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Title: How to Read a French Fry: And Other Stories of Intriguing Kitchen Science by Russ Parsons ISBN: 0-618-37943-6 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 08 September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.35 (23 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best food science book available
Comment: As a chef and avid cookbook collector, this book is on my top 5 of all times. Forget what other 'critics' have said. I've read all the Corriher, Wolke, McGee, Fennema, Belitz... books from first to last page and I can state to you in all honesty: this book is the most practical an useful book of all the 'food science books' currently available. It is a must for amateur cooks and chefs alike.
I've learned things here that I never heard in professional cooking school or restaurant kitchens, I've read practical cooking hints that I never saw in any other 'cookbook'. Parsons has the 'audacity' to unveil 'chefs cooking secrets' that a lot of chefs desperately want to keep to themselves so as to distinguish themselves from the 'amateur cooks'.
If you are a cook who wants to know 'WHY?' and so mold your own style, recipes and techniques, instead of just wanting to know 'WHAT?' and blindly following a very often not working recipe 'developped' by a top chef or his aide or his copywriter, because you are working in your 'amateur' kitchen and the chef or his ghost writer has developped the recipes in a professional kitchen, then this is your book. The difference between an average cook and a good one is that the average one just blindly follows recipes, doesn't ask questions and hasn't got a clue why some things work and others not. Result: he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again.
Parsons doesn't loose himself in totally useless ego stroking circus experiments like Harold 'Saint' McGee' does. Parsons also goes beyond the Ann Landers-format of FAQ's and answers of Robert Wolke and he is much more up to date and practical than Shirley O'Corriher. AND... he writes better than all three combined! This book is not only a treasure trove of kitchen knowledge, 'chefs secrets' and 'dry food science', it is also fun to read. And very well organised.
Parsons divides his book in the most commonly used kitchen techniques and subjects like 'frying', 'vegetables', 'meat'... No truffles and foie gras here, thank God! Parsons first explains all the scientific ins and outs of the subject in a very readable manner. All the while sprinkling it generously with sometimes amazing practical hints. And he tops every chapter off with a summary of the most important 'rules' concerning the chapter-subject. 'Rules' which a lot of chefs honestly but sadly don't have a clue about. As dessert to each chapter he serves some (very tasty) recipes to bring the science into practice.
As for the famous 'fixing hollandaise' subject, Parsons nowhere in the book says to throw away curdled hollandaise. However, he says that when the hollandaise is too far gone and you have literally scrambled eggs, there is no fixing that should be served to a paying restaurant guest. And he's right! I know, some chefs throw the scrambled eggs-hollandaise into the food processor, add some butter and other camouflage stuff, and serve this as authentic 'hollandaise' to their clients. I wouldn't go near a restaurant with such a chef! Better to throw away your scrambled eggs than to recycle them and serve as 'hollandaise' to a paying guest. And I would never read or recommend a book that promotes such 'recycling'. Paying guests are not stupid cash cows that must be cheated, they must be served good, tasty, professionally cooked honest food, not some recycled waste product. And that's what this book is all about: Parsons has the guts to tell it like it is: don't recycle rotten or spoiled food and never serve it to paying customers for the chef's profit! Don't use dirty food tricks. And he's right.
Don't be fooled: this book isn't 'McGee lite' it's the book that McGee always wanted to write but didn't do because he lost himself in outreageaous experiments for the sake of expermenting. Look ma, no hands!
Parsons book should be essential reading for all the so called professional and amateur chefs. Highly informative, fun to read, tasty anecdotes. This book is just great. An absolute must for every chef or cook that isn't into cheating his guests or milking them as cash cows but wants to know why his food works or doesn't. If it doesn't here he can find ways to cure his recipes, not to 'fix' his spoiled food.
Ultimately with this book, a cook can let his guests enjoy his food more by using Parsons' vast and practical knowledge. And that's what cooking is all about, isn't it?
Rating: 3
Summary: I wanted to love it
Comment: This is a recipe book dressed up as "part textbook, part kitchen guide, part recipes." Parsons is too wired to the tastes of an LA Times food critic to notice that he isn't really satisfying any of his target audiences very well. This book *should* simultaneously: (1) serve the gourmet community in providing some recipes grouped along less-than-traditional lines, (2) provide lay-explanations for real kitchen dummies of some interesting science that goes on in the art cooking, and (3) provide an interesting new spin for those people that know a lot about cooking, but really still aren't gourmet chefs. He doesn't quite succeed, except for goal (1).
The book people must have loved him when he walked in with this manuscript, since it really only consists of 70 or so pages of real text about "food science" to edit, and can still be marketed in a neat niche that will disguise the kind of book it really is. I agree with the above reviewer who noted that of 100+ recipes, maybe only a dozen make me stand up and listen. The only conclusion I can draw is that just like other haute cuisine/california cuisine books, this one has that special disease which comes from the author living in another world from my own in terms of the time, and expense of gathering ingredients and preparation.
I wish he'd had more chapters and more text concerning kitchen science. At least 50% of the information will be old to a seasoned home cook, even if it is written well in many spots. The instructive recipes could have been trimmed to take up 50 pages/recipes, and the Bill Nye science act could have taken up 120-150 pages over 8-10 chapters instead of the 6 themes he stuck with. (As I said: the marketeers probably loved this.)
Rating: 1
Summary: Clever but not accurate
Comment: If you are looking for a cutesy book with no actual food science merit, then buy this arrogant book!
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Title: What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke ISBN: 0393011836 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: ON FOOD AND COOKING by Harold McGee ISBN: 0684843285 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore by Harold McGee ISBN: 0020098014 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 April, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The New Kitchen Science : A Guide to Know the Hows and Whys for Fun and Success in the Kitchen by Howard Hillman ISBN: 061824963X Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 19 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Inquisitive Cook by Anne Gardiner, Sue Wilson, The Exploratorium ISBN: 0805045414 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 15 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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