On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Product Description
Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as “a minor masterpiece” when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they’re made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious.
Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.
On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as “molecular gastronomy.” Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.
Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are:
Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food quality
The great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients
Tips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfully
The particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasure
Our evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foods
On Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.Amazon.com Review
A classic tome of gastronomic science and lore, On Food and Cooking delivers an erudite discussion of table ingredients and their interactions with our bodies. Following the historical, literary, scientific and practical treatment of foodstuffs from dairy to meat to vegetables, McGee explains the nature of digestion and hunger before tackling basic ingredient components, cooking methods and utensils. He explains what happens when food spoils, why eggs are so nutritious and how alcohol makes us drunk. As fascinating as it is comprehensive, this is as practical, interesting and necessary for the cook as for the scholar.
$21.50
4.5
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
I wanted a cookbook and this is the book of theory. It would be great to include a better description of the work, in order to avoid mistakes, like me.
Rating: 1 / 5
This book is much more about the science of cooking. The content is much more technical than most readers desire (as with the discussion of the molecular structure of milk in their various states).
Rating: 1 / 5
Obviously, Mr. McGee falls squarely within the field of evolutionary contact. Has fine points to make regarding food, but through food anthropology he preaches the mantra that human beings are just "animals." It is unfortunate that a mind that this would take his knowledge of the history of food and in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary, the claim that we are all accidents of nature. In addition, Mr. McGee referred to the points of the biblical story, however, uses the abbreviation dating back to BCE (Before Common Era compared to just before Christ) and CE (Common Era vs. America AD - Anno Domini The year of the Lord) that denies the biblical history as the turning point of our calendar. Obviously, in the mind of Mr. McGee from the Bible is only useful when you place an historical timeline. Mr. McGee should have saved his political views and simply focused on the facts. Readers should learn the facts and ignore the personal opinions of Mr. McGee. Please take a grain of salt with every argument that Mr. McGee offers in relation to historical periods.
Rating: 3 / 5
Sorry, if one is to "correct" the Chinese trend of China's history books, which would be the world's history, not the history of China. What is wrong with European bias in books written by people of Western Heritage? Are we so guilted placed in our "colonial" age, which is actually a reverse-colonial era in which the colonized are colonizing the world in an absurdly large number, as linked to Western self-hatred syndrome we have to deny ourselves the validity of our own heritage? ALL must be globalized?
Rating: 3 / 5
This book was bought as a gift for my daughter. I have no knowledge that the book review or comment. She asked him for Christmas.
Rating: 5 / 5