I was thinking more of the physics/chemistry aspects of cooking. Flavour combinations are very much a personal and cultural thing. For instance, knowing that c

I was thinking more of the physics/chemistry aspects of cooking. Flavour combinations are very much a personal and cultural thing. For instance, knowing that certain ingredients release a lot of liquid when cooked, or that fresh ingredients often behave quite different to dried, canned or preserved variants. I know I'm not the only one to have used fresh pineapple with meat, and come back to find that the pineapple's enzymes have started to digest the meat and all you have left is some meat paste. Those things mean you either need to know what's going on, or be willing to experiment (and suffer the failures). Also, on the subject of wonder/deep magic aspect - I think you can still know precisely how something works and still be amazed at it. Knowing that it's billions of microorganisms eating sugars and farting CO2 causing your bread to rise is still incredibly cool.