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So there are a lot of bits and pieces of mad scientist cookery we get up to this series. We use sous-vide cookery, we mess around with foams, and in a couple of weeks I’m off to pour liquid oxygen on a barbeque. But cookery science is advancing really fast right now, and here are a few things that I’m really excited about that I haven’t gotten a chance to try out yet:

1) Meat Powders. Everyone knows about liquid nitrogen and food, of course, but most people think of it either as a stunt, a la the Fat Duck’s frozen mousse balls, or a great way of making icecream. But in fact, there’s a whole lot of research going into other interesting applications of Very Cold Stuff right now. One of the most interesting ideas came out of the blog Ideas In Food, who’ve been experimenting with freezing then powdering meats and seafood. The applications are fascinating – meat as seasoning. A light sprinkling of 24-day aged steak on that cream, sir?

2) Meat Glue. Once again, this one’s from Ideas In Food, and so far I’ve failed to persuade anyone else I know that it’s a great idea. Which is a pity, because it’s fantastic.

Short version: There’s a thing called “Activa”, which, rather than being an overhyped bio-active yoghurt, is a substance that can bond pieces of meat together seamlessly. The potential for cooking fascinating new cuts is incredible – seamlessly combining lamb belly with pork ribs, say, or perhaps a multi-layered steak. I was particularly taken by the idea of shrimp balls seamlessly wrapped in chicken skin – sounds gorgeous.

3) Local vertical farming. Whilst I’m skeptical about “organic”, I’m very interested in sustainable and traceable farming. And, of course, the ultimate in traceable farming is to grow it yourself.

Now, if you’re in the country, that’s all fine and well. But in a city, how can you grow enough food? Well, what if you consider “vertical farming”, where farms work indoors, using tuned light? LEDs can target precisely the wavelengths that react with clorophyll, meaning that you can provide light using tremendously low-power installations. And a lot of food actually doesn’t need that much space to grow. Could you grow a year’s supply of food in a properly-outfitted shipping container?

There’s been a lot of research into this area for things like the Biosphere 2 project – worth looking into.

4) Retuned microwaves. I was talking to a friend who works in radar technology recently, and he happened to casually mention that it’s possible to retune a microwave to cause other molecules than water to vibrate. Now, we haven’t done any testing on this yet, but the potential’s fascinating. A microwave oven that only heats fat molecules? That only heats salt? That targets the cellulose in plants? Wow.

5) Cooking without heat – alkalis, acids, and more. Martin Lersch’s recent blog post on the Maillard reactions and how they can be fairly dramatically affected was a real eye-opener: he demonstrated that you can speed up the browning process in onions severalfold by increasing the pH of the onions using baking soda.

The potential of cooking without heat is remarkable. We’ve already heard of Heston Blumenthal using ultrasound to make mayonaisse, for example, but did you know that you can also use it to age wine incredibly rapidly? What else can we do? There’s a lot of historical use of techniques like this – softening meat with pineapple or yoghurt, for example, or “cooking” fish in acid – but what else can we find by considering the chemical reactions of cooking? Would it be possible to strengthen the cell membranes in meat, for example, meaning that we could cook chicken at a higher temperature without losing too much fluid, or perhaps find a way to preserve haemoglobin against heat, meaning pink-yet-well-done meat becomes a possibility?

The science of cooking is fascinating, and there’s so much still to explore.