What makes food crispy, and how science can be used to maximize this property

A collection of molecular gastronomy techniques, from flavored air to turning oils into powder

Soy lecithin can be blended with flavored mixtures, such as herbs and Parmesan, to produce edible bubbles, which can be frozen into a solid foam. Maltodextrin can be combined with liquid fats in a food processor to create light, flavorful powders.

Learn how air fryers cook food without the use of oils

While deep or pan frying involves oil transferring thermal energy to the food, air fryers warm food through constant airflow, which prevents the formation of a boundary layer of cold air around the food, though air is a worse conductor of heat.

How texture affects taste

Texture is the brain's interpretation of several sensations, including pressure, as registered by our teeth, tongue, and finger tips, and sound, as recorded by our ears. Texture also speaks to food particle sizes—smaller than 35 microns contributes to the sensation of creamy—and the balance between flavor and mouth time, such as the crunch of a crispy chip or the bounce of a chewy caramel.

Watch an animation of what happens inside cookies as they bake in an oven

As temperatures rise and butter melts, trapped water expands, spreading the dough, which remains held together by a network of proteins. Maillard reactions produce browning on the surface beyond 310 degrees Fahrenheit (154 degrees Celsius), while caramelization can be triggered by baking past 356 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).

The benefits of sous vide: cooking food in bags immersed in water

Through this technique, food can be prepared to precise temperatures lower than those of open flames, without the risk of overcooking, with less oil, fat, and salt, and without requiring ongoing attention. By allowing for long cooking times, tougher cuts of meat can also be prepared at lower temperatures.

When it's good for your food to stick in the pan

Non-stick cookware has wired us to think any sticking in the pan is bad. While that's true for cleaning purposes, some foods—like thin smash burgers or sauces—require that stickiness to achieve the right taste or shape.

Barbecue relies on a unique scientific equation

Barbecue's distinct flavor starts with an interaction between the heat source and food, which creates a Maillard Reaction—better known to diners as those crunchy, caramelized bits on the outside.

NASA funded research into creating pizza with a 3D printer

The agency awarded a contract for the development of devices that can create edible structures from long-lasting dry powders when mixed with liquids or pastes. By delaying this integration until the time of consumption, food could last longer than the current six-month expiration of freeze-dried meals for Mars expeditions.

Learn the history of food science breakthroughs from the 20th century

Long after humans developed the means to produce sufficient food to feed civilizations, scientific research focused on a wide variety of objectives, such as developing methods to preserve food quality (accomplished via frozen food), speeding up cooking (leading to the microwave), and lowering the cost of sweetening food, which high fructose corn syrup provides.

When experiencing turbulence, fluid elements undergo stretching and folding

Simulations show patches of fluid particles, such as splashes of milk, bend under turbulent flow, creating curvature that grows linearly then exponentially. This accelerated deformation enhances folding and mixing faster than other methods, such as stirring or beating.

Explaining the Leidenfrost effect, where water can hover and move against gravity

Water droplets can glide across surfaces whose temperatures are well above water's boiling point. This heat instantly vaporizes the bottom of the droplet, creating a layer of steam that the rest of the droplet rides and bounces upon. This can be seen when sprinkling water on skillets to determine if the surface is hot enough to cook on.

The dominant popularity of McDonald's french fries

McDonald's french fries are, by far, the most popular french fries available at fast food restaurants around the world. Since their beginnings, their consistent and unique flavor, crispiness, and shape formed a new staple side at restaurants. Despite undergoing drastic shifts in how they are made due to health and business factors, the fry has remained dominant in the fast food culinary world. Find out more about its history in this video.

Why processed foods can be so addictive

In recent years, many critics have voiced their concerns about the food industry and how ultra-processed foods affect our health. Despite our awareness of these issues, processed foods are still incredibly hard to remove from our diet. In this podcast by The Guardian, Dr. Chris van Tulleken explains how “junk food” is created to get us hooked, how it negatively affects us, and what we can do to improve our eating habits.

