The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking

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."'"

Comments

finally!

[lawngnome]

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

Re:finally!

[Mateito]

I advise you to wear something under that chefs hat and lab coat, especially if you are using sharp knives or hot oil.

I love cooking.. always have.. and I don't believe that it can always be reduced to science.. at least not to practical science. (Think three body problem.) The chicken you buy today will not have exactly the same flavour as the chicken you buy next week. And every beef cut needs to be treated like the individual it is.

I cook well, but have friend who are masters. I can taste what they taste, but can't say "okay, this needs a pinch of cumin and a little cardamon to make it perfect. These guys have the knowledge of what works with what, but also the honed taste abilites and experiences that tell you then what is needed.

And, to all those who haven't yet discovered it, cooking will get you chicks. My fianceé fell first for my cooking :)

Re:finally!

[lifebouy]

I agree. the processes behind cooking may be science, but the act of cooking is art, or at the very least talent and skill. Unless you are cooking only one dish at a time, there is considerable juggling and timing involved. Baking and Pastry are an art. Some chefs can just look at the dough and tell whether the cake will rise or fall. Others (most of them) are hoping with crossed fingers, no matter what they say. Knowing which spices to use, when, and how much is not science. It's art, like knowing how much paint to put where on that oil painting. Fixing a broken sauce is something most cannot do. Some chefs, however, can fix just about anything. Those are artists. Oh sure, there's science behind it, just like there's science to mixing colors and making canvas and determining oil paint viscosity. But painting is still an art no matter how much science you throw at it and so is cooking.

Alton Brown does rock though.

Re:finally!

[N0decam]

I don't remember where I read it (probably fortune ;) but I remember reading somewhere "Cooking is an art, baking is a Science"

I largely agree because the quality of ingredients in cooking can vary so wildly, but if you buy "brand X" flour, it's pretty consistent.

Also, things like humidity can affect how your baking turns out, and knowing how to compensate is simply a matter of knowhow.

I was very close to enrolling in a local chef school until I found out how poorly the average chef gets paid around here. (And even how poorly the above average chef gets paid around here.)

Re:finally!

[Z4rd0Z]

There's science behind everything, but I don't think cooking is a science. It's a skill that combines a bit of science, a bit of art, some trial and error, and lots of practice. For example, I've been trying for a while to create a decent phad thai. The science part might tell me not to let the noodles cook too long, but it's not going to tell me what the end result is going to taste like. Each time I make it, I modify the sauce to try to achieve what I want, but it will take me a few more tries, maybe a lot more, before I really know this dish. Even following recipes may not get you what you want, because each one is different.

I used to watch my grandma or my mom cooking when I was a kid and then I tried to emulate them. My grandma never used a recipe, and I'd watch her throw in "a little of this, a pinch of that" and I wanted to do the same. When I was about ten, I begged my mom to let me try making chocolate chip cookies without a recipe. She was worried I'd be wasting ingredients, but she finally let me. It turned out pretty good too, for a first try. They were a little hard, but edible. I've had lots of cooks in my family. My great grandfather, my grandma, two of her siblings, and one of my cousins have all owned restaurants at some point in their lives.

I guess I'm starting to ramble, but I really like Alton Brown. I didn't realize he'd been interviewed on Slashdot, all I knew of him was from watching his show. I like him because his humor is right on my level, and my wife agrees he's entertaining. She also expects me to do most of the cooking :-). Sometimes I get a little tired of that, but if she cooks then I have to do the dishes, and I'd rather cook almost any day.

Re:finally!

[ePhil_One]

The processes behind cooking may be science, but the act of cooking is art, or at the very least talent and skill.

But I think AB teaching the science behind cooking is the key to becoming and artist with food. By helping people understand what is happening, it helps them experiment in useful directions. Understanding why one quickbread recipe calls for baking soda and another does not frees me from discouraging failed experiments, thanks to AB I know its about pH balance. Good Eats encourages experimentation, unlike many other cooking shows.

But I think the comparison to art is good in another way, because almost every good artist out there knows the science behind his medium, wither its a photographer understanding the film grain and how the optics distort the images he produces, to a sculptor understanding the composition and weaknesses of his materials. Some artists may never understand "how" it is they know these things, much like many major league sluggers fail at coaching because they never had a concious understanding of what they did.

