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Summary
Summary
An international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy, or the scientific investigation of culinary practice, Hervé This is known for his ground-breaking research into the chemistry and physics behind everyday cooking. His work is consulted widely by amateur cooks and professional chefs and has changed the way food is approached and prepared all over the world.
In Kitchen Mysteries , Hervé This 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.
Kitchen Mysteries begins with a brief overview of molecular gastronomy and the importance of understanding the physiology of taste. A successful meal depends as much on a cook's skilled orchestration of taste, odors, colors, consistencies, and other sensations as on the delicate balance of ingredients. Hervé then dives into the main course, discussing the science behind many meals' basic components: eggs, milk, bread, sugar, fruit, yogurt, alcohol, and cheese, among other items. He also unravels the mystery of tenderizing enzymes and gelatins and the preparation of soups and stews, salads and sauces, sorbet, cakes, and pastries. Hervé explores the effects of boiling, steaming, braising, roasting, deep-frying, sautéing, grilling, salting, and microwaving, and devotes a chapter to kitchen utensils, recommending the best way to refurbish silverware and use copper.
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.
Author Notes
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.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of "Curious Cook" Harold McGee will relish the latest from This (Molecular Gastronomy), a French chemist and foodie hero who has helped to usher in the current restaurant world vogue for turning the kitchen into a laboratory. This uses simple questions and observations about food ("Does hot pepper burn a hole in the stomach?"; "Why must infants not be fed sausages?") as springboards for delightful explorations into culinary scientific principles. In brief, confident chapters, he moves through assorted ingredients (milk, vegetables, cheese), cooking methods (steaming, roasting, deep-frying) and whole categories of food and drink (bread, cake, sauces, salad) in his quest to explain kitchen phenomena. The book is more practical than theoretical, as This often breezes over much of the science, focusing not on the experiments and equations that answered his questions but rather on what they mean for the cook: how to ripen tomatoes properly, why to cook a roux for a long time, and so on. He distances himself even further from typical scientific writing with his charmingly enthusiastic tone, which keeps his prose from sounding dry even when he goes into more details about enzyme properties or protein varieties, so that even those who might be turned off by the thought of food chemistry will quickly be drawn in by his obvious love of food and eagerness to apply his research to helping people cook better. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Well-respected French culinary scientist This scrutinizes how kitchen processes occur according to the laws of the natural world. As a good scientist, author This asks and answers the most fundamental, even obvious, questions, such as why cheese smells, why egg whites foam, why hot tea is so often spilled, and why alcohol intoxicates. He explains in great chemical detail the oddity that old flour makes better bread than fresh, a phenomenon familiar to bakers. Meat cookers will learn the principles underlying braising and roasting. This also deals with more abstruse subjects, such as why one ought never feed an infant sausage. For someone addressing such complex and puzzling subjects, This writes in a surprisingly casual style, much like an avuncular professor delivering oft-repeated lectures to eager young undergraduates. Cooks who want to learn more about the chemistry and physics that make their efforts possible will discover useful things here.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2007 Booklist
Choice Review
Author This (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Paris), physical chemist, gastronome, and French television personality, demystifies the kitchen and brings a unique perspective to the art and science of cooking in Kitchen Mysteries, which is part of the "Perspectives on Culinary History" series. This work is a follow-up to his Molecular Gastronomy (CH, Jun'06, 43-5856), which, although controversial among chefs, is widely imitated. While the previous volume debunked or verified several culinary myths, this one provides advice to both the novice and experienced cook on how to read between the lines in a recipe, what to do and how to do it, and why it is done that way. However, This also encourages creativity and offers information on how to modify recipes using ingredients at hand. As he weaves the basic chemistry and science of cooking into the narrative, the author examines the various methods of cooking in detail, describes appropriate (and inappropriate) use of the microwave, and presents a novel approach on the sense of taste. Kitchen Mysteries is another tour de force for the French scientific chef, valuable to cooks of all stripes and to students or teachers in food science, culinary arts, and chemistry. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers/libraries. R. E. Buntrock formerly, University of Maine
Excerpts
Excerpts
Read Hervé This on the alcohols and how long you should steep tea . Excerpted from Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking by Hervé This All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
| Series Editor's Foreword |
| Cooking and Science |
| The New Physiology of Flavor |
| Soup |
| Milk |
| Gels, Jellies, Aspics |
| Mayonnaise |
| The Egg's Incarnations |
| A Successful Soufflé ?Cooking |
| The Boiled and the Bouillon |
| Steaming |
| Braising |
| Chicken Stew, Beef Stew, Veal Stew |
| Questions of Pressure |
| Roasting |
| Deep-Frying |
| Sautés and Grills |
| Even More Tender |
| Salting |
| Microwaves |
| Vegetables: Color and Freshness |
| Sauces: Creamy, Satiny, Flavorful |
| A Burning Question |
| The Salad: An Oasis of Freshness |
| Yogurt and Cheese |
| Fruits of the Harvest |
| Ices and Sorbets |
| Cakes: Light and Melting |
| Pastry Dough: Tart, Shortbread, and Puff Pastry |
| Sugar |
| Bread |
| Wine |
| The Alcohols |
| Jams |
| Tea |
| Cold and Cool |
| Vinegar |
| Kitchen Utensils |
| Mysteries of the Kitchen |
| Glossary |
| Index |