MY friends were perplexed when I invited them over for a dinner party based entirely on recipes from “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,” the multivolume examination of avant-garde cooking and culinary technology.

“What, did you get a chemistry set for Christmas?” one friend asked.

“Foams and gelées? That’s great, chewing is overrated,” another quipped.

“Is the lab coat optional?” a third put in.

I got the idea after visiting the laboratory in Seattle where Nathan Myhrvold, who wrote the book with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, poured some of the millions he made as Microsoft’s chief technology officer. There, Mr. Myhrvold and his team minutely analyzed the chemistry of cooking and developed the lavishly illustrated “Modernist Cuisine.”