Inside Modernist cuisine

Check out on Youtube how the cutaways were made.

Finally, $484.60 9including postage) and after a three month wait Modernist Cuisine has arrived.

I’ve bought it so you don’t have to but also to add to my collection of books by Peter Barham, Herve This and Harold McGee that examine the science of cooking, as I mentioned in May.

Out of all of them McGee’s On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (which you can buy here) is the best, detailing the science of the many chemical processes that are involved in food preparation.

What Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (which you can buy here) does is take the Harold McGee concept and expand upon it, with enthralling graphics and recipes.

This book is heavy, both physically and metaphorically. The six volumes arrive weighing 25kg in one large box measuring a tad more than 40cm cubed. And it is heavy in that there is a lot to take in and sophisticated kitchen equipment required to produce many of the dishes described.

So far I’ve only had time to scan the chapter on stocks, which describes why smaller chunks (in the case of meat, use ground rather than chunks) create more flavour and how and why to use a presure cooker for better, quicker stocks. It certainly busts some of the myths coming out of the Masterchef kitchen.

I’ll be writing regularly about my adventures with this collection of tomes.