Explaining why salt should be used to season food early in the cooking process

Experiments involving the same dishes, with salt added at the start of cooking versus at the end, have been shown to yield drastically different taste outcomes because salt takes time to diffuse into foods, particularly vegetables, whose cells are surrounded by cellular membranes and walls. Salting at the end will produce a concentrated surface coating, rather than even seasoning.

The collapse of gas bubbles in the joint synovial fluid causes 'cracking' knuckles

The human population can be divided into two categories: those who crack their knuckles and those who don't. Do you know the technical term for this phenomenon is "tribonucleation?" What actually happens inside a knuckle when it pops? This visual explainer breaks down finger joint popping in real time.

Fracking provides access to fossil fuel reserves locked in underground rock

Using a pressurized fluid mixture that is over 90% water, cracks are created in shale about 2 miles deep to release trapped oil and natural gas. The process uses an average of 3 to 6 million gallons of water per well, which can strain local water supplies.

Variations in rapidly expanding gas and mechanical elements produce fireworks sounds

Chemical compounds designed to vibrate rapidly when ignited produce whistling, screeching sounds, while crackles and pops are created by small star pellets inside the firework, which explode one after another quickly. Fluttering and chirping sounds are produced by spinning elements that rotate rapidly as the firework ascends.

Latkes, or fried potato pancakes, are eaten on Hanukkah to honor the miracle of the lasting oil

Deb Perelman, author of seminal food blog Smitten Kitchen, walks us through her foolproof recipe for classic potato pancakes. Among her tips: choose russet potatoes for a lighter latke, use a towel to wring the water out for extra crispiness, and add a sprinkle of baking powder for a little more lift.

Le Crueset's France factory makes 10,000 of its $400 cast-iron pots each day

After nearly going bankrupt in the 1980s, the company expanded its color options and product line to boost sales—something that's also fueled the brand's fanaticism. The Le Crueset Dutch oven was among Julia Child's kitchen staples, and the 2009 hit "Julie & Julia" reintroduced Child's famous Dutch oven to a new generation, resulting in a sales boom.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Advances in agriculture are being powered by CRISPR to boost carbon capture

Researchers are using CRISPR to test thousands of plant gene edits, aiming to speed up breeding and maximize carbon retention in soil. By engineering drought tolerance, they also aim to increase crop yields and expand the environments where crops can grow.

How spoiled meat helped uncover a bacterium that can survive the vacuum of space

When a can of ground beef and pork spoiled despite attempts to sterilize it with gamma radiation, researcher Arthur Anderson isolated the bacteria in the food and discovered Deinococcus radiodurans. The polyextremophile has since been found on the walls of nuclear reactors and overcomes radiation damage through highly optimized DNA repair mechanisms.

Volcanic activity can lead to the formation of fertile soils

Ejected rock can introduce key minerals found in fertilizers, including iron, magnesium, and potassium, to improve soil quality. Ash and basalt crystals can be easily absorbed into soils, infusing them with sulfur, oxygen, chlorine, phosphorus, calcium, and other critical elements.

Pierre Curie found electricity could be generated by compressing certain crystals

Jacques and Pierre Curie discovered the piezoelectric effect in 1880. Pierre incorporated it into an apparatus used by Marie Curie to discover polonium and radium. This phenomenon is seen in barbecue lighter ignition mechanisms, where quartz is struck to create a spark that ignites fuel.

Bill Bowerman got the idea for the breakthrough waffle-knit running shoe from a waffle iron

Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman was trying to find new ways to create traction for his runners on artificial turf. He looked at the waffle iron and realized that the pattern would work for the shoes’ soles.

What it's like to stage in an award-winning kitchen

This video goes behind the scenes with chef Geoff Kie's stage (essentially a short internship) with nominee Crystal Wahpepah at her restaurant in Oakland. Kie learns practical skills from Wahpepah, but also discusses how the stage helped him understand the restaurant's role in the community—and how he might bring those lessons back to his own kitchen.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

Fireworks make a loud booming sound after exploding due to air expanding faster than the speed of sound.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.