Page 42 - Robeson Living Winter 2020

Cooking Up Some Science

By Shea Ann DeJarnette,
Extension 4-H Youth Development Agent

I have to admit, I LOVE cooking. It is an obtainable science different things interact, how they change when you add heat
for the most part for me. Give me a recipe and I will become or cold - it is an edible science project. That brings me to
an artist, creating something delicious that will delight the taste my excitement over this project. This is a great STEM (Sci-
buds and fill the stomach. That has been a sign of love passed ence, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) project
down through the generations in our family. Do I always get that is geared toward a scientist (or non-scientist) of any age.
it right? Nope. There have been failures, such as the cake bat- What’s better yet, this is a worldwide science project that will
ter that was too much for the cake pan which left me to clean make your kitchen smell of one of the best smells in the world
burnt cake from everywhere in the oven. Or the ice cream with - homemade baked bread.
salt in it. Let’s not forget the undercooked chicken. I investi-
gated what went wrong and tweaked my recipes and – voila! The Wild Sourdough Project started about three to four years
- something better became of it. Now I measure cake batter ago when more than 500 people from around the world submit-
before baking, and I lean to frozen pots to make ice cream. I ted samples of their sourdough starters. What they found was
account for the thickness of a boneless skinless chicken breast they were all different. So in trying to determine what makes
and adjust my cooking time, or pound it out to make sure it each starter unique, they brought bakers from around the world,
cooks through. along with their starters, to a facility in Belgium. There they
tested their starters, the microbes on their hands, the bread that
I tell you all of this because cooking is truly a science. How they baked, and the starters again before they left. What they

Page 42 Robeson Living ~ Winter 2020