On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

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	• On Food And Cooking Harold J. Mcgee Scribner, 1988 - 684 pages average customer review:based on 173 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

be ready for information overload

First off, this isn't a cook book.
This is a textbook for the cook. It covers all aspects of food prep, going ingredient by ingredient. Not a quick read, it is more for reference than a bedtime reader. If ever you need to know about a food item you can find ALL the info about it here, from where it comes from, to how it interacts with other ingredients in a recipe.
Information on cooking techniques is indespensible, even if a bit wordy.
I highly recomend this book to anyone who has more than a passing interest in what makes food do what it does!

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See item 3.

This book was purchased as a gift for my daughter. I do not have any knowledge of the book to review or comment about it. She requested it for Christmas.

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On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

The origianal version was a wonderful companion for ordinary cook books and this revision is even better. Having an encyclopedia of terms, behavior, quirks, special characteristics of foods and their preparation is fun, for sure, and valuable for the curious and the experimental. If you wonder about *why* as well as how cooking instructions are as they are, this answers most of the questions. It also undoes some of the specious lore both about ingredients themselves and about how to prepare them.

It is not really a book to be used in the heat of the kitchen, however, but rather one to sit with either before trying something new or after an unexpected mishap.

The author has included his own research and acquired knowledge and has a terrific list of references in case anyone wants to get back to other sources.

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The foodies' bible.

If you care about food. If you care about cooking. This is a book to love. McGee demystifies a lot of kitchen bunk. He proves you don't have to add the broth in bits and drabs to make creamy risotto. Just throw it all in at once. Does searing meat keep the juices in? No. The best chef's hat? A baseball hat. Why? Because it keeps the vapors out of your eyes. Lots of stuff like that. Plus a little history on why we eat what we eat and where it came from. Don't let the BIG size worry you. You'll read this like a novel, then start over again. Then it will become a treasured reference.

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Evolution thrown in our face disguised as a cookbook

Obviously Mr. McGee falls squarely into the camp of an out of touch evolutionist. He has fine points to make regarding food, but through food anthropology he espouses the mantra that we humans are nothing more than "animals." It is unfortunate that such a mind as this would take his knowledge of food history and in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary, claim that we are all accidents of nature. Furthermore, Mr. McGee makes points referencing Biblical history, yet utilizes the dating abbreviation of BCE (Before Common Era vs. simply Before Christ) and CE (Common Era vs. the Latin AD - Anno Domini, The Year Of Our Lord) that denies Biblical history as the turning point of our calendar. Obviously in Mr. McGee's mind the Bible is only useful when it validates his historical timeline.

Mr. McGee should have spared us his political viewpoints and simply focused on the facts. Readers should learn from the facts and ignore Mr. McGee's personal views. Please take a grain of salt with any rationale that Mr. McGee offers regarding historical epochs.

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reviews: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, page 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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