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

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However, I’ll keep my (much smaller) copy of the 1st edition, because I want to follow how McGee’s thinking has modified and changed over the twenty years between 1984 and 2004. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. At times, the book feels like a textbook that one would read for some sort of chemistry or cooking class, but I wouldn't say that the book as a whole is so dry as a typical textbook.

I have used Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking for the last two decades whenever I've had questions on the chemistry of food or to understand some aspect of the cooking process. McGEE ON FOOD AND COOKING is a masterpiece of gastronomic writing; a rich, addictive blend of chemistry, history and anecdote that no self-respecting foodie or cook can afford to be without. For its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. If you want to know which vegetables were available at the court of Richard II, why fish is white, or the chemical composition of a saturated fat, then this is the book for you.

On Food and Cooking continues to be the most accurate source of information for generations of chefs. 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. Is is not about cooking, but about why and how cooking works, about where the flavor is in the spices and why the tomato ripens, what makes a sauce a sauce instead of gravy or soup, and what nougat really is.

On Food and Cooking is unique, engrossing reading and a major contribution to great culinary literature.He is best known for his seminal book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen initially published in 1984 and revised in 2004. A read of a page or two from here will nicely explain why, and also you can see what’s happening in front of you and tweak to get the best results. If you DO work your way through from beginning to end, and are serious about cooking, this will improve every aspect of your cooking.

Harold McGee's original ON FOOD AND COOKING was acclaimed as a masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic, and won the 1986 Andre Simon Food Book of the Year. And while it has not exactly unlocked the black art of cooking for me, it's a great resource book to have in the kitchen. Did y’all just read the whole thing front to back or did you read only the sections that interested you? The work is separated into sections that focus on the ingredients, providing the structure for the author to speculate on the history of foodstuffs and cookery, and the molecular characteristics of food flavors, [6] while the text is illustrated by charts, graphs, pictures, and sidebar boxes with quotes from sources such as Brillat-Savarin and Plutarch. If you cannot handle information purveyed to you in a dry, textbook-like manner this is not the book for you.This is definitely a reference book to be laid open on a table and lovingly dipped into by an enquiring mind. It is heavy on chemistry (and its closing pages are a chemistry primer I wish I'd had in high school; read this first), but also patient explanations that a layperson / foodie will like: What is emulsification? A charismatic teacher, Harold is a veritable fountain of information and without peer in our industry. I constantly refer to On Food and Cooking and I am thrilled there's more yet to learn from the master of food and science.