“I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés.” “The Physicist in the Kitchen”, Nicolas Kurti,1969)
Chefs practice kitchen science all the time yet most of us would be at a loss to describe the fundamental elements at play. Most chefs are better known for their intuition than their scientific acumen. The one relies upon a methodical, analytical approach, the other on the chef’s perception including certain unconscious processes. The best chefs I have known are obsessed characters used to sweaty work, veterans of the scullery, concerned with what they can immediately sense, directly in touch with fire and the rough matter they transform. Chefs have never been mad scientists until fairly recently. Kitchen science is palpable but removed in everyday use. You can’t see chemistry or physics at work unless you know what to look for. But intuition is behind the eyes of any cook. There is no effort in only having to see, to taste, and to smell. Yet, at one time or another, interested chefs and avid cooks alike are confounded by the same unhappy result. Cooking often raises questions that beckon improvement or demystification that only science can convincingly disassemble. Cooks may eventually succeed in what kitchen science might have revealed before. I didn’t start improving until I started to ask myself why.
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