Shirley Corriher has been answering the "whys" of cooking for more than 25 years, counting among those who rely on her expertise Julia Child, Pillsbury, magazine test kitchens, celebrity chefs and home cooks alike. Her first book, CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, won the 1998 James Beard Award for Food Reference and Techniques and is a standard for both food professionals and amateurs. As a lecturer, teacher, industry consultant and television personality, she crosses the country on a regular basis and is in the process of writing her second book, BakeWise. But despite an impressive scientific background, the Atlanta native is known as one of the most accessible writers on food today, happy to share her expertise(and lively anecdotes) with just about anyone who asks. Last February, ICE® asked Ms. Corriher to teach a class for our chef-instructors, and this interview was conducted afterwards.

You started your career as a research biochemist at the Vanderbilt Medical School. From there, how did you start cooking?

It was what you might call a trial by fire. I left Vanderbilt, and my former husband and I started a boys' boarding school here in Atlanta. We began with about 30 boys, and at first I did all the cooking myself, in addition to planning and purchasing. And there was just so much I didn't know.

I would even have trouble scrambling a couple dozen eggs. This was 1959, before the days of non-stick, and those eggs would stick so badly I would end up with a little bit of knotty stuff. Then my German mother-in-law taught me how to scramble eggs. If you put eggs, which are liquid protein, into the pan when the pan is cold, that protein goes down into every nook and cranny in the pan. Then when you heat it you literally cook the eggs into the pan. But if you heat the pan first, the eggs cook on the surface of the pan.

Our school grew to 140 boys, and for 11 years I took care of feeding them all three meals a day. I learned a lot.

How did you begin teaching food science?

After my former husband and I divorced, I left the boys' school. I had three children and I was starving. I had gone to cooking classes whenever I could---goodness knows I needed all the help I could get. Nathalie Dupree ran the Rich's Cooking School in Atlanta at the time, a large school with 28 stoves, and I often went there. When something would go wrong in a class, I'd use my chemistry background to explain what went wrong, and what should be changed. Eventually Nathalie got into the habit of calling me with all her problems.

One of those calls from Nathalie came just after I had figured out there was no way I could get through the summer financially. She offered to hire me at the cooking school, and for minimum wage I started setting up the classes, helping students and cleaning up after the classes. I washed my way through Basic French Cooking, Intermediate French Cooking and Advanced French---hundreds of times it seemed.

Pretty soon people all over the southeast were calling me with their food science questions. A baker in Hilton Head called Nathalie and said his phone bill to me in one month was $150, and he wanted to know if I could teach a class about baking science so he could get all his answers all at once. And that's how I started teaching my first food science class, Food Science in Everyday Language.

In On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee writes that "Most writers on food either ignore the scientific principles… that underlie cooking, or else disparage the value of such information on the grounds that art cannot be reduced to the test tube." Do you agree?

That first course I taught, Food Science in Everyday Language, was back in the day when the word "science" used in connection with cooking was the kiss of death. Everybody was into "creative gourmet." But I see a little technical information as liberating, something that enhances creativity. If you know the limiting factors in a recipe, you're free to go wild with the rest.

What was the evolution of your fist book, CookWise?

I taught sometimes at L'Academie de Cuisine, a chefs' training center in Bethesda. When I was there, Phyllis Richmond, food editor and restaurant reviewer for the Washington Post, would send her writers to my classes. She said it made her job as an editor so much easier.

Phyllis thought my information was too valuable not to be in a book, so in 1983 she convinced me to write a proposal and send it to a big-name editor. I felt like I was a shoo-in, since Phyllis was one of the hottest people in food at the time. Well, that editor wrote me back a two-page, single-space letter cussing me out from A to Z and telling me I was totally incompetent.

Let me tell you, I decided to have no part of the book thing. I had become a very popular teacher and I kept a hectic schedule teaching and speaking all over the country. But 3 or 4 years later, I met Susan Friedland at an AIWF meeting, and she convinced me to get an agent and try again. I got an agent, who basically wrote the proposal for me, and I had a contract in a few days.

Are you planning another book?

