Students learning to cook in a domestic science class at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, date unknown. Credit: Photograph by George C. Blakslee, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Yerkes Observatory Collection. Yerkes Observatory D1
They say cooking is both an art and a science. Well, here at the Niels Bohr Library & Archives (NBLA), we love the science of it! Over the past few years we have acquired some fun cookbooks written by scientists who use their chemistry and physics expertise to hone the culinary arts down to a science. Why cookbooks? NBLA mission is to support the efforts of the scholarly community to document, investigate, and understand the nature and origin of developments in the physical sciences and their impact on society. Therefore, one of our goals at NBLA is to collect books that show how science intersects with other disciplines such as art, music, and yes, cooking! We even have a whole call number range dedicated to this in our custom classification system: C3:9. We don't just collect any cookbooks though; we specifically look for ones that focus on the science of food and/or are written by scientists. From recipes made on the International Space Station to DIY children’s food experiments to adventures in molecular gastronomy, we hope the cookbooks below will inspire you to appreciate the science of cooking and try some of these recipes on your own. Since this blog post is also a Photos of the Month, it wouldn’t be complete without some photos! While we would love to do an NBLA bake off (maybe this will be a future blog post someday…), to whet your appetite, we have included some pictures of physicists cooking, baking, and enjoying food from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives!
Bon appétit!
The Astronaut's Cookbook
The Astronaut's Cookbook : Tales, Recipes, and More by Charles T. Bourland and Gregory L. Vogt. New York : Springer, 2010. NBLA Call Number: C3:9 BOU
Ever wondered what astronauts eat for dinner in space? While astronaut food does not always sound like it would be delicious (I still vividly remember being disappointed by the taste of freeze-dried ice cream as a child), astronauts on the International Space Station actually get pretty creative with their food! As long as it's from ingredients you can transport, which are often in dehydrated form, you’d be surprised at the range of dishes that can be made in zero gravity! In The Astronaut’s Cookbook: Tales, Recipes, and More, NASA food and education specialists, Charles Bourland and Gregory Vogt, give first hand accounts of what goes into astronaut cooking and provide authentic recipes cooked in space that you can recreate at home!
Example Recipes:
We don’t have any photos of astronauts eating food in space (although lots can be found at the NASA photo archives). Instead, here is a photo of John Glenn, Jr. the first person to eat food in space in 1962! (In case you were wondering, it was applesauce and the actual container is preserved at the Smithsonian.)
John Glenn in a space suit, circa 1962. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection. Glenn John B1.
A Good Bake
A Good Bake : the Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home by Melissa Weller with Carolynn Carreño; photographs by Johnny Miller. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. NBLA Call Number: C3:9 WEL
We are particularly excited by this new addition to the NBLA collection by master baker and former chemical engineer Melissa Weller. In A Good Bake : The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home, Melissa Weller provides deliciously engineered recipes for that perfect bake that will make your mouth water. From cakes and pies, to savory breads and pastries, Weller has perfected these bakes down to a science (literally)! Illustrated with gorgeous photographs by Jonny Miller, Weller’s book walks through the ins and outs of the science of baking, explains her scientific testing process, and provides easy to follow recipes that anyone can do at home.
Example Recipes:
Physicists love cake! Here is just a small selection of photos of cakes from the ESVA collection:
Cake at the celebration at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in honor of Luis Alvarez's 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics, October 30-31, 1968. Credit: Photograph by Jerome Danburg, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Danburg Collection. Alvarez Luis H7
The cake for ESVA namesake Emilio Segrè's 75th birthday party in Oakland, California, January 1980. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Segrè Collection. Segrè Emilio H10
Science and Cooking
Science and Cooking : physics meets food, from homemade to haute cuisine by Michael Brenner, Pia Sörensen, and David Weitz. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]. NBLA Call Number: C3:9 BRE
Based on their popular undergraduate “Science and Cooking” course at Harvard University, this cookbook by Harvard Professors Michael Brenner (Mathematics), Pia Sörensen (Chemical Engineering), and David Weitz (Physics), teaches you about the science behind cooking with several DIY experiments and recipes to try along the way. Recipes designed by professional chefs are used as examples to illustrate the complex physical and chemical processes that give food flavor and achieve the perfect bake. Learn the how and why recipes work down to their molecular dynamics along with commentaries by famous chefs, including an introduction by José Andrés! Sound fun? For even more science and cooking action, you can even audit the course for free on Harvard edEx (which now comes in both a chemistry and physics based version).
