Chemistry of Food and Cooking "Resting Meat"
How does cooking transform food and how can these transformations be understood as chemical processes?
Cooking transforms food by altering the cells and molecules inside whatever is being cooked, or on the outside. For me, I cooked meat and meat is made up of a bunch of bundles and coils made up of different cells connected by bonds. On the outside, the meat just turns a different color and the texture changes, but on a molecular level, the coils and bundles stretch when heated and the coils shrink in diameter and size. This creates the product of meat and represents how meat changes when cooked. You can notice differences on the visual level but on the molecular level it is very hard to understand what's going on.
In what ways are cooking and doing science similar and in what ways are they different? How are a cook and a
food scientist similar or different?
Cooking and doing the science behind the cooking can be widely different but also very similar. When you are cooking you don't really observe what's going on, on the molecular level, even though many different changes and processes are taking place.
Cooking transforms food by altering the cells and molecules inside whatever is being cooked, or on the outside. For me, I cooked meat and meat is made up of a bunch of bundles and coils made up of different cells connected by bonds. On the outside, the meat just turns a different color and the texture changes, but on a molecular level, the coils and bundles stretch when heated and the coils shrink in diameter and size. This creates the product of meat and represents how meat changes when cooked. You can notice differences on the visual level but on the molecular level it is very hard to understand what's going on.
In what ways are cooking and doing science similar and in what ways are they different? How are a cook and a
food scientist similar or different?
Cooking and doing the science behind the cooking can be widely different but also very similar. When you are cooking you don't really observe what's going on, on the molecular level, even though many different changes and processes are taking place.