“The Science of Cooking”: The delicious world of “Science x Crafts x Cooking”! -Hons

Recently, on a business trip to Tokyo, I attended the HONZ morning meeting for the first time. This is a meeting where HONZ members (at least this time) bring in a book they are currently reading or thinking about reading in the future, and talk about their expectations and excitement (?lol) about that book.

At that time, HONZ reviewer Junya Shuto brought me a book called “Cooking Kagaku”.

Well, I’ve read many books on topics like “the science of cooking.” But what does “cook” mean? ? ? I thought it was strange. If you were to publish a new book that combined science and cooking these days, it would be a practical introduction to molecular gastronomy. I believed. (Actually, this guess wasn’t that far-fetched; two of the three authors of Cooking Science were experts in molecular cooking!)

However, Mr. Shoto said something like, “What’s this book about? I don’t understand! Three rice omelets stacked on top of each other to form a Golgi body, huh?” (lol). I borrowed the book, fascinated by it, and turned its pages, discovering a world I never expected.

Surprisingly, a new idea has been developed to express scientific things through cooking! ! I was completely blown away by the amazing dishes that appeared one after the other. Then Mr. Shoto saw what I was doing and gave me this book as a gift!

The more I turned the pages, the more I realized this was a fun and cool project. I never imagined that such a quagmire would spread in the region where “science”, “craft” and “cooking” meet!

The authors of this book declare, “Cooking is a powerful tool for communicating science!” At first, my only thought was: “Okay, however, I know a certain amount about things, and while they might be fun to make or cook, they probably won’t be useful to learn.” But it was different. It was sweet. You lick it.

By actually doing this, the world of science began to expand, to my own amazement. It reaffirmed the importance of touching and moving things.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even the slightest interest in the world where “science,” “craftsmanship,” and “cooking” come together!

Below, I’ll present some of the things I’ve actually tried making.

“Biofilm” × “Keema curry with lots of vegetables”

The real thing is more colorful, cute and fun than it looks in the picture! All your vegetable scraps and leftover shimeji mushrooms can be made into keema curry, so nothing goes to waste.

The inner part of the cell is keema curry, and the outer part of the cell is rice. The phospholipids that make up biological membranes come from shimeji mushrooms, channels from carrots, and receptors from green peppers. Cherry tomatoes, rachios, and okra contain substances that move inside and outside cells. amazing. And delicious!

“Neuron” × “Squid meat skewer”

Squid dishes that have a great visual impact (lol)

Cell bodies, dendrites, and myelin sheaths (Schwann cells) are represented by “squid meatballs,” axons are represented by “squid coils,” and the gaps between coils are represented by Lambert’s rings. What is on the cell body is umeboshi paste.

To make the meatballs even more delicious, please try the following recipe. Measure portions based on the weight of your remaining squid pieces!

Chopped squid (100 grams)
Minced chicken (50 grams)
Chopped green onions (10 cm)
Grated ginger (first grade)
Chopped perilla leaves (2 pieces)
Chicken soup base (first grade)
Sugar and white pepper (a little to taste)
Potato starch (adjust hardness)

Squid are known to have giant nerve cells, up to 1 mm in diameter, and have contributed to neuron research. However, I was unable to find any squid neurons during cooking. I’d like to be able to identify the neurons next time I cook squid by referring to the video below (starting at 3:30).

“Chromatin” x “Eppon Meatball Spaghetti”

The strands of DNA (pasta) are very long and difficult to handle as is. Therefore, they are easily manipulated by wrapping them around histones (meatballs) to form a structure called chromatin.

If you just look at the pictures, you might think that the idea comes first and the taste comes second. It doesn’t matter. This was unexpectedly delicious.

As always with pasta, the sauce is the deciding factor for this pasta as well. The recipe in the book says to use your favorite sauce, so I made a simple tomato sauce. However, I have been using canned Datterino tomatoes ever since Erika Higashi, Vice President of HONZ, taught me about tomatoes for this purpose. This is delicious as always! Even though it’s a simple tomato sauce, it’s delicious because it’s simple. The key to tomato sauce is, of course, the tomatoes.

Also the texture of the fresh handmade pasta was better than I expected. (I used the knead function in my home bakery and added a little extra flour to the durum semolina.) I think the key to making delicious handmade pasta is to maintain a consistent thickness, regardless of width. I have a pastry ruler (in this case, I used a 2mm thick ruler), so if you put the ruler on both sides and flatten it out with a long rolling pin, you can make it the same thickness.

When I cut the rolled pasta into small pieces with kitchen shears, I was able to realize the length of the DNA (lol). No matter how much you cut it, it will never end…

And the giant oven-ready meatballs were unexpectedly delicious! The combination of these three elements resulted in a hearty and satisfying dish.

“mitochondria” x “cheese in tonkatsu”

It’s simply soft, easy-to-eat tonkatsu cheese! It is suitable for mitochondria and eaten for energy. The mitochondrial matrix and cristae are expressed in cheese and seaweed.

“Water molecules” × “Two types of fried eggs”

H2O is expressed using chicken eggs and quail eggs. The angle between the two axes should be 104.5 degrees, but that’s very difficult… In this picture, I think it’s too wide.

However, the egg white state can be considered as the basic state of the electron cloud.

“Chloroplasts” x “Beta vegetables”

Express your chloroplasts with a piece of bread filled with vegetables!

I didn’t have spinach powder to put in the pita bread, so I used boiled spinach leaves. I also used a home bakery for “kneading” and “fermenting.”

The balance of thylakoid (cucumber slices), grana (cucumber overlapping structure), outer membrane (pitta), inner membrane (lettuce), and chickpea filling the stroma (vacuum) was better than I expected, and I really liked it. i did it!

It makes sense that chloroplasts (pitta veg) are more refreshing than mitochondria (pork cutlet) (lol)

There are so many other recipes posted that are fun to make and delicious to eat, so I plan to keep trying them little by little!