Delicious Biophysics: Cooking as a Prolific Support to Teach Biophysical Concepts

Abstract

Molecular biology, a term coined in 1938 by Warren Weaver, director of Natural Sciences for the Rockefeller Foundation, began in the 1930s when physicists and chemists took an interest in biology with the hope of understanding life at its most fundamental level. 50 years after, Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French chemist Herve This laid the foundations for a new scientific discipline, naturally coined Molecular gastronomy, dedicated to the study of physical and chemical processes occurring during meal preparation, hence with the hope of understanding cooking at its most fundamental level. Amazingly, this discipline finds its premise in the statement of the renown French chef Georges Auguste Escoffier, who wrote more than a century ago in the preface of its famous Guide Culinaire (which still serve today as a reference for many chefs worldwide): “Cooking, without ceasing to be an art, will become scientific and subject its formulas, empirical too often, to a method and a precision that will leave nothing to chance”.We will show how an interdisciplinary approach mixing biopolymer physics, thermodynamics, physiology and macromolecules biochemistry (among other subjects) can indeed help better understand culinary phenomena and ultimately influence the way we cook and eat. Doing this, we will also demonstrate that food transformation and consumption incidentally provide interesting supports for innovative pedagogical approaches in biophysics at any level, suggesting promising (and appetizing!) opportunities to raise interest in biophysics among students as well as more general public audiences.