Those chefs who can look at dough at tell wether it will rise or fall know because they've seen thousands of doughs, they know the smell of healthy yeast, know the pliability of the dough they want, know how sticky it should be, etc. They get that from years of cooking, experimenting, failing.

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I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[caveat]

and I *hate* alton. yes, there is a lot of chemistry and science in cooking, and it is very interesting, and a lot of it can be boiled down to quantifiable, deterministic values - but ultimately, COOKING IS AN ART. if it wasn't, any regular joe could pick up a copy of the Joy of Cooking and be running a four-star restaurant in a week. i can't count how often something i've tried in the kitchen that chemically and scientifically should have worked fine, but in the end came out curdled, or tasteless, or fallen. maybe "regular" home cooking can be broken down into pure numbers that anybody can grind out, but making truly excellent food will always need that certain artists' touch.

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[FortKnox]

That's your snobby 'chef side' talking.

Alton, himself, never calls himself a chef. In fact, he isn't trying to make you into one. He just perfects simplier dishes... and encourages people, especially geeks, to "play with their food" and understand whats going on when you do!

A true physicist may not like "Bill Nye" or "Mr.Wizard" because they do silly experiments with children, but it encourages people to delve more into science even more... Alton is much like the Mr Wizard of cooking... encouraging 'us kids' to cook and understand what's going on when we do it. And just like how Mr.Wizard didn't teach you how to make a nuclear reacture our of kitchen supplies, AB doesn't teach you how to perfect a $500 cavier/froi gras dish.

You hate AB, but anyone that DOES watch the show will easily put AB's infamous "French Chef" voice on when reading your entry. ;-)

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[troyml]

I suppose you hate Shirley Corriher, Rose Levy Berenbaum, Harold McGee, etc... all authors who have helped me understand the science of food.

Alton recognizes that cooking is an art... his show itself is art and imho good art. But understanding how the art works leads to better ability.

Pottery is a science, heat, minerals, sand, clay, glass etc.... and darn near any fool can lump some clay together and stick it in a kiln. But the real artists either through experience or through study learn how the materials respond to pressure, heat, time etc.... use this type of clay, this composition of glaze, fire it to this level for this length of time... and voila get the desired result.

Do I hate really good potters..... could say the same for many other mediums... paint, metalwork, etc.. etc.. etc.

Don't be a culinary snob... your successes lie on the same principles and 'science' that anyone elses do and if you understand that all the better.

I just finished perusing the CIA's (Culinary Institute of America) book 'The Professional Chef' and they certainly recognize that to suceed at the art of cooking one must come to terms with the science of it, and even the math, the business acumen, the labor and the grind that it can be as well.

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[mrtrumbe]

I love Alton. But I love him for precisly the same reason you hate him: cooking is an art.

The concept you seem to be missing, maybe due to your existing knowledge as a chemist, is that knowing the processes behind why things curdle, are tasteless or fall is part of the art of cooking. Very few TV cooks tell you the "processes behind the meal," which are essential to understanding the art of cooking. Alton fills that gap.

I certainly agree with you that it takes much more than science to get that omlette to come out just right, etc. It requires much skill and practice, the right tools and knowledge of how to use them. But I don't think Alton would disagree with you, either.

Think about one of the examples you gave: curdling. If you knew the underlying cause of curdled milk, you can apply that knowledge to a wide variety of recipies, not just the one you were working on. Yet most TV chefs don't get to that level. Sure their recipe might show you how to avoid curdling throught a precise list of steps and procedures. But very few would tell you why those steps are necessary to prevent curdling. Alton does just that.

Cooking is an art with many scientific principles behind it. Any cook who dismisses the artistry of cooking will undoubtedly never be a great chef. Any cook who ignores completely the science behind cooking will likewise never advance in his artistry.

I will admit, however, that a great chef may not have the same type of scientific knowledge that Alton advances. It may be sufficient to know, for example, that acid + milk + heat = curdled milk. But I really don't see the harm in knowing what chemical reactions happen in such a scenario.

Hey, you don't want to get to that level? Emeril airs a half hour after Good Eats. He's a fountain of enlightenment if I've ever seen one. :rolleyes:

Taft

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[idontgno]

Geez. It's both. Tell me great chefs don't at least intuitively understand the science. The greatest can work without a "canned scientific" knowledge of the science, but since science is just acute observation and theory-building, experienced chefs are scientists whether they acnowledge that or not.

