Once upon a time, Hobart and William Smith Colleges invented a sort of course called a “bidisciplinary course.” Yep, that means two apparently unrelated approaches to a similar topic or problem. Chemistry and Religious Studies on AIDS/HIV; mathematics and comparative literature on chaos; chemistry and writing and rhetoric on food! Yes, a course called “The Curious Cook” – taught by Walter Bowyer, a chemist, and Cheryl Forbes, a professor of Writing and Rhetoric is the focus of today’s interview.
Bibliochef: You two do a course called “The Curious Cook.” Can you tell us what the course is about – and how you two came to teach it together?
Cheryl and Walter: We designed the course to be a lab science for non-science majors on the chemistry of cooking—what happens, for instance, when you heat proteins or beat egg whites, another protein issue. We’re both interested in food and think it’s a good subject to introduce scientific inquiry.
Bibliochef: Ok, that starts to get to why I wanted to interview you both. Here’s a question for Walter. As a chemist, what do you bring to the course? You say it is a lab science? What made you interested in doing such a course?
Walter: I bring a love of food and a mind committed to the scientific method. We have a biweekly lab during which we perform experiments to test hypotheses in the kitchen. Cheryl sparked my interest and convinced me that the course would work.
Bibliochef: And Cheryl? As someone in writing and rhetoric, what do you bring to the course? What made you interested in doing such a course?
Cheryl: I’m the non-scientist—and the course is both a writing course and a lab course. I teach science writing, and have even taught how to write lab reports. So students write lab reports, but they also write essays, field notes, complete projects. In 1984 when Harold McGee’s seminal book came out—On Food and Cooking--I read it cover to cover. And ever since then I’ve been interested in what happens when you cook—what happens scientifically, that is.
Bibliochef: Tell us about the students in the course. What do you want them to get from the course? What is the most surprising thing you have learned from them?
Walter and Cheryl: We want students to appreciate and be able to use the scientific method, to answer questions by thinking like a scientist about a basic subject like cooking. And then to explain their findings for a wide variety of audiences. We also want students to extend their curiosity and their taste buds. That’s why we introduce unusual foods (or foods many students say they don’t like) but also why they write in different genres. Students come from a wide variety of majors. Some want to take the course because they’re interested in cooking or don’t know how and would like to learn or need to address one of their academic goals. Some students actually plan to go into food as a career.
Bibliochef: What do you have students do – and/or read – in the course? Why?
Cheryl and Walter: The main text is the second edition of Harold McGee’s book. We also use handouts. Students do a lab every other week (the class is big so we split it in half), take a weekly quiz that Walter writes, design and perform experiments and then analyze the results, write journals and lab reports as we said, write three essays, and complete a final project of their own choosing in consultation with us. We also try to plan our lab dinners to contain the lab. What we mean is, say, we make cheese; we then use the cheese in our meal.
Bibliochef: If you had an unlimited budget, how would the course change? That is, what about if you could have your fantasy version of your course? What might you do as a field trip? If you could invite anyone to join your class for a day (living or dead) who might that be?
Walter and Cheryl: We’d bring to campus chefs who have made names for themselves by incorporating science into their cuisine. Then we could design experiments to test why what the chef is doing works. A field trip? Take students to France and then to Italy. Or visit a foie gras farm, a cheese-maker, a vintner.
Bibliochef: Of course I have noticed that you already raised Harold McGee. I am a real fan of his work as well and his website The Curious Cook. You’ve emphasized the importance of his book already – and I knew when I asked you to do this interview that you list the book as one of the texts for the course. Can you reflect a bit more on what you like about the book – and what might you critique? (By the way, did you know he has been to Geneva?)
Cheryl and Walter: It’s more of a reference than a text book, which is both its strength and its weakness. He’s now writing an occasional column for The New York Times Dining section, which comes out on Wednesdays, the day we have our labs. It’s written at an appropriate level for our students—scientific without readers needing a strong scientific background to get it. We think he should have included more recipes and experimental procedures, and we would rearrange the book—but that’s because of the way we teach the course.
Bibliochef: Some see cooking as art while others see cooking as science – as evidenced perhaps in the subtitle of your course – the science and art of cooking and eating. What do you make of this distinction? What do you see as distinguishing the two, if anything? Do you see the molecular gastronomy trend as relevant?
