Jeff Potter
Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks and Good Food
O’Reilly; 2010
This book was another of my Christmas presents (Thanks, Katy!) which I’ve been reading in bits and pieces over the last few weeks.
The first thing we need to get straight is that, although it contains recipes, this is essentially not a recipe book. Nor is it a book specifically about ingredients.
The author is a scientist and he takes an experimental approach to working out how things work in cooking — the effects of temperature on proteins; what various chemicals do; how bread works; how taste and smell work. And perhaps most interestingly how chefs use unexpected techniques to produce such different food to what we make at home.
Yes, I learnt a few things. Specifically I was interested in the temperatures at which different proteins denature (ie. essentially the temperature at which they cook) and how too high a temperature will denature the wrong proteins and make meat tough. But this has to be done while keeping in mind that a minimum temperature (or combination of temperature and time) is required to ensure any pathogens (bacteria; fungi; even parasites) present are killed.
And there are simple tips. For instance when cracking an egg do it on the worktop not the edge of the bowl: the former will give larger pieces of broken shell; the latter will give smaller pieces of shell that are much more likely to end up in the bowl with the egg and have to be fished out.
Oh and there is a whole chapter on hacking together hardware etc. for special cooking techniques like sous vide, filtration, using the cleaning cycle on your oven and using liquid nitrogen. Things I am never likely to do.
As I say, yes there are recipes, but they are largely there to demonstrate the effects being described: different types of dough, and oven temperature, for pizza; how whisking egg whites varies depending on the bowl you use; how different gelling agents work. Some of these things I knew, and some I have even done. I’ve not actually tried any of the recipes because although it is interesting to see these effects most of the recipes are not for things which fire me with enthusiasm or which are too much faffing around — I believe in simple, tasty and wholesome food, not a load of faffing about. (Which is why I can’t be bothered with things like cake, ice cream and soufflés.)
So in summary … This was an interesting book and it may turn out to be useful for some things — like more precise temperature control. It is a great book if you’re a geek and/or you want to do a wide range of experimental cooking — but sadly that doesn’t fire me with enthusiasm other than as an armchair scientist.
Finally though, here’s one other good tip from the book … Do check out Maureen Evans’ Twitter recipes feed, @cookbook. She has devised a method of reducing recipes to the 140 character constraint of a single tweet. As an example here’s her recipe for chocolate cake (which isn’t in the book):

Chocolate Cake: Beat¼c sug/2egg. Sift⅓c flr&cocoa/½t bkgpdr&soda/⅛t cardamom&cinn&salt. Mlt6oz choc/¼c cocontoil&coffee. Fold all. 40m@350F.

There you are: I even bring you cake!
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