Yes, the most important parts of the creative decision process are artistic, informed by experience and critically directed by intuition. But the science is always there, waiting to make your creative fancies and stunning insights take shape. Or fail to, because physical reality imposes a harsh penalty if you try to oppose its inexorable truths. Witness many failed souffles, burnt sauces, and other culinary disasters caused by trying something that just can't work.

By the way, haven't I seen the exact same arguments in another favorite geek arena?

s/COOKING/PROGRAMMING/g

Same-same, basically. No amount of creativity is going to overcome the fundamental science of your medium. The wise [cook|coder] learns how to push the science to the very edge of the envelope to accomodate brilliant new visions of [fppd|software].

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[nelsonal]

I've found Alton to be an excellent resource for establishing the basics, at some point every chef learned how to saute, and some seasonings went with fish and chicken. After that they learned more about experimentation and expression and became artists. Alton isn't trying to teach people how to move to artists (like most of the programming on the food network) he's showing people the basics. From their curiousity can build on that knowledge and his viewers can develop their own style.
In his case the geek set, learning the basics involves a lot of science (we like to understand how things work not just that if I heat the oil on medium and drop the meat in for 5 min it cooks). I know with everything if I understand how a process works from interest rate calc derivation to quantum physics to custard formation, I'm a whole lot more likely to remember the steps involved and correctly apply them. The love of fine food comes after you've baked the salmon served it with wine, a nice salad, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce and you take a bite.

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[SquadBoy]

Yup this is why I'm am all for nuking Europe from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[Colazar]

Actually my wife (who is a pastry chef) always says that cooking is an art, and baking is a science.

The difference is that in cooking, if you make a mistake adding ingredients, you can usually compensate by adding a different ingredient to counteract it.

In baking if you screw up, you usually have completely destroyed the chemical reactions you need to have happen, and so you have to throw it all away and start over.

(There is, of course, art in baking, too, but that usually comes into play in the finishing of the item, *after* the baking is done.)

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[GodHead]

Cooking - making food - is not an art. It absolutly CAN be an art. Here's alton own words on it.

---

It's kind of like, I'd love to own a Picasso. I like Picasso. If I could own a Picasso one day, that would be swell. But I don't want to paint like Picasso. It's like the really great chefs are artists and it's like, I'm going to go to the restaurants and enjoy it. I don't want to cook like that at home and I don't want them to publish books that tell me how because you know what? You can't! You can't. You can not do it. They can write that stuff down, you're still not going to be able to do it. That's why, I think Joseph? [sic, Thomas?] Heller, amazing chef, French Laundry, out in Napa, amazing guy. I can't cook any of the stuff in his book because it's not enough to have it written down. It isn't enough. No more than it would be enough for Picasso to have written How To Paint A Picasso book. That's what we're talking about.

There's a level... It's like, I don't call myself a chef. I'm not a chef. I don't have the creative chops to call myself a chef. Can I hack out a decent meatloaf? Well, yeah, because I understand the meatloaf and yackety-yak. But I am I going to create a great dish? No? I'm not going to create a great dish. Those guys have that artistry and I wish they'd just do it and sell it and let those of us that want to eat it and enjoy it and stop writing cookbooks. Because I know more people that have given up on cooking because they couldn't make Charlie Trotter's friggin' Rabbit Reduction sauce. It's so intimidating. It infuriates me that those guys feel like they don't make enough money already that they have to make the rest of us feel bad with their cookbooks. So, I don't buy them. I don't buy those cookbooks. I very rarely buy cookbooks, to be frank.

---

Re:I'm a Real Chemist and a Real Chef...

[raytracer]

and I *hate* alton. yes, there is a lot of chemistry and science in cooking, and it is very interesting, and a lot of it can be boiled down to quantifiable, deterministic values - but ultimately, COOKING IS AN ART. if it wasn't, any regular joe could pick up a copy of the Joy of Cooking and be running a four-star restaurant in a week.

My, aren't we impressed with ourselves?

Your statement presumes that "regular joes" can't do art. They can and in fact do. You might argue that 99% of all the food people prepare in their homes is crap. But guess what: 95% of what I've eaten is restaurants is the same hum drum level.

The reason that you can't pick up Joy of Cooking and run a four star restaurant (or even get palateable meals) is that the Joy of Cooking doesn't teach you what you need to know to make good meals. If you want to make a good flat iron steak, or some decent onion soup, or a decent cheesecake, there are a few things you need to get right, and if you get those few technical things right, you get MUCH better results. Is there some art beyond that? Of course, but most people just want their meals to taste better, they don't aspire to creating lasting works of art.

