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On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (精装)
by Harold McGee
| Category:
Cookbook, Gastronomic science, Culinary Arts & Techniques |
| Market price: ¥ 418.00
MSL price:
¥ 368.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The revised and updated twentieth anniversary edition of the classic "On Food And Cooking" features 90 percent new material, addressing the culinary mechanics, mysteries, and trends of the past 20 years. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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Bobby Flay, chef-co-owner of Mesa Grill and Bolo and author of Bobby Flay's Boy Gets Grill, USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
Harold McGee has once again done the work and research for us all. Any culinary question is now easily answered in On Food and Cooking. It's virtually the 'tell me why' for adults in the kitchen. |
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Shirley O. Corriher, author of CookWise (MSL quote), USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
Harold McGee changed our lives with his original On Food and Cooking. While we knew that many things in cooking worked or didn't work, McGee showed us why. This new edition is the most complete book on food that I have ever seen, and it is easy to read-an inconceivable amount of information made incredibly accessible. On Food and Cooking is unique, engrossing reading and a major contribution to great culinary literature. |
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Charlie Trotter, chef-owner of Charlie Trotter's , USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
Without an understanding of basic food science and practical cooking technique, there can ultimately be no true creativity in the kitchen! Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is the definitive treatise on this subject that both the professional and home cook will absolutely require to move their cooking forward. |
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Rick Bayless, author of Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen and Mexico One Plate at a Time , USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
A must-have resource for any student of the stove, On Food and Cooking synthesizes details from a wide variety of scientific disciplines and gastronomic traditions, sparking the reader's culinary imagination with every turn of the page. Harold McGee possesses that most rare combination: a scientist's skill and a cook's heart. |
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Thomas Keller, chef-owner of The French Laundry and Per Se, USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
Having the pleasure of working with Harold McGee at The French Laundry kitchen was a dream come true. On Food and Cooking continues to be the most accurate source of information for generations of chefs. A charismatic teacher, Harold is a veritable fountain of information and without peer in our industry. His books are the most worn and dog-eared of my entire collection.
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Carol Watkins (MSL quote), USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
I bought this book as a birthday present for my husband, a former chemist and sometimes gourmet cook. He had enjoyed the original version of this book and also liked the Curious Cook. I heard that the revised edition was significantly updated, so I got it for him right away. I figured that he would periodically read chapters on his own. Here is what surprised me: It has become the bedtime story book for our almost 10 year old son. I knew that my husband would like it, so I excitedly showed it to my youngest son. He perusing it himself. Of course he did not understand much of it without lengthy explanations. So my husband started to read it to him, explaining the obscure parts. I thought that my son would get bored after a couple of nights of this, but they have been at it for quite a while and my son has not asked to switch books.
The author covers a wide variety of types of foods and food issues. It starts with seections based on food types. Milk and milk products are the first. Once you read about the chemical, physical and aesthetic properties of a food, you want to go out and try the foods or food combinations yourself.
The revised edition is significantly different from the original. If you are the type of person who likes the science behind food, you will probably also be the type who cares whether your information is up to date. If you are more of a chemistry dilettante like me, you will appreciate the interesting writing style and the relevance to current cooking and nutrition issues. If you are a science-oriented 10 year old, you will enjoy telling your classmates and teachers lurid details about what they are currently chewing. Since you can cloak these lurid details in legitimate basic science, the teachers generally have to let you keep talking.
This book explains the "why" of the way ingredients mix together to make a tasty or unpalatable food. While this is not a recipe cookbook, the author does provide valuable information on how to choose and store foods to ensure the best quality. Understanding the basic principles of food chemistry enables a cook to improvise and sometimes sustitute ingredients. It explains how the different constitutents of milk influence the milk's properties. This in turn helps explain how we arrive at different properties of cheeses. the author takes you from the overall look of the food down to the molecular level.
The book helps one understand food safety and spoilage. Advances in our understanding of food safety are reflected in this book.
