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Michael Brenner, David Weitz, Pia Sörensen, and Roberto Kolter

Let’s play with food!

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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!

What you'll learn

  • How scientific concepts are at the basis of traditional, modernistic, and haute cuisine.
  • Explore the science and apply principles of physics, engineering, and chemistry to cooking.
  • How to think like a chef and a scientist.
  • Understand the scientific principles and application of instruments used for chemical and microbial characterization.
  • How to appreciate fermented foods and their history, culture, and science, including food preservation and safety methods., culture, and science, including food preservation and safety methods.

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What's inside

Three courses

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

(40 hours)
In this course, we investigate physical transformations in food. World-famous chefs demonstrate how they prepare delicious creations, and we explore how scientific principles make them possible. Topics include cooking's effect on food texture, making emulsions and foams, and phase changes in cooking. You will also become an experimental scientist in your kitchen, learning to think like both a chef and a scientist.

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

(40 hours)
During each module, chefs reveal the secrets behind their culinary creations. Inspired by such mastery, the Harvard team explains the science behind the recipe. Topics include how molecules influence flavor, the role of heat in cooking, and diffusion, revealed by spherification.

Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes

(35 hours)
What’s living in your food? Many of the foods we consume daily owe their distinct characteristics and flavors to microbes, specifically through a biochemical process of fermentation. 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.

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