Cooking is mostly a craft, and like most crafts, it is helped by learning proper technique and by practice. Alton Brown encourages both in a relatively accessable way. I thank him for the many tasty meals he's inspired in my kitchen.

Understanding science doesn't eliminate art.

[Jaywalk]

"Everything in food is science," Brown says. "The only subjective part is when you eat it."

True only if you never leave the cookbook. As with any art, a creative cook is trying to obtain an emotional experience; make the observer (i.e., diner) say "This is good." Since the buttons you're trying to push are deep within the brain's wiring, you're working with a complex system, so intuition often serves better than empirical knowledge. Will paprika work better here, or cinnamon? The answer is often not what would be expected by rational analysis.

Understanding the science behind cookery does not eliminate the art. Computers can generate sonnets which are grammatically and syntactically perfect, but they're not worth reading. Painting can be reduced to a science as well, but only if you limit it to paint-by-numbers.

Re:Understanding science doesn't eliminate art.

[FortKnox]

OK, I already said this once...

You are thinking of two things... a cook makes a meal (much like in Otters reply), a chef makes new dishes. Alton is NOT a chef, and he makes sure that he's pretty clear in his shows and books that he is NOT a chef. He shows how to cook something and gives you the scientific insight to know what is going on while doing it. This insight COULD give someone enough knowledge to make his/her own dishes (which some artistic thinking as well), but the insight, itself, is science, not art.

Next book...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Endocrinological Joy Of Sex"

This is why he rules...

[darth_MALL]

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

The Science Mastered

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

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.

Re:Forgot a credit

[Greyfox]

Yeah, the new Iron Chef America actually managed to get the ambience and feel of Iron Chef correct, unlike the one they did with William Shatner. That one just sucked. Alton's knowledge of the science of the ingredients being used (IE: Seaweed containing an MSG-like chemical which turns up the volume on flavor) also made his commentary very interesting.

My only complaint with his show is that we're not getting enough new episodes. They should make Food Network the "All-Alton-Brown-All-The-Time network!" Well maybe not that much, but you get the idea :-)

His hour-long salt episode which aired just recently was pretty cool too.

Of course, there are those who say...

[bennomatic]

...that science is more of an art than a science.

Obviously, there are certain guidelines to follow, or it's not science (or cooking), it's just messing around. But as long as you're within those guidelines--for both disciplines--it's important to be as creative as possible.

But the main difference here with cooking is that you don't really need to know WHY something works, just that it work. If 10 minutes in the fridge makes my pie crust flakier, great! I don't care if it's about the dual-bond lipids remaining in a suspension long enough for the proteins to bond...

Everything is Science

[Manassas]

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

Never really got into cooking shows until...

[Judg3]

I was stuck with basic cable, but the cable guy accidentally left the Food network on. Nothing much to watch on basic at 3am, so Food network it was.

That's when I met the stylings of AB - he got me to love to cook. Granted, I always liked to cook, but after watching his show I *love* to cook.
For some reason his style just matches what I like - he talks about something and it sticks in your head. And because he shows the science behind the food, when you make a new dish, you can almost tell the outcome before you start - you know how eveything will react!

Plus, I dig the dry humor, how he refers to the ingredient list as "hardware" and soft(wet)ware", the camera angles you don't see on a regular cooking show - even the corny acting I like hehe.

A similar book with recipes

[snooo53]

A similar book I have read and enjoyed is How to Read a French Fry (and other intriguing Kitchen Science) by Russ Parsons.

Hackers are artists, not scientists

[Kismet]

A good article on this is "Hackers and Painters" by Paul Graham.

My favorite part:

I've never liked the term "computer science." The main reason I don't like it is that there's no such thing. Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history, like Yugoslavia. At one end you have people who are really mathematicians, but call what they're doing computer science so they can get DARPA grants. In the middle you have people working on something like the natural history of computers-- studying the behavior of algorithms for routing data through networks, for example. And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who are trying to write interesting software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects or paint for painters. It's as if mathematicians, physicists, and architects all had to be in the same department.

I'd apply the same principles to cooking. Alton is a culinary chemist, maybe. A culinary hacker, never.

