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CORVALLIS, Ore. – Rachel Ankeny, a senior lecture in the School of History at the University of Adelaide in Australia, will speak on molecular gastronomy in a lecture on Thursday, Nov. 8, at Oregon State University.

Her talk is part of OSU’s 2007-08 Horning Endowment and Outreach in Biotechnology lecture series. Titled “How to Cook an Egg and Other Lessons from the Kitchen-Lab: A History of Molecular Gastronomy,” the lecture begins at 4 p.m. in the Memorial Union Lounge on campus. It is free and open to the public.

Although the term “molecular gastronomy” was coined only in the late 1980s, investigations of the application of science to culinary practices have a long history. So what distinguishes recent efforts, and more generally, what is molecular gastronomy as opposed to food science? This lecture explores the concepts underlying molecular gastronomy and particularly its connections to the content and rhetoric of molecularization in the late 20th century.

Ankeny is the manager of the Graduate Program in Gastronomy at the University of Adelaide. She holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master of Arts degree in Gastronomy from the University of Adelaide.

The next lecture in the series will be Thursday, Nov. 15. Gary Marchant of Arizona State University will speak on “The Role and Rule of Law in the Global Development of Food Biotechnology.”

Support for the OSU series comes from the Thomas Hart and Mary Jones Horning Endowment in the Humanities, the History Department, and the Wait and Lois Rising Lectureship Fund in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

For more information, contact the History Department at 541-737-3421 or go to http://oregonstate.edu/cla/history/lectures/horning/07_08.php.