Jump to content

Modernist Cuisine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rjwilmsi (talk | contribs) at 13:46, 14 December 2011 (fix ISBN format (endash or 13:) using AWB (7867)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
The six volumes of Modernist Cuisine
AuthorNathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet
Cover artistRyan Matthew Smith
LanguageEnglish
PublisherThe Cooking Lab
Publication date
14 March 2011
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages2,438
ISBN978-0982761007
OCLC711381030
LC ClassTX651 .M94 2011

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking is a cookbook by Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet. It was published by The Cooking Lab on 14 March 2011. The book is an encyclopedia and a guide to the science of contemporary cooking.[1] The 6 volumes cover history and fundamentals, techniques and equipment, animals and plants, ingredients and preparation, plated dish recipes and one last volume kitchen manual.[2] At the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2010 the book was named "the most important cookbook of the first ten years of the 21st century" and was introduced in the hall of fame.[3] Containing 2,438 pages and weighing in at 23.7 kilograms (52 lb),[4] the book has been described as the “The cookbook to end all cookbooks.”[5]

History

The idea for the book came up when Myhrvold acquired a temperature-controlled water bath for sous vide cooking in 2003. He tried to find information about this new cooking technique, which had been invented in 1960’s[6] and was in use at many restaurants by 2003. He could find only a few articles and one book (in Spanish) on sous vide, however. He posted messages on eGullet, a high-end cooking forum and found out that there was no information.[2] Myhrvold has attended Ecole de Cuisine la Varenne, a cooking school in Burgundy, France[7] and has also cooked part-time at Rover's, a French restaurant in Seattle owned by Thierry Rautureau. He is also scientist, having earned advanced degrees in geophysics, space physics, and theoretical and mathematical physics, done post-doctoral research with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University, and worked for many years as the chief technology officer and chief strategist of Microsoft.[8] Drawing on his food and science skills, Myhrvold performed experiments and calculations to generate tables of times and temperatures for cooking various foods sous vide. When he posted these tables to eGullet, thus answering the question he himself had asked in that forum about one year earlier, someone suggested that he should write a book. In 2006 he began to do so, but soon realized that he could not write the book he wanted himself; for the book to accomplish all that he wanted, it would have to be produced by a team with proper equipment.[2]

Myhrvold started buying equipment for the research kitchen in the Intellectual_Ventures lab. Much of the equipment was standard cooking equipment, but it also included items such as rotor-stator homogenizers, ultrahigh-pressure homogenizers, freeze-dryers, a 50 G ultracentrifuge,[1] ultrasonic baths, and rotary evaporators.[9] The laboratory already included other high-tech and industrial equipment, such as a weapons-grade laser,[10] a 100-ton hydraulic press,[10] a large water-jet cutter, an electrical discharge machine, and automated milling machines.

Myhrvold and Wayt Gibbs, an executive editor at Intellectual Ventures who served as the editor-in-chief and project manager for the book, also started hiring writers and editors, research assistants, photo editors, and an art director. First hired was Chris Young, who had just stopped his work of leading the development kitchen in Heston Blumenthal's restaurant The Fat Duck in England. Chris then recruited Maxime Bilet, also from The Fat Duck, who led the team of research chefs that developed and tested the 1,522 recipes in the book.[2] Photographer Ryan Matthew Smith joined the team after answering an ad on craigslist seeking a photo editor.[11] The book team ultimately grew to include more than 50 staff and freelance contributors plus 14 outside experts who reviewed various chapters of the book.[12] At the high point of the project, 36 researchers, chefs, and editors were working simultaneously on the book.[5]

Initially the book was planned to be 150 pages on cooking sous vide in water baths and combi ovens, along with some scientific fundamantals relevant to those techniques.[7] It gradually grew in scope; by late 2009, the book plan had expanded to 1,500 pages,[7] and when finally printed it was 2,438 pages.[10] The exact production cost of the book has not been announced, but Myhrvold confirmed that it cost more than US$1,000,000 to produce the first printing of 6,000 copies, which sold out shortly after the publication date in March 2011.[10] In April 2011, The Cooking Lab ordered a second printing of 25,000 copies.[13]

Structure

Modernist Cuisine consists of five major volumes plus a spiral-bound kitchen manual, which reprints recipes and reference tables from the major volumes on water-resistant paper for use while cooking.

