"Modernist cooking"? Seriously, Serious Eats?

We've been over this before, several times, but there is new evidence that if you are a billionaire like Nathan Myhrvold, you can buy whole words, and not just vowels. I saw via Ideas In Food that they were talking about "modernist cooking" with Serious Eats.  Eternal optimist that the Cod is, we clicked through, looking forward to a fritatta receipt from Ezra Pound, or perhaps even Vorticist gelato. Unfortunately, instead it's folks repeating the lazy mistake that Nathan Myhrvold made when he rebranded molecular gastronomy as "modernist cuisine" -- perhaps b/c of negative stereotypes associated w/ molecular gastronomy. It's fine, as long as you are not concerned with words and what they mean, which is ok, if you are in a non-verbal line of work. On the other hand, if you have just published a cookbook, or if you run a blog you want people to take seriously, all the digital scales in the world will not redeem sloppy and imprecise use of language. IIF's Tweets are inspiring, and I like what the SE crew does, but people who care about food and who care about language should be able to come up with a term that is not misleading and imprecise. 

Comments

[Kenji]

Hello, gurgling cod.

I'd like to ask you in what way modernist cooking is more imprecise than molecular gastronomy. I used the term very specifically because molecular gastronomy as a term for contemporary cooking techniques that use lab grade equipment and very precise controls is and always has been a terrifically misleading term that sounds vaguely 'sciencey,' but in the end is not a remotely appropriate descriptor for the techniques it describes (anyone who thinks otherwise is probably not a terribly good cook, linguist, or scientist). Could you suggest a better term than modernist cooking? If so, I'd be happy to carry the mantle. Thanks!