Entries by Grant Alkin

6 Things About Eating Insects

Chef Alex Atala is famous for scouring the Amazon for interesting new ingredients. At his Science & Food lecture, Primitive X Modern, Chef Atala shared some of his innovative creations with everyone in the audience. One ingredient in particular really challenged our perception of what we consider to be edible: Amazonian ants! While we don’t […]

Fish Bladder Beer & Laboratory Meat

In his lecture Primitive X Modern, Chef Alex Atala questioned our cultural interpretations of what is “edible” or “delicious” by feeding us Amazonian ants. It turns out that insects aren’t the only controversial “food” in the culinary world—Smithsonian Magazine uncovers an unexpected ingredient in beer, while NPR explores the world of in vitro (i.e. test […]

Primitive X Modern

Primitive X Modern: Cultural Interpretations of Flavors Featuring Alex Atala April 17, 2013 Chef Alex Atala joined Science & Food to discuss his approach to food, how his cooking has been impacted by science, and how cooking is fundamentally tied to larger issues of natural conservancy and humanitarianism. Atala is renowned for pioneering regional cuisine […]

Harvard EdX Course: Science and Cooking

If you’ve ever wanted to take a class at Harvard, here’s your chance! Harvard is offering an online EdX version of its popular course “SPU27x: Science and Cooking – From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Physics.” Class starts October 8th and registration for the course is FREE. During each week of the course, Ferran Adrià […]

10 Things We Learned at MAD 2013

Last month, the third installment of MAD took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. MAD—Danish for “food”—is an annual symposium that brings together world renowned chefs, scientists, writers, and other notable luminaries to discuss and share stories about all things food-related. Hosted by Rene Redzepi and the MAD and noma team and co-curated by Momofuku’s David Chang […]

Stressed Carrots & A Tastier Tomato

It turns out that giving fruits and veggies a good night’s sleep isn’t the only way to make them better to eat. Researchers at Texas A&M have shown that carrots produce more antioxidants in response to the “stress” of being chopped or shredded, while scientists at the University of Florida are working hard to make […]

The Benefits of Well-Rested Produce

In 400 BCE, the Greek admiral Androsthenes wrote* of a tree that “opens together with the rising sun . . . and closes for the night. And the country-dwellers say that it goes to sleep.” Over the next 2000 years, researchers discovered that the daily cycles first observed by Androsthenes fall into 24-hour periods similar […]

5 Things About Eating Healthfully

Dr. Dena Herman stopped by the 2013 Science and Food course to make smoothies and teach us about the molecules of food and nutrition. During her lecture, Dr. Herman shared several fascinating facts about eating healthfully. Here are 5 interesting facts relating to nutrition:

Super Antioxidant Fruit Smoothie

If you take a look at the Nutrition Facts panel on your favorite snack, you can learn a lot about the different molecules in your food. These molecules—fats, proteins, carbs, vitamins, and minerals—are essential for our health: they provide energy for our bodies and can be recycled to form the molecular building blocks of our […]