Volume 1, History and Fundamentals, includes a chapter that chronicles the intellectual history of culinary movements, culminating with a detailed history of the Modernist movement as it appeared in cooking beginning in the 1980s. Also in Volume 1 are chapters on microbiology, food safety, food and health, heat and energy, and the physics of food and water.

Volume 2, Techniques and Equipment, includes a chapter on the science and techniques of traditional cooking, which it explains by making extensive use of illustrations and photography. This volume also contains chapters on modern cooking approaches, including baking in combi ovens and water-vapor ovens, cooking sous vide, and cooking with a wide range of advanced equipment and ingredients, from homogenizers and vacuum pumps to liquid nitrogen and dry ice.

Volume 3, Animals and Plants, contains just two chapters: one on meat and another on plant foods. Scientific fundamentals about these ingredients are presented along with basic cooking techniques, advanced cooking techniques, and many recipes.

A similar approach is taken in Volume 4, Ingredients and Preparations, to explaining the use of ingredients more commonly associated with Modernist cooking, including thickening and gelling agents, emulsions, and foams. This volume also contains chapters on wine and coffee.

The fifth volume, Plated-Dish Recipes, consists primarily of 48 more complex recipes, each of which includes both a main dish and various accompaniments. The index to the set appears in Volume 5, along with two glossaries and a set of reference tables.

Response

  • David Chang of Momofuku Ko stated "Only someone like Nathan could do something this comprehensive and rigorous, and we will probably never see another cookbook like it again." [14]
  • "This book will change the way we understand the kitchen." --Ferran Adrià of El Bulli[4]
  • "A fascinating overview of the techniques of modern gastronomy." --Heston Blumenthal[4]
  • "Modernist Cuisine is a landmark contribution to the craft of cooking and our understanding of its underlying principles. Its scale, detail, and eye-opening graphics are unmatched by any other book on the subject. It will be an invaluable resource for anyone with a serious interest in cooking techniques, whether the professional innovations of the last few decades or the long traditions on which they build." --Harold McGee[4]
  • "A breathtaking new benchmark in understanding cooking, Modernist Cuisine is destined to be as important a work for the 21st century as Escoffier’s Ma Cuisine was for the 20th century." --David Kinch[4]
  • “The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier.” --Tim Zagat[4]
  • “The cookbook to end all cookbooks.” --David Chang[4]
  • "Amazing! Unparalleled in its breadth and depth." --Wylie Dufresne[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Rosner, Helen. "Modernist Cuisine: Defending the Spaceman". Saveur.
  2. ^ a b c d McClusky, Mark. "Microsoft's Former CTO Takes On Modernist Cuisine". Wired Magazine.
  3. ^ "GOURMAND AWARDS 2010 COOKBOOKS" (PDF). March 3, 2011. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking [Hardcover]". amazon.com. Retrieved 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  5. ^ a b McLaughlin, Katy (12 February 2011). "The Game-Changing Cookbook". The Wall Street Journal.
  6. ^ Myhrvold, Nathan; Young, Chris; Bilet, Maxime (2011). "Chapter 1: History". Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Bellevue, Washington: The Cooking Lab. pp. 1·40–42. ISBN 978-0982761007. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
  7. ^ a b c Hallock, Betty (September 23, 2010). "The extremist: Nathan Myhrvold and 'Modernist Cuisine'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
  8. ^ "Bio Detail". IntellectualVentures.com. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
  9. ^ Adams, Paul. "A Tour of The Modernist Cuisine Kitchen Laboratory". Popular Science.
  10. ^ a b c d Greenfeld, Karl Taro. "Billionaire Nathan Myhrvold's $625 Cookbook". Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
  11. ^ http://www.featureshoot.com/2010/11/qa-ryan-matthew-smith-seattle/
  12. ^ Myhrvold, Nathan; Young, Chris; Bilet, Maxime (2011). "The Modernist Cuisine Team". Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Bellevue, Washington: The Cooking Lab. pp. 5·XLVI-LII. ISBN 978-0982761007.
  13. ^ Vines, Richard. "Microsoft Guru Myhrvold Cooks Burger, Sonic Fries in $625 Book". Bloomberg.
  14. ^ Hochman, David (21 September 2010). "Gastronomes Await 'Modernist Cuisine'". New York Times. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modernist_Cuisine&oldid=465814092"