Science on Screen®: Like Water for Chocolate Food, Emotion, and the Science of Nourishment
June 1 @ 6:00 pm
Free – $14
Before the screening of Like Water for Chocolate, Carmen Pacheco will explore how food carries emotion, memory, culture, and identity while also serving as a fascinating lens into science and engineering. Through stories and examples from Mexican cuisine, chocolate making, flavor development, heat transfer, emulsions, and sensory science, the talk will examine how nourishment extends far beyond nutrition and connects deeply to human experience.
The film shows us that cooking is not only chemistry and heat transfer. Food also carries memory, culture, identity, resistance, and emotion. Mole, chocolate, and salsa become both scientific and human transformations.
- Join us at 5:30 PM to enjoy the Dairy’s current exhibition, Set the Table: The Art of Nourishment (open daily from 12 PM) with a limited tasting of fresh salsa and Oaxacan mole provided by Carmen Pacheco.
- 6:00 PM Lecture; 7 PM Film Screening.
- Free for Dairy Arts Center Members!
About the Speaker
Carmen Pacheco is Associate Teaching Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Food Engineering Graduate Certificate at the University of Colorado Boulder. Originally from Sonora, Mexico, she combines engineering, food science, sustainability, culture, and sensory experience through innovative courses such as Design of Coffee and Design of Chocolate. Her work explores how food connects people, history, science, and identity.
About the Film
When tradition prevents her from marrying the man she loves, a young woman discovers she has a unique talent for cooking.
(Alfonso Arau, Mexico, 1992, 1:45, R)