烹饪与化学的渊源 / The Interconnection Between Cooking and Chemistry

当锅中的食用油加热到微微冒烟，放入切好的土豆条，伴随着“滋啦”的声响，原本洁白的土豆条逐渐变成金黄色，空气中弥漫开浓郁的油炸香气——这是绝大多数人都熟悉的烹饪场景。很少有人会意识到，这一过程中，土豆中的淀粉、蛋白质、还原糖等分子正在发生剧烈的化学变化，最终赋予食物全新的色泽、风味和口感。烹饪从来不是仅凭经验的手艺，而是一场发生在锅碗瓢盆间的微观化学反应，是人类最早实践化学活动的领域之一，也是化学原理最贴近日常生活的应用场景。The moment cooking oil in a wok heats up to the point of emitting thin wisps of smoke, and sliced potato strips are added with a sharp sizzle, the originally white strips gradually turn golden, filling the air with a rich fried aroma—this is a cooking scene familiar to almost everyone. Few people realize that during this process, molecules such as starch, protein, and reducing sugar in potatoes are undergoing intense chemical changes, ultimately endowing food with brand new color, flavor, and texture. Cooking has never been a craft based solely on experience, but a microscopic chemical reaction taking place among pots, pans, and bowls, one of the earliest fields where humans practice chemical activities, and the most贴近日常的应用场景 of chemical principles.

一、烹饪的化学本质 The Chemical Essence of Cooking

从科学视角定义，烹饪是通过热加工、混合、发酵、腌制等人工干预手段，引发食材中各类分子发生物理变化与化学变化，从而定向改变食物的感官品质、营养价值与安全性的系统性活动。其核心逻辑与化学学科的研究逻辑完全一致：以物质的变化规律为研究基础，通过调控反应条件实现预期的物质转化结果。 The chemical essence of cooking can be defined as a systematic activity that uses artificial intervention methods such as thermal processing, mixing, fermentation, and pickling to trigger physical and chemical changes of various molecules in ingredients, thereby directionally changing the sensory quality, nutritional value, and safety of food. Its core logic is completely consistent with the research logic of chemistry: taking the laws of material change as the research foundation, and achieving the expected material transformation results by regulating reaction conditions.

烹饪过程中发生的变化可分为两类：物理变化与化学变化。物理变化不改变物质的分子结构，仅改变物质的形态、相态或物理性质，比如煮面条时面条吸水膨胀变软，是淀粉分子吸水后体积膨大，并未生成新物质，属于典型的物理变化；冰块融化成水、油脂加热熔化也属于物理变化。而化学变化则会打破原有分子的化学键，生成具有新性质的新分子，比如炒鸡蛋时蛋清中的卵清蛋白受热发生变性，原本折叠的蛋白质分子结构展开并相互交联，生成新的分子聚集体，就是不可逆的化学变化；烤面包时表皮发生的褐变、烤肉时散发的焦香，也都是化学变化的结果。 The changes that occur during cooking can be divided into two categories: physical changes and chemical changes. Physical changes do not alter the molecular structure of substances, but only change the form, phase state, or physical properties of substances. For example, when cooking noodles, the noodles absorb water and expand to become soft, which is the volume expansion of starch molecules after absorbing water, and no new substances are generated, which is a typical physical change; ice melting into water and oil heating and melting are also physical changes. Chemical changes will break the chemical bonds of the original molecules and generate new molecules with new properties. For example, when scrambling eggs, the ovalbumin in the egg white denatures due to heat, the originally folded protein molecular structure unfolds and cross-links with each other to generate new molecular aggregates, which is an irreversible chemical change; the browning of the bread crust when baking and the roasted aroma when roasting meat are also the results of chemical changes.

区分物理变化与化学变化的核心标准是是否有新分子生成，这一标准也是化学学科判断化学反应发生的核心依据。很多烹饪现象看似是物理变化，实则伴随化学变化：比如煮糖水时，糖从固态溶解到水中是物理变化，但继续加热至160℃以上时，糖分子会发生脱水、聚合反应生成焦糖，就是典型的化学变化；再比如焯蔬菜时，蔬菜从冷水放入沸水后颜色变鲜艳，看似是物理变化，实则高温破坏了叶绿素中的镁离子，生成脱镁叶绿素，同时部分草酸分子分解，属于化学变化与物理变化共存的過程。 The core criterion for distinguishing physical changes from chemical changes is whether new molecules are generated, which is also the core basis for the chemical discipline to judge the occurrence of chemical reactions. Many cooking phenomena seem to be physical changes, but are accompanied by chemical changes: for example, when boiling sugar water, the dissolution of sugar from solid state into water is a physical change, but when continuing to heat above 160℃, sugar molecules will undergo dehydration and polymerization reactions to generate caramel, which is a typical chemical change; another example is when blanching vegetables, the vegetables become brighter in color after being put into boiling water from cold water, which seems to be a physical change, but in fact, high temperature destroys the magnesium ions in chlorophyll to generate pheophytin, and at the same time, some oxalic acid molecules decompose, which is a process where chemical changes and physical changes coexist.

