The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore
by Harold McGee
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harold McGeeEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1990-01-01
ISBN: 0865474524
Number of pages: 339
Publisher: North Point Pr
Book Reviews of The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore
Book Review: Sloppy Writing, Sloppy Science, Part 2
Summary: 3 Stars
This book, a sequel to On Food and Cooking, is a look at the culinary world through the eyes of pop science. Despite a drastically different approach by the author this time around (real kitchen experiments as opposed to just spinning endless yarns loosely based on a myriad, unfootnoted sources), the results are similar: closer to Danielle Steel than Scientific American. If you liked this book's predecessor, then you will certainly like this one; if you thought it was worthy of a garage sale, you are unlikely to have a different view of this sequel.
This book has 2 distinct parts. The first one (190 pages) has eleven chapters, each focused on a specific subject and a series of related kitchen experiments that are fully documented. The nicely systematic approach of the author reminds one of a similar technique used by Cooks Illustrated magazine for their recipe development. The subjects are: cooking meat, oil splatter, simmering meats, green color of vegetables, de-gassing sun chokes, buerre blanc, hollandaise and bearnaise sauces, mayonnaise, artificial ripening of persimmons at home, fruit ices, and miscellaneous. Some of this material is of substantial practical value: the chapters on sun chokes and fruit ices have good recipes you can actually use. Those who are mystified by buerre blanc, hollandaise, or mayonnaise, or who have trouble making them, will find the appropriate chapters quite enlightening.
The second part, consisting of 6 chapters (120 pages) is mostly drivel. 3 chapters are devoted to the kind of stuff you can find in health magazines at the supermarket checkstand: dietary fat and heart disease, food and cancer, Alzheimer's and aluminum cookware. 3 chapters are devoted to a bit of culinary history: Brillat-Savarin, Maillard.
In the end, reading this book is fun, but I would not take the information it presents too seriously.
Summary of The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore
Cooking with aluminum pots and pans doesn't cause Alzheimer's disease. This is only one of the curious facts that fill The Curious Cook--a book that persuasively demonstrates that science can enrich everyday experiences liek cooking, eating, and living.Reference Books
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