Skip to main content
Scientific American
  • Cart 0
  • Forgot password?Loading
    Not yet registered?
  • |Newsletters
Advanced Search
  • COVID
  • Health
  • Mind & Brain
  • Environment
  • Technology
  • Space & Physics
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Opinion
  • Store
  • Subscribe
  • Current Issue
  • Cart0
  • Sign In
  • Newsletters
      • Share
      • Latest

      A New View of Food and Cooking [Slide Show]

      Take visual tour through the scientific phenomena at work in the kitchen—and explore the new world of high-tech, science-inspired cuisine

      • Share on Facebook
      • Share on Twitter
      • Share on Reddit
      • Share on LinkedIn
      • Share via Email
      • Print
      A New View of Food and Cooking [Slide Show]
      Slideshow (10) images
      View
      Credits: Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC

      A New View of Food and Cooking [Slide Show]

        • Share
      • SWEET STOCKING STUFFER With modern culinary tools like vacuum chambers and ingredients like gum arabic and trehalose, innovative chefs can create delicious dishes that fool the eye. These airy "coals" are entirely edible and actually quite tasty... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • EDIBLE FOAM RULES Edible foams, like the vacuum-inflated chocolate shown here, follow the same simple geometrical rules that all foams do. Among those rules: the intersection of bubbles always joins exactly three films and each pair of films always stabilizes at an angle of exactly 120 degrees... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • INSIDE YOUR GRILL Hamburgers cooked over a bed of coals are irradiated to perfection by infrared waves. Grills cook foods mainly through radiant heat, so the sweet spot of the grill—where food cooks evenly—is affected by the height of the grill above the coals... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • STEAMING CROSS-SECTION When steam condenses back into liquid water, it deposits an enormous amount of energy—the so-called latent heat of vaporization—on the surface supporting the water. We thus expected steaming to almost always be faster than boiling at cooking vegetables... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • Advertisement
      • HOPPING HOT Water droplets skitter across a screaming hot griddle because the part of the droplet that hits the hot metal bursts into steam and forms an ultrathin layer of vapor that suspends the droplet... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • COOL TRICK Next time you throw a party, try this fun trick with supercooled water. Place a clean bottle of pure water in the freezer for a couple hours until it is very cold but not yet frozen. Then gently pour it from a height into your guests' glasses and watch the water freeze on contact... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • WATER BALANCE Fresh foods are mostly water—so to understand cooking, you must appreciate the unusual chemistry and physics of water in all its forms. These graduated cylinders show the percentages of the mass of various foods that comprise water (clear liquid) and fats (yellow liquid)... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • pH EFFECTS The color of some foods shifts dramatically when their environmental pH changes. Even the difference in pH between hard tap water and purified, de-ionized water can have visible effects on the brightness of some greens... Ryan Matthew Smith, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • Advertisement
      • POTATO SECRETS Granules of potato starch form shapes in this photomicrograph. Nathan Myhrvold, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • CRYSTALLINE VITAMIN When viewed through a microscope fitted with polarizing lenses, a crystal of vitamin C takes on a colorful fractal appearance. Nathan Myhrvold, Modernist Cuisine, LLC
      • Previous
      • Next
      of
      • View all
      • Link copied!
      • SWEET STOCKING STUFFER
      • EDIBLE FOAM RULES
      • INSIDE YOUR GRILL
      • STEAMING CROSS-SECTION
      • HOPPING HOT
      • COOL TRICK
      • WATER BALANCE
      • pH EFFECTS
      • POTATO SECRETS
      • CRYSTALLINE VITAMIN
      Advertisement
      Advertisement

      Newsletter

      Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter.

      Sign Up

      Support Science Journalism

      Discover world-changing science. Explore our digital archive back to 1845, including articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize winners.

      Subscribe Now!Support Science Journalism

      Follow us

      • instagram
      • soundcloud
      • youtube
      • twitter
      • facebook
      • rss

      Scientific american arabic

      العربية
      • Return & Refund Policy
      • About
      • Press Room
      • FAQs
      • Contact Us
      • Site Map
      • Advertise
      • SA Custom Media
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • California Consumer Privacy Statement
      • Use of cookies/Do not sell my data
      • International Editions
      Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.

      © 2023 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc.

      All Rights Reserved.

      Scroll To Top

      Support science journalism.

      Scientific American paper issue and on tablet

      Thanks for reading Scientific American. Knowledge awaits.

      Already a subscriber? Sign in.

      Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

      Create Account

      See Subscription Options

      Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription.

      You may cancel at any time.

      Sign in.