In sum, I recommend this book for erudite cooks and chemists, as well as diletanttes (like me) who want to know more about selected foods. I would not recommend this as bedtime reading for most 10 year olds, but for a certain subset - the type of kid who is always asking "why" it might be a good source of answers. |
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Vincent Poirier (MSL quote), Ireland
<2007-11-25 00:00>
Why does waiting a few days before boiling your eggs make them easier to peel? Why is fish so soft and flaky compared to beef or chicken? What makes white and red meat different? Why does bread rise? Why does flour thicken a sauce? Why do vegetables become softer as they cook? This book answers all these questions and many more.
We learn to cook by following recipes from grandma, from books, or from TV; that is by following step-by-step instructions. But, for example, why do we have to brown a slab of beef before roasting it? McGee describes in great detail the properties of the materials we cook with (meat, milk, vegetables, and so on) and the effects when we simmer, broil, grill, steam, or braise them. So a quick browning of a block of meat caramelizes the outside, which creates complex flavours as the dish is then slowly roasted; browning doesn't seal in flavours already present, as is commonly thought. That's a useful thing to know, and can be applied to other things besides roasting meat. For instance, do you want those complex flavours in your soups? If so, stir fry the vegetables a few seconds before adding them to the stock. Do you want a lighter, softer sauce? Then don't broil the bones before simmering them to make the stock you'll use.
The section on sauces is perhaps the most useful in the book. We find out the characteristics of a good sauce, how they are classified, how to make them, and why each step followed is needed. Understanding all that will improve your gravies and sauces immensely, without having even to follow the rather heavy demands of professional sauce making.
This book belongs in every family's kitchen and in every chef's private library. McGee's clear and detailed explanations will improve your understanding of cooking and thus the quality of the meals you prepare. I've had it for five years now, and refer to it constantly. |
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Lee Carlson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
For those who are interested in the physics and chemistry of cooking, this book is one of the few in existence that gives a fairly detailed overview. The author's account is purely descriptive, and does not involve any mathematics, but it is very interesting reading and is accessible to all who want to approach cooking in a more in-depth fashion. My review will cover the 1984 edition of this book.
A lot of my questions regarding utensils, baking and frying temperatures, and food preparation were answered by the author. Specifically, the following questions, some of which I wondered about while musing in the kitchen over the years, are answered by the author (and other readers will no doubt find many more of their own answered also): 1. What are the role of casein particles in giving milk the appearance it has? 2. How does the homogenization of milk prevent milk from separating and forming a layer of cream at the top? 3. Why do some people prefer acidophilus milk? 4. Why should milk be kept out of high intensity light? 5. Why is it best to chill the bowl and beaters before whipping cream? 6. What is the basic structure of butter? 7. What is the difference between "ghee" and clarified butter? 8. How is cheese made? 9. What factors contribute to the degradation in flavor of eggs after being laid? 10. What is the role of water loss in the effective cooking of eggs? 11. What is the occasional greenish-gray appearance on hard-boiled eggs? 12. What is the optimum temperature range for frying eggs? 13. Why does the egg yolk degrade the volume of egg foams? 14. What keeps the egg foam from collapsing in the actual cooking phase? 15. What role does cream of tarter have in the volume of egg foams? 16. Why do you whip egg whites at room temperature? 17. Is there really an advantage in using copper bowls to whip egg whites? 18. Why is fish flaky rather than firm like birds and mammals? 19. Does the way an animal is slaughtered play any role in the flavor of the resulting meat? 20. What is the role of aging on the flavor of meat? 21. Why do meat leftovers typically taste different than the freshly cooked? 22. Does the searing of meat really retain the inner moisture? 23. Why is it best to cut off the green tuber portions of potatoes before preparing the potatoes for consumption? 24. Why should one refrain from eating apple seeds? 25. What is the role of ethylene in speeding up ripening? 26. What is the optimum temperature range to cook french fries? 27. How does okra thicken soups and sauces? 28. Why is saffron so expensive? 29. What is converted rice? 30. Why does popcorn pop? (The author gives an "educated guess"). 31. Why is a diet dominant in corn dangerous? 32. What are the historical origins behind the names Kellogg and Post? 33. How is soy sauce made? 34. Why do legumes cause gas after consumption? 35. What is the role of gluten in the kneading of bread dough? 36. Why does bread go stale in storage? 37. How does starch thicken a sauce? 37.What is the best way to make fudge? 38. How is beer made and what are the most critical factors in the process? 39. How long in human history have additives been put into food?