I'm a year and half behind on my second book, BakeWise, for William Morrow. I have learned so much, it's been fascinating. I'm near the end of the second chapter, which is not as bad as it sounds because there are only five chapters. So I'm about half way.

You were recently on a late-night talk show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live." What was a food scientist doing on such a show?

Jimmy Kimmel used to be on "The Man Show," and now he has a late-night show that competes with Letterman and Leno. They flew me to LA, and told me they wanted me to make a batter and fry some things. I said "Okay, I can do that." But when I got to the studio, the producer told me what I was going to fry: a whole Poptart, chocolate bunnies, a whole low-fat sub, a bunch of grapes, slices of pizza, Ping-Ping balls, a football, and finally a wrist watch. And Snoop Doggy-Dogg was going to be the co-host.

Thank goodness I had my book, CookWise, with me, and let me tell you, that's a great book. I rushed right to the batter section, and it said thick batters adhere better; cold batters adhere better; batters with eggs are stronger. So I made the thickest, coldest batter ever seen. The producer said things had to brown instantly, and with my technical knowledge I knew that if I added corn syrup to the batter things would brown in a flash.

They had an audience of 800 people, and when they started filming Snoop and Jimmy and I fried up things fast and furious. That batter stuck like a dream, even to those slick Ping-Pong balls and to the football. And it was delicious---Jimmy even ate the batter off the Ping-Pong ball. I can't tell you how relieved I was. We were funny and having fun, and it was a grand time. A little technical knowledge got me through that.

Are there things you see in restaurant kitchens on a regular basis that you think food science could correct?

Oh yes, all the time. But the response I get when I point them out isn't always good! Take rice pudding. I was at a local cafeteria, and there's the rice pudding, and the rice is this dense layer on the bottom, and the custard is sitting on top. And I said to the guy behind the line, "I can fix that for you." And he said, "Move on, lady." But I'll tell you, they're using leftover rice (which they should), but it's been in the refrigerator, and when starch chills it crystallizes. Then the starch no longer leaches out, so it's not thickening the custard. If you use leftover rice to make pudding, sprinkle a little cornstarch over it and stir it in.
So, I see things all the time, in restaurants and in cookbooks, that I know aren't right. But you know, it doesn't interfere with my enjoying food!

Can you give some examples of the type of problems you solve for corporate clients?

Usually corporate clients come to me with a list of criteria they want their products to have---crisper, or browner, or less brown. I solve a lot of problems for cookie bakers who are trying to get the proper texture. Gluten holds baked goods together, but cookies have a lot of fat, and all that fat greases up the flour so that the protein strands can't possibly grab each other. And then you have all that sugar, and sugar infers with gluten formation as well. So, if you don't want a cookie to be too crumbly, you need to start by mixing water and flour together first, to form the gluten, before adding the sugar and fat. You can get just about any texture you want in a cookie---it can be tough enough to stand on, or so tender it just barely holds together. It's all in how you control the formation of the gluten.

You seem to have a great time in front of the camera, establishing a bond with your audience. Were you a natural, or did it take study?

I had terrible stage fright at first, but I got over it very quickly. The first time I was up in front of an audience my hands were shaking so badly I had to put down the speech I had written and just talk. And it went well from there, they kept me an hour asking questions. I've spoken all over the country to huge audiences. And I think the most important thing is to remember that you're not really speaking to an audience, you're just telling a good friend about something you find fascinating. And then you're just chatting with a friend.
I do a lot of TV these days. I'm on Alton Brown's "Good Eats," and on Sara Moulton's show, and I do "Smart Solutions" for House and Garden and lots of segments for the "Home Cooking" series.

What do you recommend to students interested in a career in the field of food science?

Many universities have really fine programs. Rutgers, the University of Georgia, Clemson and Purdue come to mind on the east coast, but there are many other great programs around the country. For young chefs who might not be interested in a four-year program, there are shorter, introductory programs. The Institute of Food Technologists in Chicago is a great resource to find out more about programs (312/782-8424, www.ift.org). They have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 members. And there are many on-the-job training opportunities in corporations and test kitchens for those with cooking experience who would rather go that route.

What's the best part of being Shirley Corriher?

It's really fun. I get to travel all over, meet fascinating people, and generally have a grand time. And eat great food!

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