Why do people around the world eat such different foods—and why do individuals experience the same foods differently? Breaking Bread Across the Globe will use food as a way to explore human history, geography, genetics, chemistry, and, ultimately, how scientists ask and answer questions.
We will begin by examining how cuisines developed around the world. How did societies move from gathering and consuming available foods to developing complex methods of preparation? How have geography, available ingredients, cooking technologies, trade, and interactions between civilizations shaped what people eat?
But differences in food preferences are not only cultural. People themselves are biologically different. We will explore how genetics influences our ability to digest and metabolize foods, including familiar examples such as lactose intolerance and differences in alcohol metabolism. We will also examine how taste, smell, and even vision influence our perception of food. Why can some people detect tastes or odors that others cannot? How do taste and smell combine to create what we perceive as flavor? Even questions such as why particular foods and wines seem to pair well provide opportunities to investigate how our sensory systems interpret what we eat.
Running throughout the course will be a second theme: How do we know what we think we know? Food provides an unusually accessible way to learn the scientific method. What does it mean when a scientist reports that one condition is “better” than another? When we say that we like one food more than another, what exactly are we measuring—and relative to what?
Students will turn everyday food questions into testable hypotheses and experiments. The chemistry of chocolate fudge, for example, provides a classic way to explore how the behavior of sugar changes the properties of food. Cookies provide another experimental system: What makes a cookie fluffy, crumbly, or chewy? How does changing an ingredient alter sweetness, texture, or preference? By changing variables, making observations, and evaluating results, students will learn how scientists move from a question to an experiment and from an experiment to a conclusion.
No previous scientific training is required. The goal is not simply to learn about food, but to use something familiar to understand how history and biology shape human experience—and how careful experiments allow us to distinguish what we think from what the evidence actually tells us.