On Food and Cooking is a unique blend of culinary lore and scientific explanation that examines food -- its history, its make-up, and its behavior when we cook it, cool it, dice it, age it, or otherwise prepare it for eating. Generously spiced with historical and literary anecdote, it covers all the major food categories, from meat and potatoes to sauce bearnaise and champagne. Easy-to-understand scientific explanations throw light on such mysteries as why you can whip cream but not milk; what makes white meat white; whether searing really seals in flavor; how to tell stale eggs from fresh; why "fruits" ripen and "vegetables" don't; how to save a sauce; what hops do; and what happens when you knead dough. A chapter on nutrition reveals that Americans have been obsessed with their diet since the 1800s and exposes the fallacies behind food fads past and present. There's a section on additives -- a not-so-new addition to food -- and taste and smell, our two pleasure-giving versions of the oldest sense on earth. With more than 200 illustrations, including extraordinary photographs of food taken through the electron microscope, this book will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.

I first received this book from a friend, about 3 years ago. I read it, then re-read it, and was amazed that the technical references and jargon were so easily described.

As a chemical engineer by trade and a cook by avocation, I loved this book, both for the technical details and the writing, as well as the explanations of the science behind the "obvious". If you're a technically-inclined person, you'll appreciate the references and notes. If you, like some unnamed previous reviewers, are looking for an easy guide to food, this isn't it. This book appeals to cooks who know how to make things, but want to know why those things are made. This isn't a compendium of recipes, nor is it a guide to cooking. It's an easily understandable review of why foods do what they do.

If you enjoy cooking and wonder why "browning" makes a tastier dish, get this book. Nothing here is a surprise to the seasoned cook. There are no de rigueur recipes. Whatever.


The "Lore" obscures the "Science", and vice-versa   September 11, 2001
 77 out of 88 found this review helpful

The many flaws in this book originally led me to give it 3 stars, but the more I look at other sources for the same information, the more I realize that for all its annoying qualities, this book really does appear to be the most comprehensive work on this subject. As such, I have to recommend it more highly, simply because you're not going to get the same infomation in any other single book. Be prepared to work hard for the knowledge, however.

"On Food and Cooking" is a very comprehensive work that contains a lot of very useful and interesting information. It also contains a lot of less useful information, random historical musings, and general digressions. As a result, the useful/interesting information density is much lower than I'd like, particularly given the general "verbiage density" of the text. Perhaps part of the problem is that I've gleaned too much of the information already from other sources, so that I feel like I'm wading through a lot of common knowledge to get to the bits I care about.

The book goes into a fair amount of historical detail about various ingredients. It doesn't focus on the historical aspects enough to be a "history of food" book, though, and the historical perspective tends to detract from the scientific content ratio simply by increasing the overall amount of text.

Also, there are many variations on ingredients, food safety issues, etc., that were not considered significant in 1983, but which are more relevant today. There's no discussion of salmonella in the section on eggs, for example, and no discussion of things like the impact (or lack thereof) of RBGH on milk quality. The effects of organic methods in general are given short shrift. I have observed various quality differences in organic ingredients relative to more conventional ingredients (both for better and for worse), and had hoped for some quantitative discussion of what the physical differences are, and why.

Compared to "The Science of Cooking" (my most recent read on the topic), this book doesn't cover some of the physics and organic chemistry as well, but it does go into better detail on some of the more biologically oriented topics. For example, osmotic pressure, the process by which salt and sugar preserve food, is covered fairly well in this book, while it is never directly mentioned in "The Science of Cooking".

I also wish there had been better organization of the material in the book. "The Science of Cooking", for example, is organized like a textbook, with well-marked side bars and tables, allowing you to easily skip to (or over) information that may or may not be relevant. "On Food and Cooking", however, is organized more like a novel, making it difficult to use it for reference, and complicating efforts to skip over material that is not of interest.

Also, some sections (for example the discussion of cheese) assume too much knowledge about the basic processes, making it sometimes challenging to correlate the underlying chemistry with actual kitchen mechanics. In general, the book has very few examples of "kitchen experiments" you can try yourself to develop an integrated sense of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of cooking. There are many discussions, for example, of the effects of pH on various processes, but little discussion of ways to manipulate the pH using different ingredients to help balance flavor against the needs of the chemical processes.

I still haven't found the ideal source for this sort of information. "The Science of Cooking" is at least concise and very clear in what it does cover (which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 3), but as I look back and compare it to "On Food and Cooking" again, I see some of the major holes in that book (which doesn't deal with the role of pH in cooking at all, for example). And so, my search continues.


McGee has outdone himself again   November 28, 2004
 43 out of 45 found this review helpful

In 1984, when the first edition of ON FOOD AND COOKING was published, it sent off a shockwave through the entire culinary industry. Never before had someone published such a massive study on how science affects cooking in all aspects. It quickly became a bible for professional chefs around the world, often simply referred to in conversation as simply "McGee".

For the 20th anniversary of the original publication, author McGee has rewritten about 90% of his original work, studying the various ways that the ensuing 20 years and the many advances affect the way we grow, harvest, cook, smell, taste, eat, and digest today.

Taking all the culinary and scientific changes that have taken place since the original edition under consideration, McGee has once again created the standard for understanding the relationship between food and science, and why things work the way they do.

He also addresses important topics such as irradiated food, the threats of disease such as Mad Cow disease, and the effects of aquaculture and genetic engineering on today's harvested food.

The book also looks at the many various techniques of preparing everything from the odd vegetable to the many different fish in the ocean, and nearly everything in-between.

McGee's historical and anecdotal style are easy to read, and more importantly, to understand. Once you've read a section, much of it will stay in your head, if only because the average cook will be saying to themselves, "Wow, I didn't know that!"

Although McGee is not a household name among home cooks, it should be. Much of the information offered up by the author in his guide through the food jungle would be very useful to home cooks as well as professional chefs. I would definitely recommend the book to EVERYONE who has any kind of interest in how food science affects our everyday lives. A must-have for any library.