Example Recipes:
Make sure you do your cooking experiments in a safe environment though!
DO cook in a kitchen, or a laboratory with proper equipment, as demonstrated by these domestic science students in a class at Yerkes Observatory near the turn of the 20th century.
Students learning to cook in a domestic science class at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, date unknown. Credit: Photograph by George C. Blakslee, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Yerkes Observatory Collection. Yerkes Observatory D1
DO NOT cook on a cyclotron! In this photo, captioned "It’s good to be a physicist...”, Nobel Prize Winner Isidor Isaac Rabi appears to be cooking hot dogs on the Columbia University Cyclotron. Do not try this at home! (Don't worry, Professor Rabi never actually did this in real life. The photo was doctored as a humorous gift from his friend Fritz Goro.)
Rabi appears to be cooking hot dogs on the cyclotron in a doctored photo by Fritz Goro. Handwritten around the bottom edge of the cyclotron is: "It's good to be a physicist… To I. I. Rabi, respectfully Fritz Goro." Photograph by Fritz Goro, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Rabi Isidor Isaac H1
Science Experiments You Can Eat
Science experiments you can eat. by Vicki Cobb. Illustrated by Peter Lippman. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1972 NBLA Call Number: C3:1 COB
Find It: WorldCat | Amazon | Bookshop
A kitchen is a place for discovery! Celebrating the fun in food, Vicki Cobb’s classic book, Science Experiments You Can Eat provides delightful entertainment for children learning about science around the house. Here at NBLA we hold the original 1972 edition, however it has been updated several times including most recently in 2016. Aided by humorous illustrations, this book teaches children about fundamental physics and chemistry concepts as well as the science of food with hands-on experiments they can do in the kitchen. Although beware of elemental compounds!
Recipe for water, from Science Experiments You Can Eat (pg. 41).
Example Recipes:
For more on the science of H2O, check out the photo below of Vincent Shaefer creating the first man-made snow from water vapor. Also, on a tastier note, some ice-cream being enjoyed by Melba Philips and Herman Koch!
Man-made snow was created for the first time by Vincent Schaefer at the General Electric Research Laboratory. Here Dr. Schaefer waves his scientific wand through a snow cloud produced in a cold chamber. The cloud was created by introducing moist air from his breath into the minus five degrees Fahrenheit temperature of the atmosphere in the chamber. The wand, cooled in liquid air to minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit, leaves tiny ice germs in the cloud which grow at expense of water droplets comprising the cloud. Result: man-made snow. November 29, 1946. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection. Schaefer Vincent F1
Melba Phillips and Herman William Koch enjoying some ice cream at Bell Labs during an AIP Corporate Associates Meeting in 1982. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives Phillips Melba C6
Note by Note Cooking
Note-by-note cooking : the future of food by Hervé This ; translated by M.B. DeBevoise. New York : Columbia University Press, 2014 NBLA Call Number: C3:9 THI
This book is by Hervé This, a French physical chemist at the INRAE (France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment) and professor at AgroParisTech who specializes in molecular gastronomy. For over two decades, Hervé This has championed his unique cooking style “Note by Note,” which creates dishes, not from ingredients found on a shelf or from animals, but from pure chemical compounds built up one by one to create a chemical masterpiece on your plate. This technique relies on molecular gastronomy, or approaching cooking with an understanding of food’s molecular chemistry. Dr. This breaks down food to its most basic compounds (e.g. proteins, amino acids, water) and distills it into powders, oils, and liquids that can be used to create a dish, without the need to rely on naturally occurring compounds found in animal and plant based products.
He touts this synthetic food as the possible food of the future for its ease of transport and its independence from agriculture, as well as for its potential as a possible solution to food insecurity and food waste (these dishes don’t spoil). In Note-by-Note Cooking: the Future of Food, Dr. This explains the method and science behind his unique cooking style. While Note by Note Cooking provides some recipes you can try, they do read more like lab instructions and require diluted compounds (e.g. 2-trans-6-cis-nonadien-1-ol – for the smell of violet leaf and cucumbers), but the book does make a convincing argument for “note by note” molecular gastronomy as an exciting cuisine that brings the science of cooking to the forefront.
