Professor Vanessa McCaffrey
HSP Great Issues in Science
CRN 4600 & Lab CRN 4601
Wednesday 2:10-3:00pm, Friday 2:10-3:30pm
Lab on Wednesday 3:10-5:00pm
The Science of Food and Cooking
Food is one of the basic needs of all people. Not only must we eat in
order to provide fuel for our bodies, but it is an integral part of our
society. Everyone remembers Thanksgiving celebrations, with family and
friends gathered in one place and wonderful smells emanating from the
kitchen. You also remember the really bad meal that your roommate cooked
the first night in the dorm. Both meals contained many of the same
ingredients and were probably cooked in the same way. Why was one so
good and the other so bad?
The food that we eat is composed of invisibly small molecules. When
we process food, either by storage or by cooking, we begin to effect how
these molecules interact with each other. This class will begin to
describe food and the transformations that take place in food in
chemical and scientific terms. We will explore the molecular nature of
the food that we eat. By readings and discussion, we will begin to
understand how taste, smell and the nutritiousness of food are
influenced by basic chemical properties.
We will also spend some time exploring the impact that food has on
other areas of our life. Gender has always played a large role in the
preparation and consumption of food. Food is also one of the defining
traits of a culture. We will use readings, class discussion and movies
to explore these alternative roles of food.
There will be a lab component of the class. In the lab, we explore
some of the basic principles that are discussed in the class. Some
representative labs will include:
1) determining the caloric contents of food
2) investigating the reasons why some breads rise and some don’t
3) determining the iron content in cereals
4) extracting DNA and protein from a variety of food
Potential reading list:
Excerpts from: Harold McGhee, The Curious Cook
Excerpts from: What Einstein Told His Cook
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
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