Turkish academic’s gastronomy book to be used in lectures in Chinese universities

Esra Ülkar – ISTANBUL

A gastronomy book written by associate professor Dr. Sibel Özilgen, the head of the Gastronomy and Culinary Arts Department at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, will be used as a textbook in Chinese universities.

“Cooking as a Chemical Reaction,” which covers cooking as a chemical reaction, has already been used as an obligatory textbook in Central Queensland University in Australia. Published in 2014, it is also used as an additional textbook in some high schools in the United States and has been on the shelves of libraries of many important universities.

It is the first “food science textbook” to have been written by a Turkish academic on an international level.

Özilgen said she is honored to be able to reach out to young people across the world.

“As a Turkish academic, I am very excited to be able to reach out to those young people who live far away. I couldn’t sleep at night when I received a message of congratulations from the publishing house. Especially the fact that the book is also available in Chinese means it can reach large masses in China. This is a valuable incentive for an academic,” she said.

The professor said she has compiled three points in her book: The importance of practice, the importance of high-quality and reliable food and the fact that cooking is a chemical reaction.

The book aims to explain the chemical structure of food and the steps of production. Experiments are carried out with students before providing any theoretical information. The scientific explanations of the results are also discussed.