Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History) - Hardcover

This, Hervé

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 023113312X ISBN 13: 9780231133128

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Hervé This (pronounced "Teess") is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

Molecular Gastronomy, This's first work to appear in English, is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. He goes on to discuss the physiology of flavor and explores how the brain perceives tastes, how chewing affects food, and how the tongue reacts to various stimuli. Examining the molecular properties of bread, ham, foie gras, and champagne, the book analyzes what happens as they are baked, cured, cooked, and chilled.

Looking to the future, Hervé This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a soufflé rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

About this title

Book Description:

An international sensation, Molecular Gastronomy debunks a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking, but also presents new knowledge from which readers can improve the preparation of a variety of dishes. Hervé This, a physical chemist, discusses the physiology of flavor and explores the brain's perception of tastes, the effect of chewing on food, and the reaction of the tongue to various stimuli. Bringing the instruments and techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, Hervé's entertaining revelations are for cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

About the Author:

Hervé This is a physical chemist of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. One of the two founders of the science called molecular gastronomy, he is the author of Columbia's Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 023113312X
• ISBN 13: 9780231133128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392