二、烹饪与化学的历史渊源 Historical Interconnection Between Cooking and Chemistry

人类用火烹饪的历史可追溯至旧石器时代，距今约150万年前的元谋人遗址中已发现用火的痕迹，同期出土的动物骨骼上带有明显的烧烤印记，证明早期人类已经通过加热处理食材，这可以视为人类最早的化学实践。彼时的烹饪完全基于经验积累：原始人发现烤过的食物更易咀嚼、不易腐败、口感更好，却无法解释背后的原理，但这种经验积累为后来化学学科的发展埋下了伏笔。 The history of humans using fire for cooking can be traced back to the Paleolithic Age. Traces of fire use were found in the Yuanmou Man site about 1.5 million years ago, and the animal bones unearthed at the same time have obvious barbecue marks, proving that early humans have processed ingredients through heating, which can be regarded as the earliest chemical practice of humans. At that time, cooking was completely based on experience accumulation: primitive people found that cooked food was easier to chew, less prone to spoilage, and had better taste, but could not explain the principle behind it. However, this experience accumulation laid the groundwork for the development of the chemistry discipline later.

随着农业文明的发展，人类开始有意识地利用微生物、酶等催化食材转化，形成了大量经验性的化学应用，这些实践至今仍是现代烹饪的核心技术。中国周朝时期的《周礼》中已有“醯人掌五齐、七菹，凡醯物以共祭祀之齐菹”的记载，“醯”即醋，是通过粮食发酵生成乙酸的产物，古人已经掌握了利用醋酸菌将粮食中的糖类转化为酸的发酵规律；同一时期的“曲法酿酒，酱法制肉”记载，证明古人已经知道通过制曲（含有霉菌、酵母菌的发酵剂）分解淀粉、蛋白质，生成酒精、氨基酸等风味物质。古埃及文明中，啤酒酿造已形成标准化工艺，通过大麦发芽产生的淀粉酶分解淀粉生成糖，再经酵母菌发酵生成酒精，距今已有约5000年的历史；古罗马时期流行的鱼酱（garum），是利用鱼虾中的天然蛋白酶分解蛋白质生成氨基酸和鲜味物质，其原理与今天的酱油、鱼露发酵完全一致。 With the development of agricultural civilization, humans began to consciously use microorganisms and enzymes to catalyze the transformation of ingredients, forming a large number of empirical chemical applications, which are still the core technology of modern cooking. In the Zhou Dynasty of China, the *Rites of Zhou* already has records of "the person in charge of vinegar manages five kinds of fermented products and seven kinds of pickles, and all vinegar products are used for sacrificial offerings", "醯" is vinegar, which is a product of generating acetic acid through grain fermentation. The ancients had already mastered the fermentation law of using acetic acid bacteria to convert sugar in grain into acid; the records of "making wine with koji and making meat with sauce" in the same period prove that the ancients already knew how to use koji (a ferment containing mold and yeast) to decompose starch and protein to generate alcohol, amino acids and other flavor substances. In ancient Egyptian civilization, beer brewing had formed a standardized process, using amylase produced by barley germination to decompose starch into sugar, and then fermenting with yeast to generate alcohol, which has a history of about 5000 years; the fish sauce (garum) popular in ancient Rome is the use of natural proteases in fish and shrimp to decompose proteins into amino acids and umami substances, and its principle is exactly the same as the fermentation of soy sauce and fish sauce today.

真正推动烹饪与化学系统结合的节点是近代化学学科的建立。18世纪，法国化学家安托万-拉瓦锡（Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier）通过实验阐明了燃烧的本质，证明燃烧是物质与氧气的化学反应，其研究成果不仅为现代化学奠定了基础，也为理解烹饪中的加热过程、食物燃烧产热（即卡路里测定的基础）提供了理论依据[^1]。19世纪，德国化学家尤斯图斯·冯·李比希（Justus von Liebig）出版了《食物化学在农业与生理学中的应用》（*Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur und Physiologie*）一书，首次系统分析了食物中的碳水化合物、蛋白质、脂肪等核心营养成分的化学结构，阐明了发酵、美拉德反应等烹饪核心现象的化学机理，被公认为食品化学学科的奠基人，也标志着烹饪从经验实践正式进入科学指导阶段[^2]。 The node that truly promoted the systematic combination of cooking and chemistry is the establishment of the modern chemistry discipline. In the 18th century, French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier clarified the nature of combustion through experiments, proving that combustion is a chemical reaction between substances and oxygen. His research results not only laid the foundation for modern chemistry, but also provided a theoretical basis for understanding the heating process in cooking a