Food Science and Culinary Techniques

The aim of the course is to use a basic understanding of food chemistry and physics to obtain a scientific approach to cooking when various culinary techniques are applied during processing of foods.

The course includes a series of lectures giving a scientific description of foods as a chemical and physical system. It relates to proteins, lipids, carbohydrates as well as topics within general chemistry (inorganic and organic), acids and bases, and interactions of these components. The course provides an understanding of the culinary techniques used in the production of foods and highlights the effects of food processing on the chemical reactions leading to changes of flavour/taste and colour as well as the physical properties of the food in relation to changes in structure and functionality.

Practical kitchen exercises in preparation of foods will be used as a learning tool to the understanding of culinary techniques. The use of ingredients in various recipes will be evaluated and thereby demonstrate important experimental aspects of food processing and preparation. This will include an introduction to experimental design where recipies and preparations are varied, and the methods of evaluation are identified. The following afterlab discussions will reflect on the outcome of the experiments and correlate it to the scientific principles of the exercise.

The lectures and theoretical exercises will demonstrate how food components contributes to the functional properties in dry systems, crystalline states, emulsions, foams and other real food systems. During the practical kitchen exercises students will evaluate the different preparations in relation to texture, flavour/taste and colour, and explain the outcome according to the theory.