CONTACT: Michael Patrick Rutter, 617-496-3815

Cambridge, Mass. – August 16, 2012 – Inspired by one of the most talked-about Harvard College courses in recent history, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter," the Science & Cooking public lecture series will return on September 4.

Members of the general public are once again invited to attend talks by world-class chefs and eminent food experts, including Wylie Dufresne, José Andrés, Ferran Adrià, Harold McGee, and Dan Barber.

The lectures and demonstrations do not replicate the course content but are meant to inform and inspire.

The kickoff event on Tuesday, September 4, features Dave Arnold (Food Arts magazine's Contributing Editor for Equipment and Food Science) 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 is available online: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking

For those who cannot attend in person, videos of the lectures will be made available online. An archive of past talks (from 2010 and 2011) is available on iTunes U and YouTube.

The course and 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.

The course, which will be offered for the third time at Harvard College in the fall of 2012, uses food and cooking to explicate fundamental principles in applied physics and engineering.

Limited to currently enrolled Harvard undergraduates, the debut class in 2010 attracted nearly 700 students for a mere 300 seats and garnered international media attention, including coverage in The New York Times, 60 Minutes, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Physics World.

To blend haute cuisine with laboratory research, 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. (Watch a video about the course.)

The course culminates in an “edible science fair.” Students join chefs around the world in tackling real food industry challenges, such as the demand for better gluten-free pasta and fat-free ice cream. Others have applied their scientific and engineering know-how to create wild culinary innovations like glow-in-the-dark gummy bears, hot ice cream, and noodles made entirely of Parmesan cheese.

Notable new guest lecturers for 2012 include Joanne Chang '91 (Flour Bakery), Paco Perez (Miramar), Jordi Roca (El Celler de Can Roca), and Raül Balam Ruscalleda (Moments).