On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 19

andconcrete,andhaveparticularstructures
that determine how they — and the foods
madeoutofthem—behaveinthekitchen.
The better we can visualize what they’re
likeandwhathappenstothem,theeasierit
is to understand what happens in cooking.
Andincookingit’sgenerallyamolecule’s
overall shape that matters, not the precise
placement of each atom. In most of the
drawings of molecules in this book, only
the overall shapes are shown, and they’re
represented in different ways — as long
thinlines,longthicklines,honeycomb-like
ringswithsomeatomsindicatedbyletters
—dependingonwhatbehaviorneedstobe
explained. Many food molecules are built
from a backbone of interconnected carbon
atoms, with a few other kinds of atoms
(mainly hydrogen and oxygen) projecting
fromthebackbone.Thecarbonbackboneis
whatcreatestheoverallstructure,sooften
itisdrawnwithnoindicationsoftheatoms


themselves, just lines that show the bonds
betweenatoms.