On Food and Cooking

there was the world of small-scale home and
restaurant cooking, traditional crafts that had
never attracted much scientific attention. Nor
did they really need any. Cooks had been
developing their own body of practical
knowledge for thousands of years, and had
plenty of reliable recipes to work with.
I had been fascinated by chemistry and
physics when I was growing up, experimented
with electroplating and Tesla coils and
telescopes, and went to Caltech planning to
study astronomy. It wasn’t until after I’d
changed directions and moved on to English
literature — and had begun to cook — that I
first heard of food science. At dinner one
evening in 1976 or 1977, a friend from New
Orleans wondered aloud why dried beans were
such a problematic food, why indulging in red
beans and rice had to cost a few hours of
sometimes embarrassing discomfort.
Interesting question! A few days later,
working in the library and needing a break