Cooking: The Quintessential Art (California Studies in Food and Culture) [Hardcover]

Hervé This (Author), Pierre Gagnaire (Author), M. B. DeBevoise (Translator)

Book Description

Series: California Studies in Food and Culture | Publication Date: October 1, 2008

From its intriguing opening question--"How can we reasonably judge a meal?"--to its rewarding conclusion, this beautiful book picks up where Brillat-Savarin left off almost two centuries ago. Hervé This, a cofounder (with the late physicist Nicholas Kurti) of the new approach to studying the scientific basis of cooking known as molecular gastronomy, investigates the question of culinary beauty in a series of playful, lively, and erudite dialogues. Considering the place of cuisine in Western culture, This explores an astonishing variety of topics and elaborates a revolutionary method for judging the art of cooking. Many of the ideas he introduces in this culinary romance are illustrated by dishes created by Pierre Gagnaire, whose engaging commentaries provide rare insights into the creative inspiration of one of the world's foremost chefs. The result is an enthralling, sophisticated, freewheeling dinner party of a book that also makes a powerful case for openness and change in the way we think about food.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Among the arts, culinary art ranks as one of the least objectively defined, yet it’s one universally enjoyed. In recent years, molecular gastronomy’s deconstructions have forced some deeper thought about taste and its relationship to other senses of smell, sight, touch, and even hearing. To illustrate his theories of taste in classic style, This invents dialogues among characters representing different schools of philosophical thought. He seeks to develop a scholarly aesthetic of taste that can stand up to the same sort of analysis that the visual arts enjoy. French chef Gagnaire applies This’ theory to kitchen practice. The recipes he offers assume command of all the skills required in classical French cooking as well as access to pristinely fresh ingredients, such as foie gras and kidneys. This’ work is an intellectual exercise wholly removed from food-entertainment television. --Mark Knoblauch

Review

"An intellectual exercise wholly removed from food-entertainment television."--Booklist

"A quality addition to any bookshelf; it has much to contribute to the longstanding discussion of cooking as art, and of chefs as artists."--Gastronomica

Solid, intellectual and charming case for why food sits, and will remain, on the front lines of global artistic and cultural relevance.--Denver Post

"Composed with careful planning, unique ingredients and an element of novelty that will leave your taste buds in awe."--World Literature Today

"Art history linked with food and cooking philosophy, wrapped in a romance, wrapped in a mystery."--Ochef.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520252950
• ISBN-13: 978-0520252950
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hervé 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Herve This is keeping busy writing! This is his philosophy of cooking book, October 26, 2009

By 

Michael A. Duvernois (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cooking: The Quintessential Art (California Studies in Food and Culture) (Hardcover)

First off, this is not really a cookbook. There are some recipes derived in the text, but the process is what this book is about, not instructions for going into the kitchen and making something fabulous.

The book starts with the question of how can we judge a meal, how can we judge a dish, and moves forward through dialogs, cooking thought experiments, and mathematical digressions. It's molecular gastronomy chat time between This and chef Pierre Gagnaire.

Herve This seems to have an endless set of books arriving in the States recently and they deserve serious thought. Fundamentally cooking has to be based on and built up from science, but few chefs really understood anything of basic food chemistry or physics until fairly recently. That they were still able to produce wonderful meals is a tribute to their ability, but with more background, more could be possible surely? As strictly an amateur chef, but a professional scientist, I have learned the whys of so many kitchen "do it this way because" rules from This's other books. This one is much more of a discussion, a debate even, over the fundamentals of cooking. None of it has immediate utility to me, but it is interesting and fun. Perhaps it would be of more use to others?

So, I recommend the book, but return to the caution above, you won't be headed into the kitchen with this book.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The artisitis theory of cooking, July 30, 2010

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Frank Nelson (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cooking: The Quintessential Art (California Studies in Food and Culture) (Hardcover)

This book is a little different than the other book from Herve This, Molecular Gastronomy, that I have read. It is more like an expanded version of the introduction in the previous work. I found this to be very interesting and inspiring. It also has a bit of a murder mystery feel to it, which at first seemed weird, but in the end was a reasonable way to tie all of the pieces together. There is not a single recipe I remember from this book. However, I found it to be very inspiring and has sent me off in new culinary directions. I would highly recommend this book for senior chefs in search of new inspirations, food historians, and young cerebral chefs. I do not think the causal cook looking for something to cook for Sunday roast or the Saturday Dinner party would enjoy this book. I could be wrong. This book and the other referenced here have both left my hands and been being passed around among a circle of cooks, so if you think you might be interested try it, you'll probably love it.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars rip off, December 29, 2010

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gargantua "midwest maven" (ann arbor mi) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cooking: The Quintessential Art (California Studies in Food and Culture) (Hardcover)

Move along, please. Not much to see here.No illustrations, nor colorful text, fpr that matter. If you want some food biochemistry, read Harold McGee. For gastronomy, Thomas Keller.