The Biology of Food course—a large lecture course with no laboratory section—is a mixture of kitchen chemistry, post-eating food metabolism, origins of different foods (from crop breeding to evolution), and ecological and environmental impacts of farming and harvesting practices. It was initially designed to help non-science majors grasp complex scientific issues using familiar contexts at the college level. However, the approach is also directly transferable for use in high school biology courses. Nearly every topic begins with the introduction of one or more recipes, followed by student investigation of the related cooking methods and ingredients. The inquiry-based methods used in the course are described in this article.