McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

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If the OED had a one night stand with your O-Chem textbook while watching to food network, this would be their lovechild. It's 800 pages of all the tedious details about ingredients and cooking methods that you never wanted to know, and Harold McGee gets props for putting together these comprehensive tome. Overall it will be a good read over winter, but feels like it has been through a photocopier on 75% or something.

Instead, there are entire pages of historical and scientific context, giving a complete picture of each topic being covered. I know of no chef worth his salt who doesn't keep a copy of Harold McGee's masterwork, On Food and Cooking. Practical information, like how to tell stale eggs from fresh, is liberally sprinkled amid the science and anecdotes.From Plato’s views on cooking to electron micrographs of cheese to a description of how eggs form in a chicken’s body to the history of beer and chocolate, this book offers an intoxicating wealth of food information, trivia, and science. If you've ever wondered why fish goes off quicker than meat; how to tell stale eggs from fresh ones; why you're supposed to leave pancake batter to rest; how it is that cheese can possibly have so many different permutations of flavour and texture; why chopping onions makes you cry; about the health benefits of chocolate and alcohol; why Jerusalem artichokes make you fart; or even how to avoid poisoning your guests - then this is the book for you. I learned a lot about food and cooking food and feel this has already helped me become a better cook. Nearly anything you might want to know about the history, etymology, and process of gastronomy is covered in this volume, but even that is too dry a description to really explain how fun it is.

Among the major themes addressed throughout the 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. The book is laid out in sections of basic ingredients and explains in layman's terms (mostly) how they're constructed, why they do what they do when treated in a certain way and gives tips that will apply to literally every single meal you cook. 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. Did y’all just read the whole thing front to back or did you read only the sections that interested you? Did you know that the cell walls of mushrooms aren’t made up of cellulose, like plants, but rather of chitin, the carbohydrate-amine complex that makes up the outer skeletons of insects?Harold McGee's original ON FOOD AND COOKING was acclaimed as a masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic, and won the 1986 André Simon Food Book of the Year. Among the major themes addressed throughout the 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 foodsOn Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. Once upon a time, I was expressing my frustration with books on cooking to a chemist friend -- primarily that most books on cooking treat cooking as this magical art. This is a reference book to be consulted often -- but I read it cover to cover, and enjoyed it lots.