To see Note by Note cooking in action, here are some videos and resources of Dr. This demonstrating his technique:
Example Recipes:
Since Note by Note Cooking celebrates the essence of food, here some photos of physicist Val Telegdi and his wife, Lia, enjoying the essence of a home cooked meal:
Val Telegdi stands at a table set for a meal. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Telegdi Collection, gift of Judith Goodstein Telegdi Valentine B5
Lia Telegdi, wife of Val Telegdi, sits at their dining table holding a hand made dinner menu, December 26, 1966. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Telegdi Collection, gift of Judith Goodstein. Telegdi Valentine G8
Cook, Taste, Learn
Cook, Taste, Learn : How the Evolution of Science Transformed the Art of Cooking by Guy Crosby. New York : Columbia University Press, 2019. NBLA Call Number: C3:9 CRO
Taking a more historical view, Guy Crosby (an American chemist known as the Cooking Science Guy and author of The Science of Good Cooking (2012)), explores how scientific developments throughout history have aided and influenced the understanding of and technique of cooking from the neolithic age through the scientific revolution to modern day. In Cook, Taste, Learn, Crosby includes recipes and experiments for you to try at home to learn how scientific developments, such as atomic theory, are reflected in cooking. These recipes are interleaved with historical notes, personal reflections, and explanations of food chemistry, that give fascinating context and perspective to the history of food.
Example Recipes
Cook, Taste, Learn explores how different environments and historical discoveries advanced the technique of cooking. Below is a photograph of Italian Physicist and creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, Enrico Fermi (2nd from right) enjoying a meal outside with friends in the snow!
Left to right: Antonio Rostagni, Gleb Wataghin, Enrico Persico, Enrico Fermi, and Mrs. Rostagni eating at a table outside a small stone building.December 1932. Credit: Amaldi Archives, Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita 'La Sapienza,' Rome, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives Rostagni Antonio D1
Uncorked
Uncorked : the Science of Champagne by Gérard Liger Belair ; with a new foreword by Hervé. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2013. N8 LIG
A staple at celebrations, scientific discoveries, and award dinners, champagne is a frequent feature at physics events. The drink also has some fascinating physics of its own with its fizzy bubbles. Gérard Liger-Belair, a physics professor at the University of Reims in the actual Champagne region of France, is an expert on effervescence, or the science of the sparkly effect of bubbling liquids. Author of hundreds of scientific articles on champagne, Liger-Belair first published Uncorked to explain the science of the fizzy drink for the general public in 2004. It was then revised in 2013 with a new forward by molecular gastronomy expert Hervé This (of Note by Note cooking above). While there are no recipes in this book, it does give you tips on crafting the perfect glass of champagne!
Below is Physicist Nicolaas Bloembergen showing off a very large bottle of champagne given to him in celebration of his 1981 Nobel Prize win!
Portrait of Nicolaas Bloembergen with a large bottle of champagne, October 1981, to celebrate his Nobel Prize in Physics. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Bloembergen Collection. Bloembergen Nicolaas B3.
Uncorking the Physics of Wine
Uncorking the Physics of Wine: A Wine Tasting in 50 Experiments by Lutz Kasper and Patrik Vogt. Berlin, Germany : Springer, 2024. NBLA Call Number: C3:9 KAS
Ever wanted to elevate your wine tasting experience? How about literally? In this book there are 50 do-it-yourself experiments that highlight the physical properties of wine which you can do with the wine in a glass, including some remarkable tricks that will be sure to stun people at your next dinner party such as swinging your glass without spilling it! Thanks to fluid dynamics, the wine stays perpendicular to the force from the surface of the glass meaning if you spin it in a circle, the wine stays in the glass and appears to defy gravity!
Below is a signed bottle of Chianti presented to Enrico Fermi in celebration of the first successful nuclear chain reaction at Chicago Pile 1 in December 1941.
Wine bottle presented to Enrico Fermi by Eugene Wigner shortly after the first successful chain reaction in Chicago on 2 December 1942. Albert Wattenberg, one of the men who signed their names, holds the bottle. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection. Fermi Enrico H8
We hope you enjoyed this tour of the cookbooks and food photos at NBLA for this August Photos of the Month! We’d love to hear your thoughts if you have tried any of these recipes or have photos of your own physics food creations!
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