Teaching chemistry students how to cook? That ’s an experiment I can get behind | Rhik Samadder

Through cooking I have learned a lot about science, despite being a chemistry brain-dud. Maybe it can work the other way aroundImperial College London is including cookery lessons in its chemistry degree courses, starting this September. The Introduction to Culinary Practice module, created in collaboration with the chef Jozef Youssef from the Basque Culinary Centre, will allow students to“experience the ambiguities and challenges of translating written instructions into action” (AKA “following a recipe”). There are several reasons why I think this is a great idea, only some of which hold academic weight.I met Youssef several years ago, and he is one of the most absurdly good-looking men I have ever set eyes upon. He looks like a young Antonio Banderas had sex with a Magimix in Zorro ’s kitchen.His science-theory-inflected food is extraordinary, too. At the tasting menu I attended, we ate origami pasta, oyster ice-cream and fossilised squash. One course was based on a Mexican folk tale and there was a mushroom dish based around the scent of petrichor. I was like a kid in a candy store. Not a real candy store, obviously, a virtual one, with piped custard aromas and implanted happy memories.Molecular gastronomy gets a bad rap from traditional food critics, seen as “all fur coat, no knickers”, but it’s right up my street. Spherification, emulsions, foams, there’s a Roald Dahl-esque theatre to this type of food that I love.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Chemistry Education Science Food Source Type: news