Entering Fifth Year, Science and Cooking Continues To Draw Crowds

In a nearly filled Science Center C, the first lecture of the Science and Cooking series began without the spoke-emitting, fire-alarm-triggering bang that kicked off the talks last fall. The annual series, in which world-renowned chefs describe the science behind their work to the public, entered its fifth season with chefs Dave Arnold of the radio show “Cooking Issues” and Harold McGee, author of the New York Times column “The Curious Cook.”

Applied mathematics professor Michael P. Brenner, who instructs Science of the Physical Universe 27: “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science,” the course affiliated with the lectures, began the talk by commenting that he initially did not expect the program to be so successful.

“No one here is more surprised that we’re still going today,” he said.

Brenner said he thinks the lectures are popular because televised cooking shows have increased the public’s awareness of food.

According to Dawn M. Miller, who coordinates the lecture series, there are no plans to accommodate an increasing audience turnout, even though a significant number of audience members were turned away last year. Declining to provide a specific figure, she said that the lectures are very expensive and that most of the money goes toward speakers’ airfare and lodging.

Brenner began the first lecture of the semester by presenting the syllabus of SPU 27, which contained topics such as “The Science of Sugar” and “Viscosity of Soups and Sauces.”

“You can take these recipes that everyone’s really interested in and you can ruin them,” Brenner said jokingly in reference to a lab in which students analyze chocolate lava cake.

Unlike previous lectures, Monday’s talk conspicuously lacked live demonstrations of new culinary techniques.

McGee said that he and Arnold decided the demos were unnecessary, and that they had instead decided to present a history of scientific cooking over the past 20 years.

“Why did we end up thinking that we had to put on a spectacular show all the time?” McGee asked.

The two chefs also described a three-day course that they taught together, in which they walked students through their thought process in inventing new foods.

“For me the point of teaching science of cooking is it’s everybody’s job to ask questions,” Brenner said. “I actually care much less about whether somebody learns what pH is, but whether somebody learns to ask the question, ‘Why is it that orange juice is less sour than lemon juice?’”

Brenner expressed optimism that culinary scientific advances could improve lives.

Quoting Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the late nineteenth century French gastronomist, Brenner said, “the discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star.”

–Staff writer Daniel R. Levine can be reached at daniel.levine@thecrimson.com.  Follow him on Twitter @danielrlevine.