Burgers are about more than just the meat, say Molly Birnbaum and Dan Souza, the people behind Cook’s Science. On Thursday, October 13, they’ll be at the Athenaeum Theatre for the second stop of Cook’s Science Live: The Burger Tour, explaining just what makes the standby such a crowd-pleaser. “We go through each part, everything from the bun to the ketchup to the burger to the onions,” Souza says. “There’s a lot more going on in each element than you would first imagine. This seemingly simple food is really complex.”
It did begin with a print publication, though: Birnbaum and Souza worked together on the production of the first volume in a series of Cook’s Illustrated science books, The Science of Good Cooking. Published in 2012, it explores 50 principles of cooking and how they relate to basic kitchen techniques (the second book, Cook’s Science, which came out October 4, examines the science behind 50 ingredients). It was during the process of writing the first book, Birnbaum says, that they came up with the idea for a Web-only publication.
