Chemistry in the Kitchen

Jan Calábek / Czechoslovakia / 1956 / The film already had its Czech Premiere / 14 min.

synopsis

The kitchen is an alchemist’s workshop, and the chef is a master of secret teachings. He commands molecules to bubble, boil, rise, change their state, shape, and colour. This educational film shows that cooking an egg or letting dough rise can be a fascinating chemical and physical process, and that our body is a small laboratory, with its own test tubes, gauges, and instruments.

biography

Jan Calábek (1903–1992) was a cinematographer, director, researcher, and professor of plant physiology at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University and the University of Agriculture in Brno. He was one of the pioneers of scientific cinematography. Alice Růžičková and Jiří Procházka made a montage film based on his films, Calábek Autonomous (2014).