Sous Vide vs Low Temperature Cooking
Asked by Jason Logsdon on Sunday, February 28
Recently the writers at the <a href="http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/sous-vide-and-low-temp-primer-part-i/#section1">French Culinary Institute blog</a> suggested that we should stop referring to "sous vide" cooking as "sous vide" and instead as "low temperature cooking". Reserving "sous vide" for vacuum sealing methods only.
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<br />While I understand that semantically that is correct, it seems that "sous vide" is now in the popular lexicon and would be hard to change. I was wondering what you all felt this method would be popularly called in 5 years and why.
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<br />Thanks
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66
I totally agree with Douglas Baldwin's comments in the FCI Blog.
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<br />Whether it is semantically correct to call our method of cooking Sous Vide or Low Temperature is academic as the horse has bolted!
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<br />With new products entering the market (Like Swid and Sous Vide Supreme), more books being written such as Douglas' soon to be published cookbook and the massive tome in the works by Nathan Myhrvold all using Sous Vide to describe low temperature cooking in a water bath the name will only be further reinforced.
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<br />The term Sous Vide was probably technically wrong since it was first coined in modern times by Chef Geoges Pralus in the 1970s. He was attempting to reduce wastage cooking Foie Gras so the key element to his experiments could not have involved much in the way of a vacuum or the foie would have been crushed.
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<br />I think that given the term has been used in this way for around 40 years, any attempt to "correct" it will fail.
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<br />Cheers,
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<br />Peter.
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Answered by Peter Black on Sunday, March 14
You can also find a lot of sous vide information, as well as over 100 recipes, in our book
Beginning Sous Vide which you can get at Amazon.com or as a
pdf download.