A couple of books have caught my eye during the year and have naturally made their way into my Christmas wish list (and some I’ve already ordered myself). Please let me know if there are books you belive should be on this list that I have missed.

Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking
by Simon Quellen Field
288 pages

The back cover states “When you’re cooking, you’re a chemist!”. I couldn’t agree more and figured this was a book for me. I already have my copy in front of me and see there are many interesting observations and experiments described.

Heston Blumenthal at Home
by Heston Blumenthal
408 pages

The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria
by Ferran Adrià
384 pages

Ferran and Heston have jumped onto the cooking-at-home-with-great-chefs waggon. They’d be more than welcome to come and cook in my kitchen, but until that happens I’ll let their books inspire me. An important thing about these books is that, given their close collaboration with scientists, I have a high expectation that the advice given in all recipes should be scientifically sound (which of course is not the case for many other cook books).

Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters
by Gordon M. Shepherd
288 pages

I stumbled across this one by chance. It looks like a “must have” too me, and my copy is already on its way. In an interview with Salon, the author Gordon M. Shepherd, a professor of neurobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, says that:
“I began to realize that increasingly smell was for sensing the flavor of food. It goes almost unrecognized as we eat our food because we think it all comes from taste in our mouths. The more research that I did on flavor, the more I realized that the sense of smell was the dominant sense in flavor — and that we are almost totally unaware of it.”

The Oxford Companion to Beer
edited by Garrett Oliver
960 pages

Having ventured into brewing I found this book quite irresistable!

The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking
edited by Cesar Vega, Job Ubbink and Erik van der Linden
336 pages

I’ve mentioned this book previously. With 35 essays covering a range of topics this should be of interest to many Khymos readers!

Apart from these books we just have to face it: there’s no way around Modernist cuisine. If you don’t own a copy yet I’m quite sure it still sits there on the top of your wish list. And – if you happen to read Swedish – I would highly recommend the recently published book Matmolekyler (“Food molecules”) by Malin Sandström and Lisa Förare Winbladh (also check out their blog blog with the same name – also in Swedish).

The book Cooking science – Condensed matter by Adria Vicenc came out last year, but only recently did it appear on my radar. This 75 page preview suggests that it is part coffee table book and part documentation of modern Catalan cuisine combined with short essays on various topics such as food preservation and synaesthetic cooking. Add to that a dash of technology and large photos and descriptions of a sous vide water bath, a rotary evaporator, a freeze drier etc. It’s kind of like a light version of Modernist Cuisine. In his introduction Ferran Adria states that: “As has happened throughout history in the majority of the stages of human evolution, the new technologies act as a support for the progress of cookery”. This is technology with a purpose: better food!

More information in Catalan, Spanish and English is available from the Materia Condensa website. The book features QR codes which lead to various digital resources (also available directly from the website).

The book features a periodic table of preserves (full resolution view available through this preview) which I’ve now added to my list of other food related periodic tables. Fun? Yes! Useful? Probably not…

• Work with (and report to) the faculty members who are the principal course instructors, to prepare lecture materials, lab experiments, homework assignments, and examination questions.
• Assist with lecturing as necessary.
• Manage the kitchen lab space, including maintaining the inventory of equipment and food supplies, as well as ensuring food-safety status.
• Coordinate with visiting guest chefs and lecturers, including managing their itineraries during campus visits.

Interestingly they are looking for someone with an advanced degree in physics, chemistry or a related field, preferably with a PhD. But they do not ask for knowledge about or interest in food which is kind of surprising… But they hope to get someone who speaks Spanish or Catalan – take that as a pointer to all the great work done by Ferran Adria, Jose Andres and Joan Roca, as well as the Alicia Foundation. The application deadline is April 4th. More information can be found on their homepage

Remember the public cooking lectures at Harvard that I mentioned in September? According to the website they are *very popular* and the auditoriums are packed! This is good news, but the best thing is that the lectures are made available through YouTube and iTunes for free! So far 9 of the sessions are available, but I guess all will be available soon. If the picture is difficult to read, here’s the list of all the lectures:

Lecture 1: Science and Cooking: A Dialogue. Speakers: Harold McGee, Ferran Adria (elBulli), José Andrés (minibar by josé andrés, Jaleo, The Bazaar) with commentary/moderation from Professors David Weitz and Michael Brenner (Harvard).

Lecture 2: Sous-vide Cooking: a State of Matter. Speaker: Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca).

Lecture 3: Brain Candy: How Desserts Slow the Passage of Time. Speaker: Bill Yosses (White House Pastry Chef).

Lecture 4: Olive Oil & Viscosity. Speaker: Carles Tejedor (Via Veneto).

Lecture 5: Heat, Temperature, & Chocolate. Speaker: Enric Rovira.

Lecture 6: Reinventing Food Texture & Flavor. Speaker: Grant Achatz (Alinea).

Lecture 7: Emulsions: Concept of Stabilizing Oil &Water. Speaker: Nandu Jubany (Can Jubany).

Lecture 8: Gelation. José Andrés (ThinkFoodGroup, minibar, Jaleo).

Lecture 9: Browning & Oxidations. Carme Ruscalleda (Sant Pau, Sant Pau de Tòquio).

Lecture 10: Meat Glue Mania. Wylie Dufresne (wd~50).

Lecture 11: Cultivating Flavor: A Recipe for the Recipe. Dan Barber (Blue Hill).

Lecture 12: Creative Ceilings: How We Use Errors, Failure and Physical Limitations as Catalysts for Culinary Innovation. David Chang (momofuku).

[Thank's to Matthew Pierce for the tip!]

Last year’s book bonanza (Remember The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, Alinea and Under pressure right? Not to mention BakeWise, The Flavor Bible (not science, but I love their systematic approach), Cooking – The Quintessential Art, A day at el Bulli, the bilingual Sous-Vide, the German Verwegen Kochen and the Danish Molekylær gastronomi – did I miss any?) will be difficult to beat, but several interesting books will appear this fall as well. It’s as if this field is exploding with books now. When I first set up the webpages which later evolved into Khymos only a handful of books were available (you can travel back in time and view the single page from 2003 – only in Norwegian, sorry), but even I have a hard time now keeping track with all the books which cover the interesting intersection between cooking and science, aka molecular gastronomy. Sometimes I think – is this book really necessary? Do we need it? What does it add? But addicted as I am, I can’t help it – so I’ll probably get hold of most of these books as they become available

Hervé This is a pionéer of molecular gastronomy and has an impressive publication list in French. Fortunately more and more of his books are now becomming available in English as well. In recent years we have seen Building a meal, Cooking – The Quintessential Art, Kitchen mysteries – Revealing the science of food and Molecular gastronomy: Exploring the science of flavor. His latest book The Science of the Oven is scheduled to appear in September/October. According to the publisher Hervé This unravels “the science behind common culinary technique and practice” and “translates the complex processes of the oven into everyday knowledge for professional chefs and casual cooks; demystifies the meaning of taste and the making of flavor; describes the properties of liquids, salts, sugars, oils, and fats; and defines the principles of culinary practice, which endow food with sensual as well as nutritional value”. As usual I haven’t been able to identify the original title in French, maybe someone can help?

For the first time ever, every single dish served at elBulli has been collected in a single book. The book Food for tought: Thought for food explores the creativity of Ferran Adria and his team and features a ” lively dialogue between the most potent critics and creators of the art and gastronomic worlds, including Heston Blumenthal, Bill Burford, Jerry Saltz, Massmiliano Gioni, Anya Gallaccio, Peter Kubelka, Antoni Miralda, Carsten Holler, Bice Curiger, Adrian Searle, Davide Paolini”. -Professionally, I can die after this book, says Ferran Adria. In case you wondered about the cover drawing – yes it’s Ferran Adria drawn by Simpson creator Matt Groening. (If you’re not famous enough to have him portray you check out the website simpsonizeme in stead.)