Walter and Cheryl: The scientific method distinguishes the two—the strict control of your variables. The art part would be the more intuitive or creative approach to solving problems in the kitchen. Chefs who think about molecular gastronomy seem to be combining or melding the two, maybe without even being aware of it. One of the tensions in teaching the course is just this issue: how easy is it to control all the possible variables in cooking. But to get students to figure out what all the variables might be makes them think through the scientific method.
Bibliochef: You emphasize both cooking and eating in the course subtitle. Can you comment on that?
Cheryl and Walter: The point of cooking is eating. So it gives an immediate and practical result to the science. We are also trying to develop students’ ability to distinguish subtle tastes and textures. We have several blind tastings during the semester—one lab group against the other. That addresses the subjective versus objective issue in science.
Bibliochef: Geneva is in many ways a lovely place to work on food-related themes – do you use Geneva and the Finger Lakes region at all in your teaching? If so, how?
Walter and Cheryl: We don’t, but maybe we should, for instance visiting Lively Run.
Bibliochef: One of the themes of Cooking with Ideas has to do with women’s lives and/or feminism. Do you see this issue as at all relevant to your class?
Cheryl and Walter: Only to the extent that most of our students are women. We have several hypotheses as to why. Women might be scared of science, men might be scared of the kitchen, or women might be more organized and conscientious. So when we announce the course as first come, first served, the students who respond the fastest are the women.
Bibliochef: I know Cheryl cooks – do you both? And if so, are you willing to share a favorite recipe from each of you?
Walter: I used to be a sorry cook and now I’m a mediocre cook. I’d pick two recipes: a flourless chocolate torte and a soufflé. The recipes aren’t trivial and knowing the science makes success more likely. Plus, I love to eat both.
Cheryl: I, though, draw a blank any time anyone asks me for a favorite anything—book, recipe, color….
Bibliochef: Hey thanks – this is swell. I know students must find the course fascinating. And now for some of the questions I ask all of the people I “speak” with! What’s the absolutely best meal you have ever had? What made it the best meal?
Cheryl and Walter: Here’s what came up when we talked about this question. A birthday dinner Cheryl made for Allen (her husband)—foie gras, crown roast of pork, cheese course, flourless chocolate torte—sauterne, pinot noir. But, says Walter, how can I pick just one? I think of one, then another and another pops into my head. Or dinner at the Hotel Cro-Magnon, which is adjacent to the excavation site of eponymous Cro-Magnon skeletons. It’s Michelin one star but better than the meal I had the next day at a Michelen two-star restaurant. For Cheryl it would have to be one of the meals she and Allen had at Da Franz in Venice—maybe the very first one, which was her birthday dinner. Or her birthday dinner three years ago at a restaurant near Reggello, a hill town outside of Florence—with all her Italian and British friends there—where she and Allen went every August for fifteen years.
Bibliochef: What music, films, books related to food wine would you recommend? Why?
Walter: Hugh Johnson’s Atlas of Wine.
Cheryl: Hmmm, I can’t remember the name of the book I’d recommend. Maybe The Omnivore’s Dilemma? But politics and food? Travel books about food, for sure. And thinking about it later – Heat, by Bill Buford.
Bibliochef: I've read both of Cheryl's suggestions and reviewed them here and here. The Johnson book, though, I will have to search out. So, on to another question I ask everyone: What do you eat for comfort food?
Walter: Cold baked potatoes or ice cream.
Cheryl: I don’t eat food for comfort, not even macaroni and cheese—homemade, of course. Wait. After I thought about it awhile, I realized that I did have a comfort food growing up--my go-to snack: toast and cheese. And what is that in adult terms? Pizza. White pizza. Just toast and cheese magnified.
Bibliochef: Do you have a favorite restaurant in the Finger Lakes?
Walter: Madderlake.
Cheryl: None in the Finger Lakes per se. My favorite restaurant in the area is Max at Eastman Place in Rochester.
Bibliochef: As a side note, that's a new link for Madderlake Cafe -- they just posted a new site. And finally, what am I not asking that I should? What question have you never been asked that you have always wanted to be asked? What's your answer?
Cheryl and Walter: We can’t think of anything; anyway, we’re hungry so we’ve got to stop now.
Bibliochef: Thanks – for the time, the ideas, the science, the food for thought.
