Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking

by Simon Quellen Field

Overview

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe, you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful bacteria and fungi. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses. 

In Culinary Reactions, author Simon Quellen Field turns measuring cups, stovetop burners, and mixing bowls into graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners, and beakers. How does altering the ratio of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, butter, and water affect how high bread rises? Why is whipped cream made with nitrous oxide rather than the more common carbon dioxide? And why does Hollandaise sauce call for "clarified" butter? This easy-to-follow primer even includes recipes to demonstrate the concepts being discussed, including: Whipped Creamsicle Topping—a foam; Cherry Dream Cheese—a protein gle; Lemonade with Chameleon Eggs—an acid indicator; and more!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569767061
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/01/2011
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Simon Field is the author of Why There’s Antifreeze in Your Toothpaste, Gonzo Gizmos, and The Return of Gonzo Gizmos, and is the creator of the popular Web site www.scitoys.com.

Editorial Reviews

Full of charts, step-by-step photos, structural formulas, and amazing recipes (the cherry cream cheese has me drooling), you will become a better cook without even trying.” —MAKE Magazine

“This clear primer to the chemistry of cooking goes well beyond the basics to teach cooks how to improve their results scientifically.” —Science News

“The writing style is very personable and he does a great job of illustrating concepts with recipes.”      —Smithsonianmag.com


“With information advanced enough to interest the well-seasoned, hard-boiled home cook, the information in this book is written in such a friendly and approachable manner that even beginner kitchen-chemists will be delighted to learn from it.”—San Francisco Book Review


“A gateway into the science of food.”  —Gastronomica

From the Publisher

Field (Why There's Antifreeze in Your Toothpaste: The Chemistry of Household Ingredients) believes the kitchen is really a chemistry lab in disguise because cooks preparing dishes employ the same procedures as chemists. He argues that understanding the scientific principles behind these processes is the key to becoming a better cook. From the reasoning behind weighing and measuring ingredients to creating foams and emulsions, Field delves into a number of topics to give readers a basic grounding in the chemistry of the kitchen. A few recipes are included, but this title reads more like a chemistry textbook than a cookbook. VERDICT Field is not the first to tackle this subject. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is a classic, and Shirley O. Corriher's CookWise and BakeWise are more recipe-focused. Still, although Field's contribution is written for Mr. Wizard fans rather than Betty Crocker candidates, it is an engaging and entertaining guide to the science of cooking.—John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ

Library Journal

Sean Pratt’s peppy narration conveys the intrigue and diversion to be found in the kitchen. In this book he analyzes what exactly is being stirred up and and created when one cooks. Embedded in the layers of cake, bread, ice cream, sugar, and spices of culinary creations is a myriad of chemical reactions involving microbial life, the denaturing of proteins, and intricate molecular reactions and interactions with the body that reveal the real complexity of kitchen science. Pratt’s light tone and playful persuasiveness tempt listeners to follow instructions to extract DNA from a pumpkin or to try the recipes for such delicacies as cherry dream cheese. Although the audiobook can become quite detailed in its discussion of science, as with the explanation of amino acids, Pratt’s liveliness tempers the elaborations with an upbeat pace. Ultimately, he helps the author achieve his goal for this informative book—to entertain and have fun. M.F. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2017 - AudioFile