The Science of Cooking

good book, interesting, worthy read.

Bought as a present. Was avidly read and is still being enjoyed

The contents of the book are fascinating, and Peter enlivens thing with his personal narrative on occasion. Unfortunately his style is a little dry but the amount of information packed into this book is well worth the effoprt involved in reading it. Peter is a superb lecturer and if you get the chance go to one of his food science days run occasionally at Bristol University. Not only will Peter make ice cream using liquid nitrogen (beating Heston Blumenthal by many years) but will also freeze and shatter his tie for the amusement of his audience. Then you get to eat the practical.

very interesting book with lots of informations.

I'm studying food science at uni and this is a huge help for the basics.

This book is very different and thought provoking - if you like science.

Excellent book that describes cooking in a really informative manner. Really lets you know why you should do certain things in the kitchen. However DO NOT TRY AND BUY THIS BOOK FROM MONTEIL BOOKS. THEY 'LOST IT IN THE POST' and they did not replace it as they 'had no more in stock' and they also did not refund me my money. Buy it from someone else.

Very technical but fascinating

Excellent book! It made me a better cook. If you are scientifically minded, this book can give you the background you need to do a good job cooking anything. If not, your eyes will probably glaze over on chapters 2 and 3. The remainder of the chapters are more practical and accessible to someone without any background in chemistry.

「料理を科学する」の原著。一般的な調理に係る科学理論から個々の料理に係る科学的な調理法までを詳しく解説している。外国の書物なので日本料理は書かれていないが、いろいろな意味で参考になる書物。専門用語が出てくるので辞書を必要とする部分もあるが読みやすい。英語が苦手な人は翻訳版が出ているので比較して読むと英語の勉強にもなり、調理が楽しくなる本です。

Reviewing `The Science of Cooking' by Bristol University (UK) don Peter Barham gives me the pleasure of commenting on a book with differential equations, a subject for which I received my all time lowest grade (a D) in school. Luckily you, dear reader, these equations are no more than window dressing in a sidebar on thermodynamics which, if nothing else, convince us that Dr. Barham knows what he is talking about. And yes, dear reader, Dr. Barham most certainly knows of what he speaks. And, he does an excellent job of communicating this information to the layman.This excellent book can be evaluated on at least three different levels. On the highest level, where Barham talks about the relevance of science to cooking, the author is just a bit weak. Early in the book, he compares a cook's following a recipe to the conduct of an experiment, and I think this metaphor simply does not work, and, I think the author repudiates this notion later in the book when he does a true description of how a recipe would be written if it were an experiment. A second major weakness in his talking about science is where he describes both a recipe (experiment) and a theory as a model. Philosophers of science clearly distinguish experiment from explanation (theory) and while `model' is a good word for theory, it is definitely not a good word for experiment. Oddly enough, there are important roles for experiment in cookery, but only when one is truly developing recipes and examining the properties of a new foodstuff product. Thankfully, the author gets on to the important business at hand of actually describing science and applying it to cooking, two tasks he does with great skill.Unlike Harold McGee, Barham correctly puts his introduction to basic chemistry in the front of the book. I am sure that thousands of people will stumble over this with unprintable mutterings in an effort to get to the writing about pots and potatoes, but you must gives serendipity a fighting chance. A fair number of readers will pick up on this stuff and it will clearly improve their understanding of what follows. This is especially true as Dr. Barham or his book design team has done an excellent job of selecting illustrations of the basic organic molecules of which he speaks. There is a risk here that since I studied organic chemistry I may not have the same eye of a chemical innocent, but I think not. I believe reasonably intelligent people prefer the straight skinny rather than explanations tailored for 12 year olds. In addition to basic chemistry, Dr. Barham opens the subject of cooking with an overview of the science of food and heat and food and the senses. Here begins what is Dr. Barham's greatest single contribution to food science writing, and the thing that would make this book a superb textbook on food science. In each chapter, Barham supplies two or more experiments on food science that can easily be done at home or in a standard school chemistry lab with no expensive special equipment.I must also note that Dr. Barham is crystal clear on methods of heat distribution. This is important, as Alton Brown's first book has a major error in its opening discussion of heat transfer methods in that he does not rate convection with as much importance as conduction and radiation. Dr. Barham corrects this error by citing that in fact, convection is the most important means of heat transfer in ovens.The next chapter deals with cooking tools and the materials from which they are made. While this chapter is no match for the detail in Alton Brown's book on kitchen equipment, it does include a few cautions that I do not recall Alton's having mentioned. The most interesting is the warning against the very expensive stainless steel sheathed pots with copper or aluminum cores that extend all the way up the sides of the pot. While others have recommended this, the author warns this may cause hot spots high up on the wall of the saucepan that may have undesirable consequences if hot liquid splashes against the even hotter metal high in the pan. Unfortunately, the good doctor does not back this observation up with a demonstration, so it is no better than an anecdotal observation, but I will feel a bit more respectful to the cookware lines with only a disk of high conducting metal in the bottom.The first real foody subject is `Meat and Poultry'. I find it a bit odd that the author says that meat cookery is the one place where an understanding of science can make the biggest difference in cooking results. I can say with confidence that a scientific view of things is probably at least as important, if not more so in baking, where the effect of errors in measuring ingredients can be truly disastrous (or inventive, depending on how you look at it).This chapter is the first appearance of actual recipes and the second great contribution to food science writing (first being the experiments). Here, Dr. Barham not only gives excellently explained recipes; he also gives great little tables of problems that may arise with various cooking methods and how to solve the problems. There is little that is new here except that the presentation gets a lot of the ideas across more effectively than simple narrative. Shirley Corriher uses a similar tabular presentation, although her information is more proactive than diagnostic in that it explains the reasons for steps in the procedure rather than giving solutions for problems.Be warned that all units are metric and there are some unexplained English references here and there, such as the term `A4' for letter paper. I recommend this book very highly. It doesn't have Alton Brown's humor or Shirley Corriher's southern charm, but it is a very, very sound book, once you get past the first three pages.

This book brings the background of many cooking techniques that one follows every day but does not know why. This deeper understanding makes cooking more fun. The book however does not stay with cooking science, but discusses also the "human end", that is making dishes that also have a good taste.The book is a must for every serious hobby cook.

thanks