The Soft Matter Kitchen: Improving the accessibility of rheology education and outreach through food materials

Abstract

Foods can serve as a universal route for the understanding and appreciation of rheologically complex materials. The Soft Matter Kitchen is an educational outreach project started during the COVID-19 pandemic that leverages food recipes and experiments that can be carried out at home to discuss concepts in soft matter and rheology. This educational article showcases two representative outreach demonstrations developed by The Soft Matter Kitchen with detailed instructions for reproduction by a presenter. The first demonstration introduces the concept of complex materials to clarify the definition of rheology by comparing the flow behavior of whipped cream and honey. The second demonstration introduces the concept of material microstructure affecting material properties and macroscale behavior using a simple experiment with cheesecake. By grounding the presentation of this knowledge in food materials with which the audience likely already has experience, the goals of this project are to accelerate the understanding of rheological concepts, increase awareness of rheology in everyday life, and promote the development of intuition for rheologically complex materials.