Stories by See Arr Oh

Hello . . .and good-bye. After today, I’ll no longer be part of the highly talented crew at Food Matters. It was fun while it lasted!

I’ve always enjoyed the citrusy, dark, mellow-but-tangy notes emanating from a freshly-cut grapefruit. Some of that flavor comes from(+)-nootkatone, a terpene fragrance that, as a recentNature News article points out, will be one of the first fine chemicalsproduced using the relatively new technique of synthetic biology.

  It took me a while to come around to garlic. Now, I find it delicious, whether powdered on pizza, fire-roasted, swirled into curries and casseroles, or chopped fresh onto french fries.

Feel that chill in the air? Must be Fall, and with the change in seasons comes the latest food craze: pumpkin spice. Now, I’m hardly the first person to notice this.

Alton Brown’s got our science communication conundrum solved. Brown, celebrity host of Food Network’s Good Eats, Iron Chef America, and Cutthroat Kitchen, recently dropped by the American Chemical Society’s Fall Meeting in Indianapolis.

What is food? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary entry says “Something that nourishes, sustains, or supplies.” How beautiful. That statement captures much of the emotion and feeling surrounding food, yet it’s only part of the full definition.

Do you ever wonder about the science behind your food? We do, too. Our group of writers serves up juicy topics like genetic engineering, gut bacteria and the chemical reactions that occur during cooking.