Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring The Science Of Flavor

Author: Herve This

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $29.95 AUD
  • : 9780231133135
  • : Columbia University Press
  • : Columbia University Press
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  • : 0.472
  • : July 2008
  • : 203mm X 152mm X 20mm
  • : United States
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Herve This
  • : Arts & Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
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  • : English
  • : 641.5
  • :
  • :
  • : 392
  • : TV / celebrity chef cookbooks
  • : ill
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Barcode 9780231133135
9780231133135

Description

Herve 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, Herve 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 souffle 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.

Promotion info

"It's wonderful to find out how things work in the kitchen, what the palate feels and why, and to see This experiment and think about what has not yet been done in any restaurant. Herve This's Molecular Gastronomy is one truly delectable meal for the mind!" -- Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, author of Same and Not the Same "With respect and love for what we eat, Herve This reveals to us in this wonderfully readable book the real secrets, the molecular ones, of great food. A degustation of culinary art and science!" -- Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, author of Same and Not the Same "Herve This has been a tireless promoter of 'molecular gastronomy' in France for more than a decade. In this stimulating book, he takes a close look at many familiar ingredients and techniques and shows how a scientific approach can help cooks cook both better and more inventively." -- Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Author description

Herve 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.