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Why Being an Engineer Makes you a Better Cook

I find pleasure in understanding the world around me and how it works.  And thus, I’m an engineer.  But I also cook and cook often.  Eating delicious and eclectic food isn’t enough.  I crave the desire for gastronomical creation, the collision of nature’s gifts with heat and pressure which transforms the merest of ingredients into a delight for the senses.  I grow it.  I chop it.  I sauté it.  I devour it.  But in every one of these steps towards an incredible meal, I can’t turn my engineering brain off.  The same mind that craves understanding of why rainbows exist also feels the need to understand why steak turns grey when you cook it.

Consider the simple act of applying heat to cook an egg, an act which contains, for those who are interested, a full lesson in thermodynamics, biochemistry and surface tension.  We start with a pan.  A metal pan.  A well seasoned pan.  A pan built of a thick enough layer of high thermal conductivity aluminum that as the heat from the concentrated gas burners hits the bottom, a thermal gradient is setup which results in a uniform heating of my cracked egg.  I apply a splash of olive oil, which at first rests high on the pan, initially content to sit in discrete splotches, unaware that in seconds the transmitted heat will lower the surface tension (and viscosity) allowing the oil to create a thin film over the entire pan.  The whites and yolk of my egg applied next, I watch in wonder at the quick transformation of a transparent white into an opaque cooked mass that better reflects its name.  Does the egg realize that its proteins are changing shape due to the heat, an effect which alters how light passes through the protein matrix and thus explains the color change?  Does it realize that high heat pulls the proteins even tighter, resulting in a tough rubbery meal and thus the need for gentle heat when cooking eggs?  No matter.  I understand, and I enjoy the science of the process as much as I enjoy the subtle jab of the fork edge which spills golden yolk down the side of my toasted bread.

Bread baking also pulls at the inquisitive mind.  Mix wheat flour, water and salt with a small colony of bacteria and yeast, add time and heat in the right proportions and if all goes as planned you end up with a crispy crust and a crumb filled with a mix of large and lovely holes.  Bakers obsess over the temperatures of their ovens, the thermal mass of their baking stones, the humidity around the bread which allows the crumb to expand encumbered, without the crippling oppression of a prematurely hardened crust.  I’ve experimented with allowing bread to rise at various temperatures, curious as to how the bacteria and yeast reproduce disproportionally, in one case producing a lofty loaf (due to lots of yeast activity) and in another producing a true “sour”-dough (high bacterial acid production).

And finally I eat.  Without the culminating act, the cooking would seem to be a mere tease.  Who doesn’t relish the act of sipping a spoonful of hot and rich chowder or the slight tug needed to pull the meat from a slow cooked pork rib.   But as my stomach gains satisfaction, my engineering mind hasn’t quieted.  I think about the fact that my fridge temperature pâté tastes under salted, realizing that I had forgotten to compensate in the cooking process for the fact that the perception of salt decreases with temperature.  Next time, I’ll review my physics textbook alongside my cookbook, hoping to better harness the physical world in search of the next great meal.

Brian Murphy
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