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Andre

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The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore

by Harold McGee

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Andre said: " The book The Curious Cook, by Harold McGee has some very interesting aspects on the science behind cooking and includes facts in the kitchen as well as debunking myths that are prevalent in cooking today. This interests me as both a home cook, a chem The book The Curious Cook, by Harold McGee has some very interesting aspects on the science behind cooking and includes facts in the kitchen as well as debunking myths that are prevalent in cooking today. This interests me as both a home cook, a chemical engineer and pursier of the sciences. The understanding, and technical work that he has put into this is clear and simple enough to follow, and his descriptions of his experiments are useful in following along. The only problem that I have with this would lie in his procedure and development with said experiments. The first thing to note in these experiments is his uneven detail in procedure. Taken from a scientist’s point of view, it is usually helpful to point out as many of the details as possible when describing one’s procedure, so that results can be as reproducible as possible. However, in this aspect McGee seems to be lacking. An example of this can be seen while observing the experiment he did with the meat and finding how long it would take to bring it to a desired temperature while cooking, this can be found in the beginning of chapter three. This experiment, while simple in nature, makes me ask a few questions as to how exactly this can be accomplished. The first, and biggest one for me, was where exactly was the probe inserted on the meat and how far down into the meat did he go? While an average person would probably infer ‘in the top and down to the center’ this is not made as clear as one might seem. The probe itself is what calls this aspect into question as there are many different types out there and each one has its own way of gathering data in more favorable conditions. As in it might have produced better data if coming in from the side.
Technicalities and procedures aside, I greatly enjoyed this book. This provides an informative and easy to understand explanation and results of his research in the culinary works. The things that particularly strike me as interesting is his explanations and results. The way that he describes his theories or thought process, makes the book easier to follow and keeps one thinking and noticing things that we have overlooked while cooking. There were many times while reading the book in which I went, “Oh yeah, that really does happen”. Being able to bring things that would otherwise be unnoticeable, or otherwise accepted as fact, McGee calls into question and brings to the table several theories that help explain what is happening and ways to combat what is going on. The results that he gives at the end of the chapters are especially useful and are a great way of understanding what one can do to get the results that they are looking for. In addition to that he also encourages one to do some at home experimentation to produce ones own results that would work best for them, which to me implies that he encourages others to continue to try what is best for them to achieve their goal and not to imply that his methods are absolute. ...more "

Mar 05, 2018 12:08PM · see review