Cooking With Chemicals

A friend of mine (non-chemist) once told me that chemists should make great cooks. To reinforce this idea, he has given me several books on cooking over the years which, to be honest, I have not taken advantage of fully. Cooking can be enjoyable, but only when you have the time to do it right, and I haven’t had that in a looooong time. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that good synthetic chemists should make good cooks. Cooking is not so much about carefully measuring out ingredients or following recipes to the letter, it’s about knowing how to improvise and knowing what you can and cannot get away with. It’s the same with chemical preps. Be honest, how many of you start taking liberties with a prep once you became familiar with it? You no longer needed to time your steps, you just knew when to stop heating or when to add the next reagent. Subtle color changes have often been enough to tell me exactly what to do next. (Color changes are more of an inorganic thing. When your reactants, products, and intermediates are all clear or white, it’s a lot harder to do this.)

Hervé This is a well-known chemist/chef in France. He’s made a career out of understanding the chemistry of cooking. Want to know why pepper should be added to a stock only eight minutes before it is taken off the heat? Ask this guy. I’ve read stories explaining the chemistry of foods before, but this guy is amazing. Read about him yourself.