Irrelevant anecdote: I was cooking nachos and decided to try slow cooked carnitas for the first time (I like cooking but I'm not very good at it). It was truly

Irrelevant anecdote: I was cooking nachos and decided to try slow cooked carnitas for the first time (I like cooking but I'm not very good at it). It was truly mesmerizing seeing the way the pork meat stiffened at first and then slowly softened over time. I was roughly following J Kenji Lopez Alt's recipe (look him up if you want a great resource for all things cooking). I had incorrectly covered the pork at first so steam was escaping. Once rectified with some more time (3 hours total cook time) the meat took on a whole new quality of softness after having been quite tough at 2 hours. As a science enthusiast, learning more about the interplay of heat, time interacting with things like collagen, protein matrices, fats, cell walls for veggies makes cooking so much cooler and fun for me.