Re:Hackers are artists, not scientists

[KodaK]

A culinary hacker, never.

I disagree. The man added a tailpipe to his charcoal grill so he can blow air into the coals from a modified hair dryer and increase the overall temperature. That's a hardware hack if I've ever seen one.

He's also cooked a roast in a clay flower pot, smoked bacon in a locker, smoked salmon in a cardboard box with a hot plate, among many other "food hacks."

I'd say that stuff pretty well embraces the "hacker ethos" -- as pretentious a term as that may be.

Cooking is an art

[teutonic_leech]

There is more to cooking than just science. Think about it - how many variations of 'proteins, acids, amino acids, fats, carbohydrates' are out there? It's not in how those ingredients are being mixed, the magic lies in which ones you mix together. Of course discard the word 'magic' in the context of British recipes ;-)

Re:Cooking is an art

[Walrusss]

and mixing things together isn't science ?

hmmm, have you ever did a titration ? Just adding drops of an acid substance into a solution which contains an indicator can make the solution turn let's say red with ONLY ONE DROP.

That looks like magic to me ;-) And this kind of thing happens a lot (not magic, science, my drop thing) in cooking...

What ingredients go together...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there were more explanations of WHY certain ingredients go well together.
eg: tuna & cheese, beef & tomatoes, carrots, onions & celery (aka "mirepoix"), etc.
Is it the balance between bitter & sweet? Or is it just "magic"

(ps: you should all try root beer & orange juice...now that's a mix that tastes great but looks awful)

TDz.

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[Anonymous Coward]

Noononono. You've got it backwards. Biologists wish they were chemists. Chemists wish they were physicists (because ultimately, thats where the root of their studies is)... And physicists wish they were god (and ultimately, they are more likely to be more god-like than all of the above--Atom bomb and all).

Except perhaps that biologists could unleash plagues of locusts, by tweaking the environment, which is close enough. Chemists are just wanna-bees.

Two different things being discussed here...

[Otto]

You're talking about cooking as a creative and expressive medium, and that's perfectly valid. If you're trying to create something new, something you haven't tried before, then yes, you're absolutely spot on.

On the other hand, if you're cooking because you're hungry and you want to eat, then it's a bit of a different story.

Cooking is the act of preparing something (as food), usually by the application of heat. Beyond that, any definition you read into it is your own. Cooking as art and cooking as a way to get rid of hunger are both acceptable uses of the word.

Cooking as art is creative. Cooking as hunger-elimination is usually not. Day in and day out, I gotta eat, and I usually use the second definition. Once I know how to prepare a thing, I can prepare that thing the same way virtually every time (hey, I'm only human, I screw it up sometimes). If I want to create something different though, then I can do that as well. But I don't often have that kind of time.

Re:If cooking is science

[jacksonyee]

Shouldn't be complicated?

Cooking is an area where it can be as complicated as you want it to be-ranging all the way from sticking a piece of meat into the fire to a masterful blend of 72 ingredients into a pot of French soup simmered for eight hours over charcoal. Most people do not do anything very complicated, but if you don't think that there isn't science in cooking, then all of our safety precautions, refrigeration technology, FDA guides, food pyramid, nutritional labels, calorie counts, and everything else really isn't necessary. The human diet is one of the most studied scientific areas in history; even more so if you take medicine and drugs into consideration.

Now, granted I don't bother to pay attention to most of the research being done nowadays because taste and effects are so individualized, but there certainly is science involved in the process of cooking beyond a simple receipe for something that tastes good.

Good cooking is a science great cooking is an art.

[cemaco]

Things like presentation or even knowing how to choose the right ingredients is not an exact science. Then there is variety. Do you want your food made the exact same way with no variety every time and everywhere, because someone is following a set script? Makes me think about food replicators with dread!

Re:Forgot a credit

[GPLDAN]

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

Isn't that what he is saying?

[gosand]

True only if you never leave the cookbook. As with any art, a creative cook is trying to obtain an emotional experience; make the observer (i.e., diner) say "This is good." Since the buttons you're trying to push are deep within the brain's wiring, you're working with a complex system, so intuition often serves better than empirical knowledge. Will paprika work better here, or cinnamon? The answer is often not what would be expected by rational analysis.

I agree, but isn't that what he is saying by the statement "The only subjective part is when you eat it."? I mean, taste is subjective, and that is where the chef really puts the paint to the canvas, so to speak. I mean, if you have art, but you don't know the science, then you are producing pretty stuff that doesn't taste good. Well, I guess technically you don't need to know the science, but if something works well, it is based on science.

