🍳 Food Chemistry & Culinary Science

What you’ll learn

1. The Kitchen Is a Chemistry LabFrame cooking as applied chemistry built from four molecules and an energy input.A recipe is effectively a lab protocol; understanding the reactions lets a cook reason rather than obey. Nearly all of cooking is the interaction of water, protein, carbohydrate, and fat, driven by heat.
2. Heat and How It MovesExplain conduction, convection, and radiation and water's 100°C temperature ceiling.Heat reaches food by conduction (contact), convection (moving fluid), and radiation (waves). At sea level water caps at 100°C and turns to steam rather than getting hotter, so watery cooking can't brown; fat and air go far higher. Browning requires driving off surface moisture first.
3. The Maillard ReactionExplain the Maillard reaction, its conditions, and how it differs from caramelization.The Maillard reaction (described by Louis-Camille Maillard, 1912) links amino acids and reducing sugars into hundreds of savory flavor compounds — the taste of 'cooked.' It needs a hot, dry surface (~140–165°C), so drying food and not crowding the pan promote browning. It differs from caramelization, which needs only sugar.
4. CaramelizationExplain caramelization as sugar's thermal decomposition and distinguish browning from burning.Caramelization is the pyrolysis of sugar alone (~160–170°C for sucrose) into color and complex flavor, with no amino acids involved. In real cooking it often overlaps Maillard browning. Both differ from burning, which is combustion that destroys flavor — so cooks aim for 'golden brown' and stop before combustion.
5. Proteins: Denature and CoagulateExplain protein denaturation and coagulation, egg-setting temperatures, and collagen-to-gelatin conversion.Heat denatures (unfolds) proteins, which then coagulate into a water-trapping net — irreversibly. Egg white sets around 62–65°C and yolk around 65–70°C, enabling runny-yolk eggs; overheating contracts the net and expels water. Collagen instead hydrolyzes to gelatin with long, gentle moist heat, making tough cuts tender.
6. Emulsions: Mixing the UnmixableExplain emulsions, emulsifiers, and why sauces like mayonnaise break.An emulsion suspends microscopic droplets of one liquid in another, stabilized by an emulsifier — a molecule attracted to both water and fat (lecithin in egg yolk). Adding oil too fast overwhelms the emulsifier and the sauce breaks; adding it slowly while whisking keeps droplets small and coated. Heat can also break yolk-based emulsions by coagulating the protein.
7. Starches and ThickeningExplain starch gelatinization, gels, and retrogradation.Starch thickens by gelatinization: granules absorb water and swell when heated (generally above ~60°C), tangling the liquid. Pushed further, liquids set into gels — a network trapping liquid. On cooling and standing, starch molecules re-associate and expel water (retrogradation), thickening sauces overnight and staling bread.
8. Acids and Bases in the KitchenExplain kitchen pH and acid's roles, including denaturing proteins without heat.Acidity (low pH: lemon, vinegar) and alkalinity (high pH: baking soda) tune flavor, color, and texture, and slow or speed browning. Acid is a second trigger for protein denaturation, which is how citrus 'cooks' ceviche cold and how acid curdles milk. Textbook pH values place lemon ~2, tomato ~4, coffee ~5, milk ~6.8, egg white ~7.8, baking soda ~8.3.
9. Leavening: Making Food RiseExplain leavening by trapped gas and the chemistry of baking soda vs baking powder.Light baked goods are gas bubbles (air, steam, or CO₂) trapped and set by heat. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) needs a recipe acid to release CO₂; baking powder contains its own acid. Heated baking soda decomposes to sodium carbonate, water, and CO₂ — a balanced reaction. The chapter closes by summarizing cooking as a short list of reactions.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Harold McGee, 'On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen' (Scribner, rev. 2004)
• J. Kenji López-Alt, 'The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science' (2015)
• Nathan Myhrvold et al., 'Modernist Cuisine' (2011)
• American Egg Board / IFST — egg protein coagulation data
• Standard references on Maillard, caramelization, and gelatinization temperatures

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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