The Basics of Heat Cooking, ultimately, is about heat, how heat enters the food and what happens to the food when it enters. This article focuses on heat transfer in cooking, or how heat is applied to and enters food. I won't spend much time on the chemical reactions that occur in food during cooking.

In cooking, typically there is a heating element (such as a fire), a heat transfer medium (oil, water, air, a pan, etc.), and the food itself. The heat moves from the element through the medium to the food. 'Temperature' and 'heat' are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing! Temperature is the driving force for heat transfer. Like gravity moves masses, temperature moves heat. Heat moves from hotter materials to colder materials (a temperature difference causes the heat to move).

When you 'heat' something, it means you are transferring energy into it, or adding thermal energy to it. As you increase the thermal energy in a material, it often increases in temperature (but not always!). An example is boiling water. As you add heat to water, its temperature increases... until you reach the boiling point. Then, as you add heat, the temperature stays constant until the water is completely boiled off.

In cooking, there are three general ways that heat can be transferred from one material to another. Most engineers have taken