This all began as a severe and urgent need to fill my time post finals. Having spent 3 months hunched over a desk revising for and then taking my exams, the end felt overwhelmingly and depressingly empty. I had a week in Oxford with no deadlines, no chemistry to occupy my time. What was I to do? To exacerbate the whole situation, it transpired that my friends who had also finished were going to be away for the weekend and I would be alone for around 48 hours. And it was raining.
Whilst enthusing over a day at The Good Food Show with my mother (more on this later), revelling in freedom and culinary delights, it soon became obvious that my borderline obsession with food would be my saviour. I have always loved food and will happily while away the hours in the kitchen with the sole aim of gaining love and adoration through feeding people. My passion for science has also lead me to skirt around the periphery of the intriguingly titled “Molecular Gastronomy” and one of my friends bought me a book entitled thus for my 21st birthday. So, with the help of this book, articles from Chemistry World involving food in one way or another and oodles of enthusiasm, the vague idea of a “science food blog thingy” was born. Whilst it is still vague, the general concept is a geeky and terribly indulgent foray into the science of food- why recipes work, new methods, techniques and doctrines, digging deeper into the science behind the articles you read in the news about coffee being heinously bad/ actually quite good for you etc. and any fun facts, ideas or insights I may stumble upon. I’m going to be learning as I go along and will try to be as accurate as I can. Some of my posts may be more gastronomic than scientific, as I am a true foodie and sometimes there doesn’t need to be a great scientific point to relate. A really good dish is allowed to be pure pleasure. But there are so many claims and ideas out there that are packaged and marketed as “science” without being properly explained; so many things that we do to food without thinking about why or how it will benefit the outcome and so many phrases, discoveries and issues hijacked by the media and turned into an impenetrable and often terrifying web of conjecture, speculation and half-truth. If I can help to demystify a few of these, or at least bring them to someone’s attention and show that the science of food is fun, relevant and interesting, then that would be great.
I guess the main aim of this blog is food for thought!
