and trend-setting ingredients.

Culinary development teams will feature new menu items each day. Each presentation will provide the product recipe"called formulation"and include an interactive discussion of development steps, its target consumer, and the category of product, i.e. entree or appetizer. Products will be reviewed for overall innovation, requirements necessary for large-scale production and distribution, conditions needed to ensure food safety, nutritional benefits, and the likelihood of commercial acceptance.

This special feature of the IFT Food Expo® draws its seasoning from the Culinary Challenge first conducted during the Midwest Food Processors Conference, a 2003 exposition jointly sponsored by IFT's Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin Sections.

More information on the IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo® is accessible online, including a complete roster of technical research presentations and participants, an exhibitor roster, and product descriptions provided by the presenting companies.

Rated among the largest 200 conventions in America* with approximately 20,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibiting companies, the 64th IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo®, July 12-16, delivers comprehensive, cutting-edge research and opinion from food science-, technology-, marketing-, and business-leaders. Future shows are scheduled for New Orleans (2005), Orlando, Fla. (2006) and Chicago (2007).

* According to 2003 edition of Tradeshow Week® 200 magazine.

Founded in 1939, the Institute of Food Technologists is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 28,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues.