What is oil, why do we cook with it, and why do things taste so much better with it?
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Oil is a lipid/fat with short molecule chains. This allows them to be liquid at room temp. Other fats like lard or butter are longer chain and are more solid. They all are chains of carbon with hydrogen sticking out like legs on a centipede with the carbon being the body of the centipede.
We cook with it for several reasons. First it acts as a lubricant to keep food from sticking to pans. Second it increases the surface area of the food in contact with the cooking surface leading to faster cooking and more even browning (Adam Ragusea has a video on this on YouTube)
It makes food taste better 3 ways. 1 our bodies are hardwired to want to eat calorie-dense food as a survival mechanism and oils/fats are very calorie dense. 2 the better browning mentioned above leads to more tasty chemicals through the Maillard (sp?) reactions. 3 some flavor chemicals cannot be dissolved into water but CAN be dissolved in the fat (like how nail polish is waterproof but acetone/polish remover can dissolve it). Our tongues can only really taste stuff that is dissolved either in water, oil, or our saliva so having oil present let’s those other flavors reach our taste receptors.
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