SOFT MATTER

The title is inspired from my current reading of the book "Fragile Objects" by Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, a French scientist and Nobelist (1991), who has studied the quantum behaviors of long-chain molecules and their transformations. (The book wasn't technical; it was an account of his year of teaching inspirational science to high school students across France after receiving the award.) The interesting takeaway from the book, at least from the first couple of chapters I've read, is the fundamental insight into the strength of a carbon atom (not millions of atoms, of note) that's responsible for the phenomenal change from liquid or chemical state into solid form by congealing the substance and binding it, oxygenated, until achieving a pure threshold - yet at the microscopic-level, there is retained the molecular liquid strands of the original polymer. To think of my dish, Quiche - green olives, pancetta, caprino cheese with truffles and sage - Lorraine, undergoing this process, is to think of Gennes' contribution to science as regards to the nature of soft matter - or implicitly, the soft matter of nature.

To associate this quiche's "fragility" is to express the palatable and sublime quality a soufflé achieves. And by further imagination of understanding, I remember what the food goddess Nigella Lawson has said about home cooks - or because of home cooks - that the universe is alive. Gennes also talked about the overlap between fundamental versus applied research approaches, wherein the "chains" that structure the molecules have an original memory of they're utility - so I think as with the cook, knowing it's going to be this good, even before he tests it.