Observation

Ideation

Experimentation

Presentation

Culinary Innovation 101Naveen N. Sinha, nsinha@seas.harvard.eduWeitz Lab, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

In most school systems, students are presented an overly simplified view of the scientific method: question, hypothesis, experiment, results, and discussion. In actual scientific and culinary investigation, the process is more flexible and iterative.

The culinary world is a great testing ground for developing problem-solving skills, since the results are tangible and the time-scale for doing experiments is hours or days.

The target audience for the class is students who are passionate about solving problems and have some basic scientific background. Even if the participants don’t have a strong culinary background or desire to work in the food industry, they will still gain valuable insight into the process of innovation.

The objective is to practice a general problem-solving approach that can be applied to any scientific or engineering problem that also has human factors component.

Grading Three cycles of: Restaurant kitchen visit: 3x10%•Overview of kitchen •Specific details•Photos or sketchesResearch documentation:3x10%•Easy for outsider to interpret •Quantitative measurements•Visual recordPublic blog post: 3x10%•Clear storyline•Engaging visuals•Scientific explanation•Relevance for chefs

Overall:•Participation: 1x10%•Active in discussion•Meticulous at clean up Total: 100%

What are the most relevant questions for chefs?

How can you combine insights from research scientists, food technologists, professional chefs, and others to answer this question?

How can you use a shotgun approach to rapidly explore the space of possible variables?

How can you present the results in a way that that is easily accessible to a wide audience, including the original chef?

Learn about observation from a guest speaker.

•Ask about documentation styles, project management strategies, or anything else that may be relevant.

Visit a restaurant kitchen:

•Ask the chefs if there are processes that puzzle them.

•Watch for any things that you don’t understand.

•Try some of the cooking techniques.

Deliverable #1:

•Report your experiences on the course website, for the rest of the class to read before the following discussion.

Brainstorm ideas for new projects with classmates, chefs, and scientists.

•Vote on the few most promising options.

Try out ideas in the kitchen lab.

•At each step, think about the underlying scientific processes and sketch your thoughts as much as possible.

Read the existing literature.

Write questions to chefs, bloggers, scientists, or anyone else.

Design a set of experiments to address the most promising question.

Discuss the previous round of experiments with classmates.

Adapt the plan for the coming week’s experiments and documentation.

Do the experiments.

Quantify your observations and take photos whenever possible.

Deliverable #2:

•Post your results on the course website. Interpret the results in terms of the relevant scientific concepts.

Present your findings to the rest of the class and interested chefs.

Give feedback on your colleagues’ projects.

Follow-up by training other students and chefs how to use your findings.

Start thinking about the next cycle’s topic by reading new blog posts and research articles.

IDEO guest speaker Visit the Clover Harvard Square Kitchen:

Ask Rolando (head chef) and Chris (manager) about some of the challenges they face, such as training staff, developing new recipes, and following health code regulations.

Deliverable #1:

•Post an annotated slide show of the visit to the website.

Brainstorm ideas for new projects with classmates, staff from Clover, and members of the Weitz Lab.

Example: find a better eggplant salting procedure

Try out ideas in the kitchen lab.

Sketch a diagram of this process, to illustrate how the ions flow into the cells and the spaces between them.

Read academic papers about ions pumps in plant cells.

Write questions to a chef a local Middle Eastern restaurant and a Harvard microbiologist who studies cheese.

Design a set of experiments.

Discuss the previous round of experiments with classmates, both in terms of the results and the documentation.

Adapt the plan for the coming week’s experiments and documentation.

Do the experiments.

•Try out different salt concentrations and brining times, as well as different dry salting procedures.

Deliverable #2:

•Post your results on the course website. Interpret the results to show how the flow of ions and water through the cell membranes changes the texture of the eggplant.

Present your findings to the rest of the class and interested chefs.

Give feedback on your colleagues’ projects.

Follow-up by training other students and chefs how to use your findings, such as showing the new brining procedure to the staff at Clover.

Start thinking about the next cycle’s topic by reading new blog posts and research articles.

About Me

I am an Applied Physics PhD candidate in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. I currently pursue various soft matter physics projects in Prof. David Weitz' lab.

I started my time in grad school studying bacterial colonies, known as biofilms. Serendipitously, my two research advisers, Prof. David Weitz and Prof. Michael Brenner, were the lecturers for the first Science and Cooking class at Harvard. I was the Head Teaching Fellow the first year and have continued to explore various collaborations between chefs, scientists, and students.

Dan Souza and Geoff Lukas bake cakes at America’s Test Kitchen to study the effect of moisture content on baking times.

Naveen Sinha documents the results.

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Objectives Schedule Collaboration Example: Clover Food Lab

Julie Monrad attempts to elucidate the role of key ingredients in baked goods.

A team of undergrads presents their results at a Radcliffe poster session.

The data are summarized in an Excel spreadsheet.

Students work in small teams to solve problems for local chefs, over the course of three, month-long cycles.

The four-week cycle of observation, ideation, experimentation, and presentation is inspired by design consulting firms like IDEO and Continuum.

Examples of previous science/cooking collaborations: