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The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking

Posted by michael on from the crispy-on-the-outside dept.

daeley writes "Wired has a feature on Alton Brown, host of FoodNetwork's Good Eats and favorite chef of geek foodies everywhere: The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking. AB has his own website, of course, and his own blog, of course. (If you are familiar with Alton's distinctive delivery, you can hear his voice as you read. My only complaint is that he doesn't write anywhere near often enough.) He's also been interviewed on Slashdot. From the Wired article: 'Brown, 41, is a culinary hacker, the poster boy for a movement that's coming to a boil in kitchens across America. The essence: Cooking is a science, not an art, informed by chemistry, physics, and biology. "Everything in food is science," Brown says. "The only subjective part is when you eat it."'"

9 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. finally! by lawngnome · · Score: 4, Funny

    finally I can wear a labcoat and a chefs hat in the kitchen and not feel like a dork.

  2. Next book... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The Endocrinological Joy Of Sex"

  3. This is why he rules... by darth_MALL · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:
    "What other chef writes a script in which he gets punched in the head by Boxing Nun puppets named Tender and Flaky, as they fight over whether the two textural qualities can coexist in one pie crust?" Truly an American Icon :-P

  4. The Science Mastered by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · · Score: 4, Funny
    I don't know how they did it, But McDonalds has created the perfect food. It contains more calories per gram than any fuel on the planet, ask Morgan Spurlock, you can obtain it in a Jiffy.

    It is only edible by humans, I've never seen anything else touch my #2. And it never spoils (leave it out and it just gets hard, no mold, no green, no nothing!).

    Culinary perfection.

  5. Everything is Science by Manassas · · Score: 4, Funny

    food, sex, food, sex, food, sex...

  6. Re:Forgot a credit by GPLDAN · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would be great if Alton went over and smacked Bobby Flay upside the head with a meat tenderizer. Repeatedly. Hard.

  7. Re:If cooking is science by Enry · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

    Hmm..if by that you mean "overhyped nonsense", then I guess so. But it's not really fair to Java.

  8. Re:If cooking is science by outsider007 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

    I would've went with python because of that huge tongue

    --
    If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
  9. Re:Not a very profound assertion by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Funny
    > Bakers are, in a sense, biologists. They know that yeast in bread and rolls thrive in warm temperatures, and that the ideal temperature for yeast activity is between 120 an 130 degrees F. Heat the dough to 140, and the yeast dies. Salt will kill yeast if brought in direct contact with it as well. And yeast loves sugar - so much so that if you leave the sugar out of bread, the yeast will start breaking down the complex sugars in the flour, which in turn changes the flavor of the breads.

    So when a recipe calls for a certain amount of honey to be added to a dough that also includes flour and eggs, you're really just tweaking the bee-puke input in order to adjust yeast-shit output as a function of how many bird menstruation products you added.

    (And yet, I still enjoy bread and beer, and am still hungry. Go figure.)