this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Showerthoughts

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Cooking is just applied chemistry (lemm.ee)
submitted 10 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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You mix together chemicals and compounds, delicately adding them and heating them at specific temperatures to get a desirable output. You often have to care for other factors like air flow (how much to leave the pot closed or open) and material weight (like not adding too much in a cake or it'll all sink to the bottom).

A kitchen is just a laboratory, and chefs are just scientists that focus on taste. I get it now.

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[–] criitz@reddthat.com 30 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Watch some Good Eats with Alton Brown, he talks a lot about the chemistry involved in cooking

[–] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

J Kenji Lopez too.

[–] jaaake@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Also a core concept in the novel/AppleTV series Lessons In Chemistry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lessons_in_Chemistry

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

That's what I was going to say :)

Legit, I was a passable cook before good eats. After watching it for a while, not only did it give me a bit of passion for cooking, but I got good at it. Then serious eats came along and helped me refine some more. Once you start thinking of cooking and baking as controlled chemical reactions, it makes things easier to grasp.

[–] epyon22@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

Gives you not only the how but the why, which just opens up a bunch of other learning types for cooking.