This public lecture series discusses concepts from the physical sciences that underpin both everyday cooking and haute cuisine. Each lecture features a world-class chef who visited and presented their remarkable culinary designs: Ferran Adria presented spherification; Jose Andres discussed both the basic components of food and gelation; Joan Roca demonstrated sous vide; Enric Rovira showed his chocolate delicacies; Wylie Dufresne presented inventions with transglutaminase.

The lectures then use these culinary creations as inspiration to delve into understanding how and why cooking techniques and recipes work, focusing on the physical transformations of foods and material properties.

Science and Cooking Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science

- Science
- 3.7 • 150 Ratings

3.7 out of 5

150 Ratings

Ridicusly awesome

As a chef, working 14 hours every day doing the same fu.....ng food every day some time you get lost on the way. That is why always I try to open my mind to go forward and keep being creative and this lecture was really helpful I'd like see more of this sort of lectures

Excellent, Fascinating Lecture Series

Over the past few months I have watched the entire 2012 Science and Cooking series. First, I have to give huge kudos to Harvard University for making this available to the public. As a novice home cook tinkerer I learned many important scientific concepts that have greatly helped my cooking. The class helped demystify the process of what happens molecularly while cooking.

Some of the finest molecular gastronomy chefs in the world hail from Catalonia, Spain so watching this series requires a little bit of patience because several of the episodes are painstakingly translated, sentence by sentence from Catalonian to English. Doesn’t matter— worth spending the time listening to these generous chefs share their expertise and creative processes. Probably my favorite lectures were the America’s Test Kitchen class with Jack Bishop and the Bakistry lecture but they all have something to teach. Enjoy!

Embrace food and science

Every lecture you can learn something new.Tthe lecture with Wylie Dufreesne and Ted Russin shows how chefs and scientist are working together. The majority of the lectures that I have watched have been enlightening.