Science & Cooking Lecture Series returns to Harvard on September 9

The weekly talks will feature world-class chefs and eminent food experts, including Wylie Dufresne, José Andrés, Ferran Adrià, Harold McGee, and many others.

The kickoff event on Monday, September 9, features Dave Arnold (host of the radio show Cooking Issues) and Harold McGee (author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen and columnist for The New York Times).

The public lecture series runs through the end of the fall semester. A full schedule, including the lecture topics, is available online: /cooking

For a sample of what is to come, an archive of past talks (from 2010, 2011, and 2012) can be viewed on iTunes U and YouTube.

The popular public lecture series grew out of a collaboration between the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Alícia Foundation in Spain. A related Harvard College course, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter," which will be offered to undergraduates for the fourth time in the fall of 2013, uses food and cooking to explicate fundamental principles in applied physics and engineering. Blending haute cuisine with laboratory research, the chefs and food experts teach alongside Harvard faculty members. In addition to lectures and readings, lab work is an integral part of the course, and students perform experiments on topics including heat transfer, viscosity and elasticity, and crystallization and entropy.

This year, for the first time, a version of the Science & Cooking course will also be offered through HarvardX, Harvard University's newest online learning initiative. Registration for SPU27x, the massively open online course (MOOC), is open now. (Watch the exciting course trailer here.)

The Science & Cooking Lecture Series does not replicate the content of either the Harvard College course or the HarvardX online course; rather, these public events are simply meant to inform and inspire with a fresh perspective on culinary science. For more information, visit http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking.