McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

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The writing is succinct but not tedious to follow, and every chapter packs in a spectrum of interesting facts. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I believe it will remain my favourite book of all time (and I read a lot of reference books on many subjects).

The diagrams and tables are OK, but the publishers and printers have really let down the content here. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Harold McGee's original ON FOOD AND COOKING was acclaimed as a masterpiece on both sides of the Atlantic, and won the 1986 Andre Simon Food Book of the Year. It would be a stretch to say that I am a cook or a 'foodie', but I imagine that every culinary master in America must own this book. In point of fact, if your going to get stranded on a desert island, take this along, IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!Some of our fellow humans will be repulsed by cheese because of an instinctual reaction to fermented foods.

The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious.At times, the book feels like a textbook that one would read for some sort of chemistry or cooking class, but I wouldn't say that the book as a whole is so dry as a typical textbook. I constantly refer to On Food and Cooking and I am thrilled there's more yet to learn from the master of food and science. While discussing each subject, McGee does not limit himself to the physical properties of the food at hand, or even how to prepare it. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

Many of the reviews I have read about this book suggest that it should be used more as a reference, rather than a reading book. It is not a recipe book, but even when working from a recipe, by someone else or of one's own devising, it is always worth checking detail with McGee.Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. This is a can't-put-it-down explanation of how cooking, pickling,preserving, fluffing, rising, kneading and all manner of other cooking techniques work. Did y’all just read the whole thing front to back or did you read only the sections that interested you?