NCW Libraries

"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. But unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses. In Culinary Reactions, author...

In the West, we have identified only four basic tastes - sour, sweet, salty, and bitter - that, through skillful combination and technique, create delicious foods. Yet in many parts of East Asia over the past century, an additional flavor has entered the culinary lexicon: umami, a fifth taste impression that is savory, complex, and wholly distinct. Combining culinary history with recent research into the chemistry, preparation, nutrition, and culture...

Traces the development of the methods and technology used in food science through the failures and successes of the field's scientists and innovators.