Good Grape Wine Company

"On Food and Cooking" is a very comprehensive work that contains a lot of very useful and interesting information. It also contains a lot of less useful information, random historical musings, and general digressions. As a result, the useful/interesting information density is much lower than I'd like, particularly given the general "verbiage density" of the text. Perhaps part of the problem is that I've gleaned too much of the information already from other sources, so that I feel like I'm wading through a lot of common knowledge to get to the bits I care about.

The book goes into a fair amount of historical detail about various ingredients. It doesn't focus on the historical aspects enough to be a "history of food" book, though, and the historical perspective tends to detract from the scientific content ratio simply by increasing the overall amount of text.

Also, there are many variations on ingredients, food safety issues, etc., that were not considered significant in 1983, but which are more relevant today. There's no discussion of salmonella in the section on eggs, for example, and no discussion of things like the impact (or lack thereof) of RBGH on milk quality. The effects of organic methods in general are given short shrift. I have observed various quality differences in organic ingredients relative to more conventional ingredients (both for better and for worse), and had hoped for some quantitative discussion of what the physical differences are, and why.

Compared to "The Science of Cooking" (my most recent read on the topic), this book doesn't cover some of the physics and organic chemistry as well, but it does go into better detail on some of the more biologically oriented topics. For example, osmotic pressure, the process by which salt and sugar preserve food, is covered fairly well in this book, while it is never directly mentioned in "The Science of Cooking".

I also wish there had been better organization of the material in the book. "The Science of Cooking", for example, is organized like a textbook, with well-marked side bars and tables, allowing you to easily skip to (or over) information that may or may not be relevant. "On Food and Cooking", however, is organized more like a novel, making it difficult to use it for reference, and complicating efforts to skip over material that is not of interest.

Also, some sections (for example the discussion of cheese) assume too much knowledge about the basic processes, making it sometimes challenging to correlate the underlying chemistry with actual kitchen mechanics. In general, the book has very few examples of "kitchen experiments" you can try yourself to develop an integrated sense of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of cooking. There are many discussions, for example, of the effects of pH on various processes, but little discussion of ways to manipulate the pH using different ingredients to help balance flavor against the needs of the chemical processes.

I still haven't found the ideal source for this sort of information. "The Science of Cooking" is at least concise and very clear in what it does cover (which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), but as I look back and compare it to "On Food and Cooking" again, I see some of the major holes in that book (which doesn't deal with the role of pH in cooking at all, for example). And so, my search continues.


Terrific   August 26, 2001
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

I have never been someone you could rightly call a "cook", but I am a chemist, so my wife - who wishes that I cooked more - got me this book. Well, I can honestly say that I do enjoy cooking more after having read it. It answers almost all of those nagging little questions that rattle around in your head for your whole life about food and food preparation - like the effects of cooking and processing on the nutritional value of food. The parts on beer and wine were particularly interesting to me, though, as I used to brew beer for myself back when I had more free time (i.e., before kids). It's really a super book and even my kids are somewhat interested in the concept that the food they're eating are understandible in a "scientific" way - as opposed to just a "food" way.


Excellent book!   July 14, 2001
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I picked this up on the suggested of Alton Brown, the host of "Good Eats" on FoodTV. If you enjoy the "how and why" elements of his show, or you are interested in learning how cooking works, you will find this book invaluable. Each chapter is relatively independent of the others, so they can be read as they appeal to you.


On Food And Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen   June 18, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is really a wonderful book. It can be appreciated as both straight reading (it from cover to cover) or as a reference. One does not need a background in chemistry but if one has a chemistry background and even a basic understanding the appreciation for the book is taken to a new level.