10 books about cooking

Get answers to all your cooking science questions, and cook tastier, more nutritious food using fundamental principles, practical advice, and step-by-step techniques. Where does the heat come from in a chili pepper? Why is wild salmon darker than farmed? Does searing meat really "seal in" the juices? A good recipe goes a long way, but if you can master the science behind it, you'll be one step ahead. Using full-color images, stats and facts through infographics, and an engaging Q&A format to show you how to perfect your cooking, The Science of Cooking brings food science out of the lab and into your kitchen. Topics include meat and poultry, seafood, dairy, pulses and grains, fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs, baked goods, and more, making it perfect for perfecting everyday cooking as well as for special meals.

Whether you've never picked up a knife or you're an accomplished chef, there are only four basic factors that determine how good your food will taste. Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat are the four cardinal directions of cooking, and they will guide you as you choose which ingredients to use and how to cook them, and they will tell you why last minute adjustments will ensure that food tastes exactly as it should. This book will change the way you think about cooking and eating, and help you find your bearings in any kitchen, with any ingredients, while cooking any meal. --

Erin Jeanne McDowell, New York Times contributing baker extraordinaire and top food stylist, wrote the book on pie, a comprehensive handbook that distills all you'll ever need to know for making perfect pies. The Book on Pie starts with the basics, including techniques, conversions, make-aheads, and styling tricks, before diving into 100 of her unique and intriguing recipes. Find everything from classics like apple and pumpkin, to more inspired recipes like Hand-Pie Ice Cream Sandwiches and Chinese BBQ Pork and Scallion Pie. Erin takes every recipe a step further with Pie-deas: ideas for swapping doughs, crusts, and toppings for infinitely customizable pies. Mix and match Pumpkin Spice Pie Dough and Dark Chocolate Drippy Glaze, or the Chive Compound-Butter Crust with the Croque Madame Pielets . . . the possibilities are endless. Look no further than The Book on Pie for the only book on pie you'll ever want or need.

From the author of the best-selling, widely acclaimed Heat--a new hilariously self-deprecating, highly obsessive account of the author's adventures, this time, in the world of French haute cuisine Bill Buford turns his inimitable attention from Italian cuisine to the food of France. Baffled by the language, but convinced that he can master the art of French cooking--or at least get to the bottom of why it is so revered-- he begins what becomes a five-year odyssey by shadowing the esteemed French chef Michel Richard, in Washington, D.C. But when Buford (quickly) realizes that a stage in France is necessary, he goes--this time with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow--to Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. Studying at L'Institut Bocuse, cooking at the storied, Michelin-starred La Mère Brazier, enduring the endless hours and exacting rigeur of the kitchen, Buford becomes a man obsessed--with proving himself on the line, proving that he is worthy of the gastronomic secrets he's learning, proving that French cooking actually derives from (mon dieu!) the Italian. With his signature humor, sense of adventure, and masterly ability to immerse himself--and us--in his surroundings, Bill Buford has written what is sure to be the food-lover's book of the year.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment. On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques. On Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.

Winner of the 2009 James Beard Book Award for Best Book: Reference and Scholarship Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe--it's knowing how to season ingredients to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. Drawing on dozens of leading chefs' combined experience in top restaurants across the country, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg present the definitive guide to creating "deliciousness" in any dish. Thousands of ingredient entries, organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, provide a treasure trove of spectacular flavor combinations. Readers will learn to work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients; experiment with temperature and texture; excite the nose and palate with herbs, spices, and other seasonings; and balance the sensual, emotional, and spiritual elements of an extraordinary meal.Seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from America's most imaginative chefs, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an essential reference for every kitchen.

A guide to growing one's own supply of herbs for the home kitchen includes a catalog of 150 culinary herbs and their varieties; more than 30 recipes; step-by-step photos on how to plant, nurture, harvest and store; and flavor charts that list the best herbs to partner with popular ingredients.

A treasury of kid-friendly recipes inspired by the adventures of favorite Disney princesses provides step-by-step instructions and helpful cooking tips for preparing such options as Rapunzel's Frying Pan Eggs and Ariel's Sea Turtle Cupcakes. Movie tie-in.

"Foodies rejoice! Malcolm Gladwell's favorite food inventor offers a guide to the senses with advice on how to develop your palate and better enjoy the pleasures of eating. Featured by Malcolm Gladwell in a New Yorker magazine article about the quest to develop the perfect cookie, Barb Stuckey is the food developer that famed foodies--such as Michael Pollan--turn to when they need to understand the psychology and physiology of taste. In Taste What You're Missing, Stuckey shares her professional knowledge in an engaging style that's one part Mary Roach, two parts Oliver Sacks, and a dash of Anthony Bourdain for spice. Taste What You're Missing serves up stories: seared, sauced, and garnished with humor and insight into our complicated experiences with food. First explaining the building blocks of taste perception on a physical level, Stuckey walks readers through the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salt, and umami. She explains the critical importance of smell and how the other senses--touch, hearing, and sight--come into play when we enthusiastically dive into a plate of food. She provides eye-opening and delicious anecdotes and exercises that readers can perform to learn, for example, their unique "taster type," or the subtle differences between sour, bitter, tannic, and astringent. Armed with this new knowledge, readers can improve their ability to discern flavors, detect ingredients, and devise new taste combinations in their own kitchens. Keeping in mind that the only thing foodies like better than eating food is talking about food, Taste What You're Missing gives such curious eaters, Food Network watchers, kitchen tinkerers, and armchair Top Chefs understanding and language that will impress their friends and families with insider knowledge about everything they eat"--