Adding chemical ingredients

Christine Carrillo

Enter Arthur Lander’s classroom in the biological sciences building

at UC Irvine on a Tuesday afternoon and you may find yourself

slightly bewildered.

Granted, you’re sure to find the traditional science-related

knickknacks one would expect to see on a laboratory table in the

front of the room, but instead of finding the professor standing

behind it dressed in a white lab coat, you’ll find Lander -- a

professor and chair of developmental and cell biology -- wearing a

white apron and chef’s hat.

The various cooking essentials, which could be anything from

cutlery to soy sauce, may throw you for another loop.

Even when he first offered the Biology and Chemistry of Food and

Cooking class three years ago, his students couldn’t make sense of

it.

Now, sitting through a three-hour lecture on foods of the world

and extreme fermentation doesn’t seem so bizarre.

“I think it’s the best class,” said Ann Pham, a fourth-year

chemistry student. “It’s neat to see how chemistry exists in

something we do every day.”

By focusing on molecular and cellular analysis of cooking, such as

protein structure, browning reactions, colloids, emulsions,

carbohydrate metabolism and development of flavor and texture through

biochemical transformations, the class introduces fundamental

principles of chemistry, biology and physics.

“For me, the main goal is that students should have an

understanding of what science really is and shed the notion that it’s

a distant, difficult, esoteric subject that really has no impact on

their lives,” said Lander, a self-proclaimed gourmet chef. “One can

think like a scientist in one’s dealings with the everyday world.”

In this case, their dealings in the kitchen.

“I love cooking,” Pham said. “I’ve learned there’s so much more to

food. I’ve learned an insight into foods.”

As Lander lectures on the science of cooking, an assistant helps

him with the chopping, water boils in a beaker heated by a Bunsen

burner, and students pass around food samples while they take notes.

Everything serves a purpose.

“Some of the reasons I like to cook is in a way because it’s like

a scientific exploration,” Lander said. “I think people appreciate

knowing what’s really going on rather than having [their food be] a

mystery.”

While that explains the classroom activities, what about the hat?

“That’s all part of getting people in the mood.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Christine Carrillo visits a campus in the

Newport-Mesa area and writes about her experience.