I love Alton's shows, because he tells the WHYs. I also love the book Cookwise for the same reasons. If you know why certain things work and why others don't, it gives you a building block for making better food. The chef really needs to be the gauge and the creator. They need to know their audience. They have to put all the "stuff" together in creative (or simple) ways. If you know why things work the way they do, even on a simple level, it helps. A lot. Sure, it may suffice to know things without knowing the science, but learning the WHYs is fun and interesting.

Re:If cooking is science

[Enry]

It can be as complicated as you want it to be.

If you want to just follow the recipe, it's not that complicated. Step 1, beat eggs, step 2, add flour, etc.

But, if you want to see what you can do with it, to put your own spin on it, to hack it, then you need to be a bit more complicated. And to do that, you need to understand what's happening and more importantly, why it's happening.

Visual Basic is to Emeril as Perl is to Alton Brown

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[KoriaDesevis]

Cooks wish they were biologists.

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.

Bakers must know the environmental conditions they need to set up for yeast (a living fungus), or they will find themselves without a bakery. In this sense, they have to be biologists, albeit in a limited sense.

Alton's cause

[Woogiemonger]

Well, Alton's certainly not training master artists that you'd find in a 4 star restaurant last I checked, but he knows what he's talking about in terms of food. To be a chef, from my experience.. I'm an amateur ... you first need to be a scientist. The art of cooking comes afterwards. If your bread doesn't rise, that's a piece of garbage, not your distinctive style of bread.

Also, Alton knows a whole lot about how to make the cooking experience more enjoyable so you can worry about the art more than the science. The best way to thaw a chicken.. put it in a bowl with barely running cold water spilling into it, rather than having it sit in the oven. See, now I can worry more about what seasoning to choose instead!

You might also want to check out..

[gadders]

Heston Blumenthal, the improbably named chef of the two-Michelin-star rated Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, England. He has a show on the Discovery Channel in the UK called Kitchen Chemistry where he discusses "the science behind cooking and how it affects the way that we perceive taste and flavour."

I've only eaten at his brasserie, but the food was superb. This chap knows what he's doing.

If you like Alton Brown...

[DrEldarion]

Chances are, you'll also like "What Einstien Told His Cook" by Robert Wolke. It's a very scientific view of cooking, telling you exactly why things happen the way they do in cooking and going over the chemical process. It's a very fun read, and is not only informative but humorous as well.

Great book. You can read reviwes and stuff about it here.

Another GREAT Q&A with Alton Brown

[Corvus]

eGullet hosted a great Q&A with Alton Brown recently.

You Miss the Point

[Greyfox]

Alton's show introduces you to some basic concepts of how stuff works in the kitchen. His show won't make you a three-star chef but it can free you from TV dinners every night. Even if you don't care to tinker, his canned recipes work right out of the box, although some of them do take some tinkering up here in Denver.

If all his show does is make people think about their equipment and help them get over their fear of getting that ol' wok extra-freaky-hot, he's done more than any other TV chef I've ever seen.

Re:Forgot a credit

[FortKnox]

Actually, I like the choice of chefs... There's a chef to love (Batali), a chef to hate (Flay), and a chef that just floors you on how he can make any ingredients into something amazing (Puck).

I'm not a real Chef, which is why I like the show

[Weaselmancer]

I know how to cook. Somewhat. But when I watch Alton do what he does, it puts "another tool in the toolbox." I learn a new trick, or a reason why, or something that'll make my next attempt better. Hopefully.

It's a lot like watching Bob Vila. He won't make anyone into a DIY guru. You won't be able to build a palace in your backyard just by watching him. But he'll show you a few new tricks, or how to use a tool properly, or something useful that you'll someday use.

Having more tools won't make you an artist, true. But it might make a budding artist more able to express himself.

Weaselmancer

ahh, but curdling isn't as simple as that...

