3.5
Kitchen Mysteries
ByPublisher Description
In
, 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
"
is another tour de force for the French scientific chef . . . Highly Recommended."—Choice
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesKitchen Mysteries Reviews
3.5
“Loved all of the amazing facts that were included in this book. I was researching food science and came across this book. It’s very entertaining to read. It’s organized in short, easy to read sections. If you’re into science, food, or weird facts, check out this book.”
“this is the dude that invented molecular gastronomy -- the scientific investigation of culinary practice!!! some chefs around the world take his principles and a lot of creativity and make crazy food like foams and gels and shit. it's got more to do with bragging rights than nutrition, but it is so cool.
this book is an exploration of the chemistry and physics behind the crazy science experiments we make for meals. this is his second book, and here he focuses specifically on things that happen in your everyday kitchen with your everyday tools and pretty general ingredients. a lot of it is focused on cooking i don't do - cream, butter, eggs, meat, not really mediums i get into - but the chemical and physical reactions taking place are a frame of reference for thinking about what you are doing in the kitchen. from DIY alcoholic distillation (with a dry reference to the illegality of the practice) to the chemical reactions that happen when you sauté mushrooms in butter, This uses clear examples to illustrate the chemistry behind each bite you take. he provides a quick history of molecular gastronomy & the physiology of taste to ensure you are a well-rounded gourmand. i even learned about tasting wines and making béchamel sauce, two things i am pretty sure i didn't care about before reading this.
additionally, This is a proponent (in some specific circumstances) of using microwave cooking deliberately to aid the chef -- this embracing of microwave technology is not something i have heard much of from gourmands, and it was interesting to me that he was a proponent of that tool, albeit in very specific circumstances. i was also interested in his discussions of pressure cookers and copper pots and wooden spoons. the man is a wealth of information!
a lot of the chemistry and physics were too complicated for me to retain the details, especially the details of specific reactions and molecules, but i think that the most important take-home was the framework of thinking about cooking as a chemistry experiment, and considering some of the major themes - temperature, enzymes, reactions, chemical bonds, viscosity, phases, convection, conduction and radiant heating, and so on. now, it is all in the back of my brain when i'm in the kitchen!”
About Hervé This
Hervé This is a physical chemist on the staff of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. He is the author of Columbia's Molecular Gastronomy and of several other books on food and cooking. He is a monthly contributor to Pour la Science, the French-language edition of Scientific American. Jody Gladding is a poet and has translated twenty works from French, most recently, Madeleine Ferrière's Sacred Cow Mad Cow, which also appears in the Arts and Traditions of the Table series.
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