The no-knead bread has been a craze on the internet since the 2006 article in NY Times. From a chemical perspective two things are particularily interesting about this bread. First, by using a wetter dough the mobility of glutenin and gliadin increases, allowing sufficient gluten to form without kneading. Second, by baking the bread in a preheated pot with a closed lid one emulates the effect of a professional steam oven – the higher humidity gives a more efficient heat transfer, better crust formation and ensures a proper oven spring. There are several other books which ride the wave of “no-knead artisan breads”, but it’s probably worth lending an ear to Jim Lahey who (to the best of my knowledge) pioneered this. His book My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method is scheduled for release in October.

When reading up on sourdougs I was a little disappointed by The bread bible (but what more is to expect when one of the best books I’ve found on the subject is the much more technical-not-for-the-general-audience Handbook of dough fermentations by CRC?). However, the books by Peter Reinhart have been more rewarding. I own Crust and crumb and I’ve learnt a couple of things from that book. As the title of his latest books suggests, Artisan breads every day, Reinhart incorporates the latest no-knead, no-fuzz trend in this book. The publisher promises that the book will teach you how to bake the “highest quality loaves”, and I’m quite sure you will if you follow the recipes carefully. But that you’ll be able to do so “in a fast and convenient fashion” is perhaps a little too optimistic. When did artisan breads become fast and convenient?

As the title of Modern Gastronomy: A to Z by Ferran Adria suggests, the book has a lexical format and covers the terminology used to describe “the nature of ingredients and why these ingredients produce certain reactions”. It’s written in plain language and even claims to teach the readers “everything they need to know about the science of cooking”. I seriously doubt that claim, but the book is probably quite useful anyway as a starting point and a handy reference guide. And one more thing – it’s published by CRC, a publisher that normally addresses a professional audience. Too me it suggests that the book is quite different from The Science of Good Food: The Ultimate Reference on How Cooking Works (which is OK, but not superb).

And finally, for those who didn’t fork out a fortune to buy Heston Blumenthal’s monumental The Big Fat Duck Cookbook last year, now is your chance to buy a cheaper version of the same book! Seriously – if you’re only buying one book this year, get this one. You get the complete content of the book that was published last year, minus the luxurious box, silver edged pages, colored ribbons and a couple of pounds! The book is in fact three books in one – you get an autobiography of Heston and the history of The Fat Duck, you get 50 signature recipes and in the third section a number of essays on the science behind it all.

I think I’ve covered the most relevant “sciency” foodbooks appearing this fall, but feel free to fill me inn if there are books I have overlooked.

Molecular gastronomy was recently chosen as word of the month (not quite sure exactly which month this was). They give the following definition:

the art and practice of cooking food using scientific methods to create new or unusual dishes

This is not the best definition I’ve seen, to be honest. Why should one limit it to new or unusual dishes? When taken to extremes this only results in gimmickery. Strangely enough there are no hits when I search for “molecular gastronomy” at www.askoxford.com, so one might wonder whether they changed their mind? Personally I feel that molecular gastronomy should strive to improve both home cooking and restaurant cooking. That’s also what I tried to convey with my 10-part series with tips for practical molecular gastronomy.

The Webster’s New Millennium dictionary has this definition:

the application or study of scientific principles and practices in cooking and food preparation

This definition includes both the fundamental scientific aspects and the applications of these. But to me it’s too close to “food science”. Where is the enthusiasm? Where is the delicous meal with tempting aromas and textures? As you might know several definitions have been launched over the last couple of years. My favorite definition is still Harold McGee’s (although he does no longer use the definition himself): “Molecular gastronomy is the scientific study of deliciousness”. In my opinion it joins the two worlds which for too long have been separated – the world of science and the world of gastronomy and everything delicious.