[caveat]

That was where i first learned the limits of chemistry as applied to food. it was making a mock beurre blanc. after the vinegar, lemon juice and wine were reduced i was told to whisk in a quart of heavy cream. now, as you yourself pointed out, tossing cream on top of hot, concentrated citric and acetic acids (reduced lemon and vinegar) would result in an instant hideous clumpy mess. oh wait...look, it's really rather smooth...add a bit of butter and beat it well, and it turns into a nice, thick, almost perfect approximation of beurre blanc that can be cooled, frozen, reheated and boiled without breaking! as near as i can tell, the acid-induced protein polymerization (curdling) was distributed evenly throughout the sauce, thickening it, while the added fat from the butter stabilized and emulsified the sauce. Dunno though. Quite a nasty shock, i literally didn't believe it even after i saw it. it tempered my scientific arrogance quite a bit, and was the first in many lessons that taught me that to truly master cooking, one must embrace both the hard science and the soft artsy side of it.

Re:ahh, but curdling isn't as simple as that...

[mrtrumbe]

I actually agree with the grandparent here. It seems that his original objection was in relying completely on science to the point of exclusion of artistry, not in the use of science as part of the art of cooking. His post (the grandparent to this post), is a good example of this.

There, he had sound scientific knowledge (milk + acid + heat = curdled milk) which he combined with artistry (use curdling to me advantage) to produce a "super buerre blanc." The perfect marriage of science and art.

I think the grandparent poster misunderstood Alton's use of science in his show and was reacting to the the story-posters comments.

Taft

Re:ahh, but curdling isn't as simple as that...

[The Pim]

I actually agree with the grandparent here. It seems that his original objection was in relying completely on science to the point of exclusion of artistry, not in the use of science as part of the art of cooking.

Yes, it's fun to construct replies to fabricated positions.

There, he had sound scientific knowledge (milk + acid + heat = curdled milk) which he combined with artistry (use curdling to me advantage) to produce a "super buerre blanc." The perfect marriage of science and art.

You have it completely mixed up. The mock beurre did not curdle. His "scientific knowledge" was unsound, which is why the observed behavior was a surprise. A more complete scientific model explains that behavior, as well as the other properties the poster noted (that the sauce did not break even when overheated or frozen and thawed). No amount of art is going to account for that.

In short, this example scores a point for science in cooking, not art.

Speaking of Food Network ... Rachel Ray is hot

[alien666]

Rachel Ray is hot!

I am a Food Scientist

[DeThude]

and I *like* Alton. The parent poster has missed the point of Good Eats. AB tries to give the viewer some idea of the underlying chemistry, microbiology, and thermodynamics involved in cooking so that the viewer can use those ideas to understand why ingredients and instructions in recipes are there.

i can't count how often something i've tried in the kitchen that chemically and scientifically should have worked fine, but in the end came out curdled, or tasteless, or fallen.

Don't blame science for your shortcomings in the kitchen. Watching Good Eats will eventually give you a better idea of what went wrong. If you really want to learn to cook, read a book on Cordon Bleu techniques

By far the best part of Good Eats is the entertainment value - AB has a background in film, and it shows. If you really want to learn about food science, come to Cornell. Also check out the IFT.

Re:If cooking is science

[king-manic]

Visual Basic is to Emeril as Perl is to Alton Brown

Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

Re:If cooking is science

[Enry]

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.

Insipid

[M. Baranczak]

I never saw the show, but the article was overall pretty insipid - the author doesn't understand the nature of either cooking or science. Take this paragraph:

Brown's hyperrational approach defies conventional wisdom about food preparation. Cooks typically regard their culinary traditions as gospel, whether they learned them at the Sorbonne or from their great aunt Sibby. Tampering with recipes only leads to trouble.

All the serious cooks I've ever met (I've been cooking professionally for several years, by the way) tamper with recipes every day. That's what serious cooks DO. Who wants to have a "perfect" chocolate mousse if it's indistinguishable from the one they're serving across the street? (Although chefs HAVE been known to get offended if I mess with their old family recipies.)

By the way, the Sorbonne is a liberal arts university - just because they're French doesn't mean they teach cooking.

The "art or science" question misses the point. Cooking is a synthesis of technical knowledge and aesthetic knowledge. The two are mutually dependent - if you ignore the first one, your food will be ruined half the time, if you ignore the second one, you'll wind up with mass-produced McFood.

Thirst for knowledge

[Remlik]

Art, science...bleh, I watch AP simply for the knowledge transfer high. When I was a kid watching Sesame Street I would drool every time the clip which shows how crayons are made came on. I love knowing how things work. AB does so much prep work to explain exactly why things are the way they are that I really don't even care what he is making half the time. I want to know why adding corn syrup to melted sugar prevents it from binding. I love to hear the ancient history of teas, how/where they are grown, selected and refined. On top of all that, he presents the information in a humerous and easy to digest manor. (Nothing like a bunch of human sized molecules doing the cooking dance of love to teach you some basic chemistry.)

