This book provides a solid introduction to the science of food. It describes what food is made of at the chemical level, and how food reacts to various cooking processes. The information presented in this book is essential to understanding how food substances behave in the kitchen.This book is intended for students in food science or culinary arts courses, but anyone wanting to deepen his or her knowledge of food would benefit from reading it. It is a textbook, not light reading, however. Alton Brown's "Food + Heat = Cooking" is a much more fun read, although not nearly as comprehensive as this book.
Although the book starts at a fairly basic level, readers with a high school-level understanding of chemistry will get much more out of it. Most technical terms are defined in the margin of the pages where they are first used. Some of the definitions are simply baffling, however. For example, mass is defined as "the tendency of an object to remain at rest if it is stationary or to continue in motion if it is already moving." Most people call this inertia, not mass, and although the two are basically synonymous, this definition would simply confuse someone trying to visualize a kilogram of flour in motion.
Another drawback of this book is the illustrations and photographs. While some are clear and helpful, entirely too many are faded, blurry relics from the 1970s. Low-resolution photos are blown up to fill half a page. Techniques like boning a whole chicken breast (p. 745) are illustrated by muddled line drawings. The book was obviously designed on the cheap, as far too many photographs are practically ads for Dole and Land o' Lakes with ridiculous captions like "These fruit smoothies...make a wonderful addition to any breakfast." Attributions should have been confined to a photo credit list, rather than tacking onto every caption commercial messages like "Courtesy of World Kitchens Inc., makers of Baker's Secret."
These rough edges aside, Introductory Foods is a well-written text on food science, presenting essential information in an understandable way.
