5 December 2023

Did your chemistry lessons involve baking chocolate lava cakes? Have you ever wanted to eat your biology homework? While Lessons in Chemistry brought a fictional cooking-as-chemistry story to TV viewers this fall, real-life scientist Pia Srensens students are some of the few who can actually answer yes.

Srensens directs Harvard Universitys Science and Cooking program, which teaches science lessons through the culinary arts. She is the author and editor of several books, including the best-seller Science and Cooking: Physics meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine.

In this episode of CultureLab, Pia explains how understanding chemistry and biology can help us to make the perfect cheese sauce, offers up a masterclass in fermentation and teaches us what insects have to do with why your avocado goes brown and why acids can stop the process. She also describes how to make Lutfisk, Swedens gelatinous answer to ceviche, an admittedly acquired taste of a dish.

To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.

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CultureLab: Teaching science through cooking with Pia Sorenson's real life 'Lessons in Chemistry' - New Scientist