Women in Chemistry: Shirley Corriher

Shirley O. Corriher

A delicious dish like this rich dessert is a chemical creation. When the world's top chefs have a question about a new recipe, they ask Shirley O. Corriher if the chemistry is right for making sensational food. Corriher, a chef and biochemist, also knows that chocolate's not entirely sinful. It contains flavonoids and antioxidants that help battle disease. So go ahead and enjoy this luxurious creation!

Cooking tips from Shirley Corriher:

Lemon or lime juice can add a nice flavor to vegetables, but it can also make them loose their color. This is because citrus fruit juices are very acidic, and color compounds in vegetables are often pH-sensitive. Instead of juice, use lemon zest (shavings from the peel) to perk up your vegetables.
Speaking of vegetable color, don't cook your veggies too long. Green vegetables get their color from chlorophyll, and heat makes chlorophyll break down. Cook vegetables no more than 7 minutes if you want to retain their bright color.
The amount of protein in flour is very important. Breads should be made from high-protein flour, and cakes from low-protein flour.

Courtesy Shirley O. Corriher.

". . . I see a little technical information as liberating, something that enhances creativity. If you know the limiting factors in a recipe, you're free to go wild with the rest."

—Institute of Culinary Education interview

About Her Life

Shirley O. Corriher (b. 1935) worked a lot of different jobs before she became the chemical consultant to the world's great chefs. She got her bad knee while working as a water-skiing acrobat at Callaway Gardens in her home state of Georgia. Later she became a biochemist and worked in a lab at Vanderbilt University Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. After that, she and her then-husband opened a boarding school for boys. She had to cook for 140 boys every day, and this was her first taste of cooking for a living. She ultimately trained as a gourmet chef and made a name for herself by using her knowledge of chemistry to get better results in the kitchen. She now lives in Atlanta but travels across North America teaching both great chefs and amateurs what a little chemistry can do for their cooking.

In 1997 Corriher published her award-winning popular book Cookwise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, which won the 1998 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award for Food Reference and Technique. She is a regular guest on TV cooking shows and a regular contributor to culinary magazines.

Cooking is chemistry, and to be a chef is to be a chemist, whether the chef realizes it or not. Thanks to Corriher, a lot of chefs do realize it, and the results have been delicious. Bon appétit!

For Further Reading on the Web

Institute of Culinary Education's "Interview with Shirley O. Corriher" — originally published in The Main Course, May 2003.

Yeast's Crucial Roles in Breadbaking — article by Shirley O. Corriher on the Taunton Press Web site; originally published in Fine Cooking 43: 80–81.

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