The Cookbook Decoder

by Arthur E. Grosser

Book Overview

At last, a guide for those cooks who are oppressed by recipes which are often as peremptory and seemingly illogical as barracks room orders. The Cookbook Decoder lets us in on the REASONING behind... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0825300339
• ISBN13: 9780825300332
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Beaufort Books, New York, New
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Food Facts explained with Humor, plus really useful recipes.

`The Cook Book Decoder or Culinary Alchemy Explained' by retired Canadian professor of Chemistry, Arthur E. Grosser is easily the spiritual godfather of current impresario of culinary information, Alton Brown, in that it seeks to explain everyday cooking phenomena with a big dollop of humor. While this little book pales in comparison to Harold McGee's encyclopedic coverage of food science in `On Food and Cooking', this book serves its purpose by making it easy to read and to understand a few good facts about a few really important aspects of food chemistry. Oddly enough, the book also can revive interest in some backwaters of cooking technique. It is meet and right that the very first subject is the egg, the single most useful natural product in the kitchen. In this chapter, the author introduces a feature of his book that would make it an excellent text for a grammar school or middle school course in food science. A chemist to the end, the author offers numerous suggestions on simple experiments that may be performed with standard kitchen equipment. The first topic is the whys and wherefores of cooking a hard-boiled egg. This is my first sense that the good professor may have a few clay feet. In my great survey of cooking praxis, there are two competing methods for successfully making a hard-boiled egg. The method endorsed by this author suggests poking a hole in the blunt end of the eggshell and dropping the prepared egg into boiling water. The alternate method which my experience shows works equally well involves placing the raw eggs in cold water in a pan on the burner and bringing the water and eggs up to boiling whereupon both methods have us simmer eggs for about 12 minutes. Oddly, the second method relies on a fact of egg anatomy that the author clearly describes and uses as a justification for his recommendation. This is the presence of tiny pores in the eggshell at the blunt end. The cold start uses these by increasing heat slowly. The hot start uses the same principle, but helps its case by creating a much larger hole to let air escape from the egg rather than build up pressure and crack the shell. All of this is relatively unimportant beside the fact that the author's discussion of egg cookery is both entertaining and informative. One of this book's greatest services may be the author's giving us procedures on how to bake and how to coddle eggs. I have not seen such loving attention paid to egg cookery lately except in the very French `Essential Cuisine' by Chef Michel Bras. Compared to the arcane techniques needed to poach eggs or cook omelets, coddling and baking seem to be simplicity itself. And, coddling offers an enormous range of enhancements comparable in many ways to the great variety of omelet preparations. Aside from eggs, the author discusses: Vegetables, especially their colors and how colors are affected by cooking. Garlic, Onions, Cabbage, and Potatoes, and how these smelly veggies can be tamed Beast and Bird and

The Right Chemistry

Arthur Grosser makes acquiring useful knowledge an appetising prospect. This book's combination of chemical facts, easy and delicious recipes and fun cartoons makes it an excellent read and a useful gift. The text is clear, the style amusing and the results gratifyingly edible - and drinkable - try recipe 121 followed by 120!

Cooking is not just for eating

I am both a chemist and an amateur chef. I have, on occasion, cooked chinese food for as many as 25 people - which is not bad considering that I am not Chinese! But, of course, the question that always lies at the back of my mind when making something is "why?" as in "why do eggs turn white when fried?" or "why does cornstarch thicken a sauce?". Arthur Grosser's "The Cookbook Decoder or Culinary Alchemy Explained" answers these questions and many more. It is an engaging tour through the chemistry behind cooking by a master chef. It is filled with gentle explanations and interesting experiments. And some absolutely delightful recipes. What more can you want in a book?