It was a German blog post by Benedikt Köhler over at molekularküche (German blog on molecular gastronomy) that made me aware of the Oxford dictionary definition, and he also reminded me of the hype cycle, a term coined by the US based analyst house Gartner (read more about it in the book “Mastering the hype cycle”). It features the following 5 phases shown below and I agree with Benedikt that these terms can also be applied to the rise and fall (and hopefully also resurrection) of molecular gastronomy:

1. Technology Trigger
2. Peak of Inflated Expectations
3. Trough of Disillusionment
4. Slope of Enlightenment
5. Plateau of Productivity

Phase one started as the term was first used in the 80′s, and I guess it all peaked sometime between 2004 and 2006 with chefs all over wanting to cook with liquid nitrogen and other fancy stuff. Then, with the statement on new cookery by Adria, Blumenthal, Keller and McGee and Heston’s declaration that “molecular gastronomy is dead” we had clearly reached the trough of disillusionment. Today however we’re past that point.

Hype cycle (Concept copyright by Gartner, diagram by Jeremy Kemp under CC-SA).

Benedikt Köhler writes that we’re now on our way to the slope of enlightenment, and personally I think we might’ve reached the fifth phase already, the plateau of productivity. Molecular gastronomy is a term that will live on for years to come, only to disappear as the results and ways of thinking become so common that they’re simply referred to as “cooking” and the result as “really good food” (to quote Michael Ruhlman).

As you might have noticed I’ve decided to stick with one term – molecular gastronomy – for both the scientific, technological and practical parts of “science enabled cooking” (a term Harold McGee uses in The Fat Duck Cookbook – I think that’s a good term). Just like the word “chemistry” is used to describe fundamental research and technological applications I can’t see why the applications of molecular gastronomy (i.e. the food) should be given a different name than the fundamental scientific studies. Some (including Hervé This) have proposed terms such as molecular cuisine or molecular cooking to cover all the practical aspects in order to reserve molecular gastronomy for the “pure science”. There was a debate last year in August on the molecular gastronomy mailing list and Hervé This participated and defended his viewpoint (as he also does in a recent blog post). I actually didn’t take part in the discussion as I had a pretty long private email discussion with Hervé back in 2007 following the EuroFoodChem XIV conference. The conclusion was that we disagree.

I don’t think we should ditch molecular gastronomy, just because it was hyped. But I suggest that we use it to describe more than foams, alginate spheres and liquid nitrogen ice cream. Do you agree?

The avalanche of books in the food/science intersection this fall has been truly amazing. Three books in particular have showcased special restaurants: el Bulli, Alinea and The Fat Duck.

I own the first two and both – in different ways – are very satisfying. In line with previous releases from Ferran Adria, A day at el Bulli is extremely thorough at documenting exactly that – a complete day at the restaurant, with minute-by-minute photographs. It’s all very appealing – and you’ll be surprised by all the recipes that are included! The nice thing about this book is that it serves both as a coffee table inspirational book (for us geeks), but also as a great resource for those who are professionally involved.

The Alinea book is not as documenting in it’s style, but the level of detail and sophistication does not stand back from that of el Bulli. And the number of recipes included and details described is amazing. It has a very nice and useful index with main ingredients pointing you to the respective recipes, so if you want to cook with walnuts for instance, the index immediately tells me that there are eight recipes to chose from. And even though each single dish/presentation typically includes 3-5 separate recipes; for an amateur like me it’s perfectly fine to extract only one of the recipes from a presentation and turn that into a dish on it’s own.

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook is still on my wish list – I expect to receive it in January and I’m truly looking forward to that. The reviews have been great and – well – there’s probably a lot more to say about a book that weighs more than than 5 kg, but I’ll leave it there!

Apart from these three books it’s hard to get around Under pressure by Thomas Keller, especially when considering that I got my immersion circulator the other day. It’s a book completely devoted to sous-vide cooking, written by one of the pioneers who elevated sous-vide from a convenient boil-in-bag method to the realms of gastronomy. Many (most?) of the recipes are not suited/intended for normal everyday cooking – at least if you depend on a regular grocery store like mine that doesn’t stock rabbit, quail and squab. But you’ll be surprised by how many recipes he includes for vegetable and fruit sous-vide!

