Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking

Review Quotes:
"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

Review Quotes:
"This clear primer to the chemistry of cooking goes well beyond the basics to teach cooks how to improve their results scientifically." --Science News

Marc Notes:
Includes index.; 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 microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses. In Culinary Reactions, author Simon Field explores the chemistry behind the recipes you follow every day. 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 gel), and Lemonade with Chameleon Eggs (an acid indicator). It even shows you how to extract DNA from a Halloween pumpkin. You'll never look at your graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners, and beakers -- er, measuring cups, stovetop burners, and mixing bowls -- the same way again--; Provided by publisher..

Review Quotes:

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

Review Citations:

• Library Journal 11/01/2011 pg. 101 (EAN 9781569767061, Paperback)
• Entertainment Weekly 11/25/2011 pg. 78 (EAN 9781569767061, Paperback)