Explaining Kitchen Mysteries with Herve This

Even though my blog is now over a year old (somehow I let the day pass without fanfare), I am still surprised and delighted when someone takes the time to write and ask my opinion about something involving food or cooking. Whether it is trying a new product or looking at a new cookbook, I am always flattered that my blog has become a resource for home cooks and others who love food and use it to bring family and friends together.

So I am sure you can imagine my excitement when I got an email from Columbia University Press asking if I would be interested in reviewing a new book, Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking by the father of molecular gastronomy Herve This. I jumped at the chance. I am intrigued by molecular gastronomy, and the idea of a book about the science of cooking really piqued my interest. While I waited for my copy of the book to arrive, I read about Herve This, the author. Hervé This (pictured right, with a young chef) is a physical chemist on the staff of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. He is the author of Molecular Gastronomy and of several other books on food and cooking and is a monthly contributor to the French-language edition of Scientific American, called Pour la Science (Can I tell you how much "street cred" this gig is buying me at a nuclear physics lab full of scientists!?)

I read articles and interviews to better understand a scientist who is dedicated to food, and all the physical and physiological and chemical elements and processes that help us prepare food that will result in tastes that will delight the palate. I was intrigued by the link This was interested in making between science and the home cook, and whether the laws of science and old wive's tales and other food-related sayings related to the science and chemistry of cooking.

I also took the Kitchen Mysteries online quiz, that was quick to show me how much I really did not know about the science of food. It was a fun way to launch into the book once it arrived. Now I have to say that if you are expecting a book full of full-color plates or recipes, this book will not be what you expect. But if you are a home cook, striving to stretch your abilities, Kitchen Mysteries is an invaluable resource. A beginning cook follows a recipe, an intermediate cook knows how to alter a recipe or make changes, but an expert cook understands why foods combined, or prepared this way or that become either delicious or a disaster. That foundation provides the expert home cook with the knowledge that can take them to the next level.

This hooked me right away when he began by explaining why microwaving meat just doesn't work, but knowing how the microwave affects the meat of a duck breast, he develops a method and recipe for a duck breast you can cook in the microwave that will wow the most demanding guests! His book is fascinating, educational, challenging covering topics from how smell and taste interact, to why dough has to rest before baking (besides to give your arms a rest from kneading), and why boiling meat is not appetizing, but braising meat is. Want to know how to approach a bottle of wine, how long to steep tea? Herve This has the answer. While Kitchen Mysteries is not your average cookbook, I highly recommend it, because reading it will help make you more than just an average cook.

While I am not a chemist or physicist, or a world-renowned author, or the mother of a whole field of cooking, I felt a strong kinship to Herve This when I read in an interview in Wired about what he hopes will be his next project. This says that the next big idea he wants to tackle is the role that love — of the cook for the diners, the diners for the cook, and of everyone for each other — plays in determining tastes. "Cooking for someone is a way of telling them, 'I love you.' This has to be understood, of course," This says ...

now that's a molecular gastronomist after my own heart!

Herve This, Photo courtesy of AP