What is connection between astronomy and cooking? An
interesting notion. And for me, an irresistible draw to the Science and Cooking
lectures at Harvard. A series open to the public and based on the class offered
to the students of the College, it brings together world-class chefs and
scientists to do live demonstrations of Modern Cuisine and talk about what
really happens on a molecular level when you melt chocolate, boil pasta, or
make gravy. Part magic show, part deep intellectual endeavor, this series has
captivated the crowds that have packed into the Science Center for the past few years.
I faithfully attended most of them the first year, but due
to tumultuous upheavals and schedules, it was an unfortunate casualty of lost
hobbies while I brought my life back to an even keel. (And there is consolation
in that the videos are archived online.) It’s a delight to be able to return to
them, and what better way than to attend a lecture that blends two of my
favorite subjects: cuisine and astronomy.
Bill Yosses, former White House pastry chef, and Dr. Steve
Howell, project scientist for the Kepler and K2 missions at NASA, are the
instructors I wish I had in high school. Instead, I was alienated from
chemistry and physics because the teacher spent every class being the cool
kids’ smart-alecky buddy, making dumb jokes and telling anecdotes about kids’
parents who were in his class a generation before. Not a townie, and a
perpetual outsider, I attempted to decipher the massive text book on my own,
only to fail each brutal test that came with no help whatsoever. I hated to
hate science, but it was the byproduct of a deeply flawed educational
experience. At least I was able to turn that around as an adult.
An old sense of tension dogged me while Bill Yosse and Steve
Howell tossed out terms like “nucleation” and “Raleigh scattering.” But with
the colorful array of objects on the table at the front of the lecture hall, I
knew this would be a different experience. Nucleation was demonstrated by a
beaker partially filled with hydrogen peroxide, dyed with red food coloring to
clearly show the dramatic effect of the addition of potassium iodine (used to
seed clouds for rain). An oxygen molecule was ripped from the hydrogen
peroxide—H2O2 to H2O—making it water. The
reaction was a colorful spout of foam shooting at least six feet into the air
before landing in a messy heap on the table. The beaker was hot to the touch.
As they stepped through each example: spherification,
surface tension, atmospheric pressure, and so on, I was astonished by the links
between cooking and astronomy. Gels and polymers, essential to many desserts
and a key element of Modern Cuisine, where flavors are layered in unusual
ways—are also used in similar ways in space, from insulating instruments on the
Mars rover to using a gel to catch particles from passing comets. Suddenly, I
got it. So much of the science that bewildered me years ago made perfect sense.
It was really a kind of nirvana—seeing these two topics
combined—and a few details emerged that will most certainly find their way into
my fiction. How flames look in zero gravity or the fact that a lower density
atmosphere means a lower boiling point (demonstrated by water being boiled as
an ice cube was placed on the beaker) are great for the novel that involves
space travel. Even the explanation of the spectrometer and Kepler mission—how
we find planets and figure out what gasses their atmospheres are made of—is
useful knowledge for my characters to have.
Then Bill Yosse mentioned one of the world’s first (at least
that we know by name) celebrity chef, Antonin Carême, who cooked for kings and
czars around the time of the French Revolution. While outside of my usual theme
of writing about real women in history, tales of his elaborate pièces montées, large sculptures used as
centerpieces at banquets, made of marzipan and other ingredients, sparked
something. I have no idea how this will transform into my writing, but visions
of his creations invited a new Muse into the realm of imagination.
As for the science and cooking lectures, I look forward to
more. All the details about the series can be found here.