Apart from these must-have books I’d check out the following books which would be recommended Christmas gifts for those interested in food or science or both. The title The Hungry Scientist Handbook immediately caught my attention (just like anything does that combines food and science). According to the description in includes more than 20 DIY projects ranging from edible origami to glowing lollipops and cryogenic martinis. O Boy! I can’t wait till I receive my copy

For those looking for a gift that combines science with Christmas I can warmly recommend the classic Can Reindeer Fly?: The Science of Christmas. In an entertaining and light hearted style topics such as the psychology of giving, the laws of shopping and the thermodynamics of turkey preparation are covered. And the most important question of all – how does Santa manage to deliver all those presents in one night? – is also answered in a proper scientific manner. I can only recommend this book – it’s the perfect Christmas gift for anyone who needs to be (or already is) convinced that science can be fun!

And then there are all the classics of course: On food and cooking, CookWise (now supplemented by BakeWise), The Science of cooking, Molecular gastronomy – exploring the science of flavor and Kitchen Mysteries – Revealing the science of cooking. You can find many more suggestions over at the static pages in the section molecular gastronomy.

If you’re looking for for a true gift-for-geeks you can buy a printed copy of “Texture – A hydrocolloid recipe collection” for only $4.95 + shipping from lulu.com, a print on demand company. It’s current sales rank is #104,208 so I don’t expect it to found under very many Christmas trees You can of course also download the pdf at no cost!

There is really no end to all the exciting books that will appear this fall! I just learnt from the molecular gastronomy mailing list that the book “A Day at el Bulli” by Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler and Albert Adrià will appear in October. The publisher let’s us know that the book

documents all the activities and processes that make up just one day of service with stunning colour and black and white photography of the kitchens, staff, creative workshop, dishes, the restaurant itself and its striking surroundings near the town of Roses, north east of Barcelona

The fact that a 600 page book covers a single day at el Bulli says a lot about how much thought they put into their cooking

7. Question authorities and learn from the experts

A thick, nicely bound cook book with marvelous pictures and a professional layout signals quality and authority. But unfortunately the nice wrapping is no guarantee that the contents is scientifically sound. I would guess that the searing/sealing myth and adding salt to water used to boil vegetables are among the most ubiquitious of the myths. The challenge for everyone is to question the procedures and explanations given in cook books and those that are inherited from your parents and grand parents. Most of them are fine, but some are not. In fact Hervé This has collected more than 20.000 so called “precisions” from French culinary books that he wants to test.

My seventh tip for pursuing molecular gastronomy in your very own kitchen is to question the cook book authorities, but also to learn from the experts in the field. The site Khymos originally started out as a listing of books and web pages that could be useful for anyone interested in molecular gastronomy and popular food science. When giving presentations it was more convenient for me to refer to a webpage than to have people taking notes of all the references. My own collection of books is constantly growing as you can see from the picture (I justed crossed the 100 cm mark), and I am more than happy to share with you my favorite books. Most of what I know about food chemistry and molecular gastronomy is from these books.

Molecular gastronomy should of course never become a theoretical practice only, so remember that “the proof is in the pudding”, as Nicholas Kurti, one of the pioneers of molecular gastronomy often said. Let taste guide your cooking and learn how to conduct simple blind tastings (more on that in part 8). If possible, do an experiment: if there are two or more procedures, follow them and compare the end result.

Despite the many books and articles that have appeared on food chemistry and molecular gastronomy there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Scientifically, molecular gastronomy is tremendously complex. The science of deliciousness lies in the cross section of analytical, biological, inorganic, organic, physical, polymer and surface chemistry. But even though describing and understanding what happes is difficult, everyone is able to judge the end result! This is quite intriguing and because of this it is possible to become an excellent cook – even if you don’t understand the chemistry behind in every detail. This makes me confident that there will always be an “art” and a “love” component in cooking, as Hervé This puts it in his definition of molecular gastronomy.

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Check out my previous blogpost for an overview of the 10 tips for practical molecular gastronomy series. The collection of books (favorite, molecular gastronomy, aroma/taste, reference/technique, food chemistry, presentation/photography) and links (webresources, people/chefs/blogs, institutions, articles, audio/video) at khymos.org might also be of interest.