Kitchen Mysteries
Revealing the Science of Cooking
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“This’s molecular gastronomy is garnished with [his] own rich philosophy of food and flavor” in a book that reveals the science behind everyday cooking (Nature).
In Kitchen Mysteries, Hervé This—international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy—offers a second helping of his world-renowned insight into the science of cooking, answering such fundamental questions as what causes vegetables to change color when cooked and how to keep a soufflé from falling. He illuminates abstract concepts with practical advice and concrete examples—for instance, how sautéing in butter chemically alters the molecules of mushrooms—so that cooks of every stripe can thoroughly comprehend the scientific principles of food.
By sharing the empirical principles chefs have valued for generations, Hervé This adds another dimension to the suggestions of cookbook authors. He shows how to adapt recipes to available ingredients and how to modify proposed methods to the utensils at hand. His revelations make difficult recipes easier to attempt and allow for even more creativity and experimentation. Promising to answer your most compelling kitchen questions, Hervé This continues to make the complex science of food digestible to the cook.
“Cooks who want to learn more about the chemistry and physics that make their efforts possible will discover useful things here.”—Booklist
“This has made invisible processes visible, revealed the mysteries, and the bread has risen, baked, and been enjoyed.”—Appetite for Books
“[An] eye-opening book.”—Portsmouth Herald
“Kitchen Mysteries is another tour de force for the French scientific chef . . . Highly Recommended.”—Choice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of Curious Cook Harold McGee will relish the latest from This (Molecular Gastronomy), a French chemist and foodie hero who has helped to usher in the current restaurant world vogue for turning the kitchen into a laboratory. This uses simple questions and observations about food ( Does hot pepper burn a hole in the stomach? ; Why must infants not be fed sausages? ) as springboards for delightful explorations into culinary scientific principles. In brief, confident chapters, he moves through assorted ingredients (milk, vegetables, cheese), cooking methods (steaming, roasting, deep-frying) and whole categories of food and drink (bread, cake, sauces, salad) in his quest to explain kitchen phenomena. The book is more practical than theoretical, as This often breezes over much of the science, focusing not on the experiments and equations that answered his questions but rather on what they mean for the cook: how to ripen tomatoes properly, why to cook a roux for a long time, and so on. He distances himself even further from typical scientific writing with his charmingly enthusiastic tone, which keeps his prose from sounding dry even when he goes into more details about enzyme properties or protein varieties, so that even those who might be turned off by the thought of food chemistry will quickly be drawn in by his obvious love of food and eagerness to apply his research to helping people cook better.
