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The Science of Cooking 2001st Edition

4.0 out of 5 stars 19 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-3540674665
ISBN-10: 3540674667
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  • The Science of Cooking
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 244 pages
  • Publisher: Springer; 2001 edition (June 8, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 3540674667
  • ISBN-13: 978-3540674665
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 0.6 x 6.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I recently purchased "On Food and Cooking", hoping to find a good, comprehensive book on food science. While there was a lot of good detail in that book, much of the detail was buried among less interesting historical digressions, and the space taken up by those digressions seemed to be depriving me of some details I really did care about.

In contrast, "The Science of Cooking" makes no pretense of being encyclopedic in its coverage of food science. Instead, the focus is directly on the chemical and physical processes at work in the kitchen. As such, it succeeds admirably, and much of the information that seemed "missing" from "On Food and Cooking" here seems simply absent because it is outside the scope of the work.

While the introductory material gets a little condescending at times (I mean, who actually needs to be told what an atom is?), and some of the sidebars get overly technical for most people (do you really care about differential equations?), such sections are easily ignored. The few really queasy technical discussions are even set in a different background color to let you know they may not be for the faint-of-heart (and the rest of those colored sidebars are quite readable and interesting on their own).

Be aware that the author is a scientist, not a chef. This book is tightly focused on chemical and physical effects of ingredients. Things like flavor and food safety are not part of the discussion, beyond a few passing mentions.
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Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
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.
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Format: Hardcover
The author does a good job describing the scientific (especially biochemical) basis behind cooking. However, he makes a fundamental mistake regarding thermodynamics when he states that metals tend to have higher heat capacities than water, and therefore take longer to heat up in an oven at a fixed temperature. This is wrong for two major reasons: a) metals tend to have lower heat capacities than water, not higher, and b) metals have extraordinarily high thermal conductivities, speeding their heating rates up dramatically. Anybody can verify that a piece of metal will heat up much more quickly than an equal mass of water in an oven at a fixed temperature. Perhaps it shouldn't, but mistakes like this one make me suspicious of the validity of the rest of the work.
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Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Fascinating exploration into the physics of cooking, written in an engaging and detailed style. Probably better for the scientist who cooks than for the cook who's into science, since the language is sometimes a little dense for the layperson. Worth working through, though, if only for the gorgeous and elegant formula for figuring out how long to boil your eggs to get them EXACTLY right.

One caveat: the author is British, and recipes, measurements, and terms are geared for the British/European cook. This means you'll find a complete explanation of sausage rolls and nothing about popcorn. Just FYI.
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Format: Hardcover
I paid more than $30 to buy such a superficial and trivial book: I made a big mistake. This book is considered a textbook; but the contents are magazine article levels. It consists of only 244 pages including index etc. I expected the contents to be concise and dense. Unfortunately, my expectation was wrong.

The problems arise when academic (EGG HEAD) person tries to write about the field that he is not physically trained very well. This person should have consulted with real culinary professionals. I just cannot believe that this book has actually been used in the universities in England. I never thought British standard was that low.

This book is translated in Japanese, too. And the reviews for this book by Japanese readers were quite low. I did not listen to the Japanese reviews and trusted American reviews at Amazon. The sample inserts visible from amazon looked very promising and I found some paragraph that turns me on in Genoise sponge section, because I am very familiar with it. When I received this book and read the entire section about Genoise cake, I felt like I was tricked by a con-artist. Good Introduction, followed by shallow under-analyzation/observation of everything. When I saw the trouble shooting chart, I became very very angry. This person apparently is a NOVICE. I am 100% sure this guy's Genoise would be less than presentable.

When you write and publish something, you should not only know it theoretically but also know and own it through infinitely many trials and errors. The knowledge without experiences is rather harmful than useful.

Instead of real scientific and technical information, this book is covered by mediocre elementary school level experiments, which are usually pointless and useless.
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