Foodies Cookbook

About a month ago I was watching Diary of a Foodie on PBS when the name Harold McGee was brought up as possibly the most influential person on modern cuisine. Oddly enough McGee is a chemist rather than a chef.

McGee is one of the most cited authors in gastronomy and is sited in over 100 of the worlds best selling cookbooks. He opus On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen was describes in Publisher’s Weekly:

Starred Review. Before antioxidants, extra-virgin olive oil and supermarket sushi commanded public obsession, the first edition of this book swept readers and cooks into the everyday magic of the kitchen: it became an overnight classic. Now, 20 years later, McGee has taken his slightly outdated volume and turned it into a stunning masterpiece that combines science, linguistics, history, poetry and, of course, gastronomy. He dances from the spicy flavor of Hawaiian seaweed to the scientific method of creating no-stir peanut butter, quoting Chinese poet Shu Xi and biblical proverbs along the way. McGee’s conversational style—rich with exclamation points and everyday examples—allows him to explain complex chemical reactions, like caramelization, without dumbing them down. His book will also be hailed as groundbreaking in its breakdown of taste and flavor. Though several cookbooks have begun to answer the questions of why certain foods go well together, McGee draws on recent agricultural research, neuroscience reviews and chemical publications to chart the different flavor chemicals in herbs and spices, fruits and vegetables. Odd synergies appear, like the creation of fruity esters in dry-cured ham—the same that occur naturally in melons!

For those of us who want to know, not just the how, but the why of good food this is the ticket.

ps – and it you buy it through here you’ll help offset the cost of keeping The Spoon in business.

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