Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, From Homemade to Haute Cuisine

Written by Michael Brenner, Pia Sörensen and David Weitz

Narrated by Donna Postel

Based on the popular Harvard University and edX course, Science and Cooking explores the scientific basis of why recipes work.

The spectacular culinary creations of modern cuisine are the stuff of countless articles and social media feeds. But to a scientist they are also perfect pedagogical explorations into the basic scientific principles of cooking. In Science and Cooking, Harvard professors Michael Brenner, Pia Sörensen, and David Weitz bring the classroom to your kitchen to teach the physics and chemistry underlying every recipe.

Why do we knead bread? What determines the temperature at which we cook a steak, or the amount of time our chocolate chip cookies spend in the oven? Science and Cooking answers these questions and more through hands-on experiments and recipes from renowned chefs such as Christina Tosi, Joanne Chang, and Wylie Dufresne.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jan 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781696602112

Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner is the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies and Director of American University’s Center for Israel Studies. He received his PhD at Columbia University. He is the author of nine books including After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany and Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism. He is co-author of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times, for which he was awarded a National Jewish Book Award, and editor of nineteen books.