The Science of Cooking

Harvard University via edX Professional Certificate

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Details

Go to class

Provider

edX Professional Certificate
Pricing

$747.00
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Duration & workload

46 weeks, 2-3 hours a week

Found in

Overview

Let’s play with food!

Through the professional certificate in the Science of Cooking, you will not only examine scientific concepts that are essential for everyday cooking, but you will also learn how biology, chemistry, and physics change food flavor, texture, and preservation — making our food more nutritious, delicious, and safe to eat.

In Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (chemistry), you will learn to think like a chef and a scientist by understanding how chemical reactions affect food properties.

Course two focuses on physics for you to enhance your scientific understanding of food characteristics, exploring elasticity, viscosity, and the benefits and challenges of enzymes in cooking.

Finally, in the third course, Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes, you will explore the role that microbes play in producing, preserving, and enhancing diverse foods.

By the end of this program, you will have gained a comprehensive understanding of how a foundation in food science can be vital to cooking, preparing you for culinary exploration in the kitchen and beyond!

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (chemistry)

Top chefs and Harvard researchers explore how everyday cooking and haute cuisine can illuminate basic principles in chemistry, physics, and engineering. Learn about food molecules and how chemical reactions can affect food texture and flavor.

Course 2: Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (physics)

Top chefs and Harvard researchers explore how traditional and modernist cooking techniques can illuminate basic principles in chemistry, physics, and engineering. Learn about elasticity, viscosity, mayonnaise, baking, and more!

Course 3: Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes

In Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes, explore the roles that microbes play in the production, preservation, and enhancement of diverse foods in a variety of culinary traditions, and learn about the history of food fermentations.

Courses

1 review
16 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
View details
In this course, which investigates physical transformations in food, we will be visited by world-famous chefs who use a number of different styles and techniques in their cooking. Each chef will demonstrate how he or she prepares delicious and interesting creations, and we will explore how fundamental scientific principles make them possible.

Topics will include:
- How cooking changes food texture
- Making emulsions and foams
- Phase changes in cooking
You will also have the opportunity to become an experimental scientist in your very own laboratory — your kitchen! By following along with the recipes of the week, taking precise measurements, and making skillful observations, you will learn to think like both a chef and a scientist. This practice will prepare you for the final project, when you will design and perform an experiment to analyze a recipe of your choice from a scientific perspective.

The lab is certainly one of the most unique components of this course — after all, in what other science course can you eat your experiments?
1 review
14 weeks, 2-3 hours a week, 2-3 hours a week
View details

What’s living in your food? Many of the foods that we consume daily owe their distinct characteristics and flavors to microbes, specifically through a biochemical process of fermentation (using bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms to produce diverse foods). Gourmands and everyday consumers can quickly name some of the most popular fermented foods we consume—beer, yogurt, pickles—but, what about that coffee you drank this morning, or the chocolate bar you are saving for later?

Through hands-on, at-home exercises, you will experiment with your food to grow your own microbial environments to make mead, sourdough, tempeh, and more—and discover the important role science plays in food fermentation. In Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes, you will explore the history of food and beverage fermentations and how it changes and enhances flavors, aromas, and tastes. You will engage with your peers in kitchen science, discussing how and why fermentation does or does not happen and what conditions you should consider to create the right growth opportunities.

From chemistry to microbiology to your dinner plate, this course will analyze the role of microbes in production, preservation, and enhancement of diverse foods across a variety of culinary traditions.

Ignore the old adage. Are you ready to play with your food?

Taught by

Roberto Kolter, Michael Brenner, David Weitz and Pia Sörensen

Reviews

5.0 rating, based on 1 Class Central review

Start your review of The Science of Cooking

Sonal P Patel @sonal

I took this class first on edX when it was first offered in 2013. That time the certificates were free. It was a class, that I took with my husband. An interesting part of this class for me was that I was good to attend a weekly lecture given…

I took this class first on edX when it was first offered in 2013. That time the certificates were free. It was a class, that I took with my husband. An interesting part of this class for me was that I was good to attend a weekly lecture given by expert chefs from around the world, that was organized by the course team, in addition to edX lectures on the platform by the course staff.

It was a fun experience taking this class, where we did assign labs in our kitchen! Now, this class offers a professional certificate, and fees are involved for the certificate. Still, it is a great class if anyone is interested in checking out.

If you are interested in checking out invited talk by world expert chefs, you can check out youtube. You will find a lot of material there. When I took this class ---we had a textbook --' on food and cooking --and the author did come for the first public lecture.

Now, the course staff has written a new textbook and the course has fees associated with it to access all material.

Love to see reviews of the current version of this class, if you ever decide to take this class, please do share your review here! The course team is still the same, so I am sure it is still a great class for applied learning.

Go to class

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (physics)

Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes

Taught by

Tags

Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (physics)

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (chemistry)

Unquiet Meals Make Ill Digestions - Science and Cooking Lecture Series

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