I was talking with Ferran Adria at El Buli one night during service. He handed me a paper and it looked like a long list, a scientific recipe of food ideas. What was astonishing (at the time) was his insistence that food techniques he used, were used in the culinary field long before. I thought he was just being humble, and I shrugged it off. Thinking about it, I explored the depths of nitrogen in culinary field and I discovered its origins.

The truth be told, Agnes Bertha Marshall was one of the first culinary entrepreneurs from the mid 19^th century to use liquid nitrogen. Dubbed the “Queen of Ices” she worked with ice cream and other frozen desserts. Before practical domestic refrigeration, her success increased the demand in London for ice. In the late 19th Century she published a cookery book included a recipe for “cornets with cream”, and suggested using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.