The author also inserts many interesting photographs into the book, such as photographs of a yolk granule and the ripening bacteria in Gouda chesse, both taken through a scanning electron microscope. In addition, detailed discussions are given of general nutrition and body chemistry. The book ends with a helpful summary of the general principles behind cooking.
This is an excellent book and should be on the shelf of all who are seriously into cooking. It has been very helpful in my own musings in the kitchen. But alas, despite the advice given in this book, and many others, I have have never been able to make buttercream frosting without it curdling. Life is hard. |
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J.V.Lewis (MSL quote), USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
This book does more than any other I'm aware of to bring cooking out of the traditionalist confines of practice, and to free it with science. In the process, it manages to confirm tradition and practice, and to frequently shed new light on old methods. Cooking schools and cookbooks, with few exceptions, have always relied upon simple, prescriptive instructions without explanations. Students are told to add a roux to demi-glace to create a clasic brown sauce, but aren't informed of the chemistry that makes the sauce thick and silky. Mr. McGee provides the explanation, in lucid, perfectly informative text, with enough detail to satisfy the nerds, and with enough enthusiasm to keep the casual cook entertained. And more serious cooks will understand the science and use it as a springboard to improvements and new improvisation. The spirit of the new cuisine, as propounded by El Bulli and the like, with its radical rethinking of food as chemistry, is possible only because McGee and others have organized and explained the facts behind the ingredients. But, for those of you who prefer a good old-fashioned bistro supper to foamed winter savory over a gel of seawater, McGee's book will be a revelation and an entertainment. If you read and understand the science of browning meat, you will get better at it. But you will also find yourself jumping from the meat-browning explanation to a treatise on protein, which will lead you to the chemistry of sauces, which will pique your interest in glaces and reductions, which will lead you to... If you tend to browse in dictionaries and encyclopedias, this book is for you. And if you're skeptical of the simplifications of cookbooks, or confused by their oft-conflicting advice, you will begin turning to this book to disentangle the traditions and complement your knowledge. I use it for menu planning, recipe refinement, helping my daughter with her school report on fast foods and saturated fats, and staying awake in the bathtub. I've also used it to settle a bet [I won a bottle of E. Guigal White Hermitage 1998] and to correct an error in the Larousse Gastronomique [something tremendously important to do with heating foie gras].
I believe that most cooks would benefit greatly from relying more on reference books and less on recipe books. And of all my food reference books, this one has been the most enlightening. |
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Pumpkin King (MSL quote), USA
<2007-11-25 00:00>
This is a remarkable book on why and how foods react the way they do. Though chemistry plays a large part in the understanding of food that McGee imparts (it has to), it is very basic and a short primer in the appendix tells you all you'll need to know. Because cooking and food underlie our very existence, and also because they are great sources of pleasure, the topic cannot but be fascinating. However, the mystification of food abounds, and the facts are hard for most people to verify. ON FOOD AND COOKING is a book that can be read straight through or as a reference, but will always increase your knowledge of how foods work.
It is comprehensive, historical, and scientific, and McGee's aim is to inform the reader enough so that s/he can cook, and also so that s/he can make decisions about food that are intelligent. Not only does he discuss pretty much any type of food you can think of, he also discusses artificial additives, nutrition, and digestion. And although the book was written in 1984, the advice he gives is always sound and cautious. Food is understandable. If you love watching PBS cooking shows, this book will enhance your knowledge of what the cooks are doing. If you love watching the food network... well, there is probably less to understand, but it will still enhance your viewing. In any case, if you love cooking and food, it is difficult to overlook a book of this magnitude. |
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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