AB is about entertaining information, food and cooking just happen to be the subject. I would like to see more spinoffs with this style on discovery or TLC (Which should change its name to THRDC - The Home Repair and Decoration Chanel).

I also highly recommend "Unwrapped" for those like me with the crayon making fetish.

Re:If cooking is science

[outsider007]

Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

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

Other chemists in the kitchen

[base_chakra]

Alton Brown may be the quintessential hacker-chef, but he's a newcomer to the world of Western cuisine, and definitely not the pioneer when it comes to applying practical chemistry and microbiology to the culinary arts.

For example, James Peterson (chef, author, and recipient of numerous James Beard awards) studied chemistry at Berkeley before engaging in culinary studies at Le Cordon Bleu, and that was more than thirty years ago. In his books and classes, he applies and encourages such topics as understanding of emulsification, the importance of pH balance, how to adjust yoghurt with microbes, the chemistry of caramelization, and so on. His cookbooks are a revelation for those serious about the culinary arts.

I'm a fan of Alton Brown's emphasis on kitchen science, but in its portrayal of his work Wired demonstrates its typically superficial take on science and technology as seen through the pop-culture lens, and fails to put Brown's contribution into a relevant context.

Re:"____ made me fat" lawsuits

[Warlok]

Is it OK that shysters and con artists are able to trick people out of their money, to make people believe they need more than they can afford, to teach people to eat too much bad food? Is it always 100% the fault of the consumer that they have not been educated in these aspects?

No it's not OK, and yes, it is the fault of the consumer. Educated consumers don't fall for crap marketing - they educate themselves so they know what they're paying for.

Is it not partly the responsibility of society to educate ourselves to protect against such opportunists?

What is society, if not a collective of individuals? You answered your own question when you said society needs to educate "ourselves" - it's an individual pursuit, not a collective one.

There are powerful, wealthy forces working for people to spend their money every day at McDonalds ... yet you suggest that fat consumers are just stupid and that's OK?

Marketing campaigns prey on people's emotional weaknesses, to get them to think their lives will be better if only they buy brand X, which is much better than brand Y and so much better than not buying anything at all. Once you can get past the emotional response to crafted marketing and be objective and use reason to make decisions, then you can stop "lovin' it" and stop blaming corporations for doing what they're best at, i.e. making money.

I'm not sure lawsuits are the best way to go about this, and if they're not the courts will eventually throw them out.

Calling bullshit here. Courts live on lawsuits - lawyers and judges get paid because there's a market for their services in the form of lawsuits. High visibility lawsuits with a defendant with deep pockets (fast food, tobacco, asbestos, etc.) make for a growing market, not a decreasing one. It's silly to think that the courts will reduce the number of lawsuits, any more than McDonald's will stop selling burgers at profit because there's less nutritional value in them than in a home-made meal.

It's a complicated situation, with businesses doing what they have to to sell product, including petitioning government for assistance, subsidies, bail-outs, favors, etc. (can't find the clause in my copy of the Constitution that says government will do what it can to protect business, but I'm using a 1789 copy that also includes the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments as well...), but the basis of our economic and political system is that the People decide what they want. We do this in the voting booth, and every day by purchasing goods from businesses that make the things we want/need. No one wants to buy what you're selling for whatever reason? No more business, or a greatly reduced business (see buggy whips, vaccuum tubes, console radios, 8086 computers, petticoats, etc.) People want something new? A new business is born (see PDA's, handheld GPS systems, DSL service, TV dinners, CD/DVD players, etc.). You can make an argument that it is naive to think everything is controlled by the consumer, but you're naive to think that the consumer, and his relative education level, does not matter.

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[shawb]

I thought Physicists thought they were mathemeticians, who thought they were philosophers, who thought they were sociologists, who thought they were psychologists, who thought the were biologists, who thought they were chemists, who then thought they were physicists...

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[Tackhead]

> 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.)

Cookery book by scientist

[eetiiyupy]

I use The Science of Cooking by Dr Peter Barham who is a physics lecturer at Bristol University. Its the only cookbook I have which is on the Springer Verlag imprint.

It has really helped improve my cooking.