How does molecular gastronomy differ from traditional food science?

While the term is often mistakenly applied to avant-garde culinary techniques, molecular gastronomy is strictly a scientific discipline established in 1988 to investigate the physical and chemical transformations occurring during cooking.1

It differs from traditional food science in its primary focus and scope:

• Traditional Food Science: Historically centered on the chemical composition of ingredients, the industrial production of food, and nutritional properties.1
• Molecular Gastronomy: Focuses on the mechanisms of culinary phenomena at the level of domestic and restaurant cooking—areas that traditionally relied on anecdotal information and tradition. It seeks to explain the chemistry and physics behind everyday processes, such as why a soufflé rises or how mayonnaise firms.1

While molecular gastronomy provides the research that informs new culinary methods, the application of these findings by chefs is correctly termed molecular cooking, and the resulting culinary style is known as molecular cuisine.12