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Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

modernistcuisine.com

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Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#31

Post by aerostable_slug »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #6

This came out at the end of my career as a serious professional cook and I have mixed experience with it. It's kind of an escoffier guide culinaire type deal for the 2000s. It documents & standardizes, or at least presents emerging conventions for, a huge range of techniques that were in use in certain kinds of restaurants in the preceding two decades. In terms of food like that you sit down and eat with other people…

> wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means?

I always thought he would have said "smart" if he thought he could get away with it. Or maybe "bright", in that particularly smug edge.org sense of the word. "Clever" might be another, but I don't think it captures the gestalt.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#32

Post by cwizou »

balfirevic wrote: post #27

One of the authors, Chris Young, has a great Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisYoungCooks/videos

Yep, for those who have an air fryer, have a look at his air fries video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw--NLjZBNk

He basically invented triple cooked fries at the fat duck (precooked at 70° celsius then fried twice, with airing/freezing steps in between), and it's a pretty close approximation of them done much simpler.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#34

Post by alwa »

scarby2 wrote: post #29
giraffe_lady wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were never that common either. This trend had a short peak and the training, staffing, equipment, r&d costs were all sky high. The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specific…

> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really…

Except, of course, for Starbucks! [0]

And imitation salmon eggs still use that calcium/alginate technique the modernist cooks called "spherification"... [1]

[0] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single

[1] https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-ho...

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#35

Post by alwa »

skyyler wrote: post #2

It's sold as a reference material, but the photography inside is beautiful. Even if you think the techniques are outside of your reach, it's a really lovely "cookbook" to look through.

Later sold separately as a standalone volume, The Photography of Modernist Cuisine

https://modernistcuisine.com/books/photography-of-modernist-...

I remember being especially excited about the cutaways: photos of actual cooking apparatus sliced in half on a water jet, then photographed in the act of cooking. Some background on how that came to be:

https://seattlefoodgeek.com/2011/11/cutting-your-cookware-in...

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#36

Post by jorvi »

scarby2 wrote: post #29
giraffe_lady wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were never that common either. This trend had a short peak and the training, staffing, equipment, r&d costs were all sky high. The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specific…

> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really…

Plus, y'know, leaching plastic into your food is generally ill-advised.

It won't matter much if you don't eat out all the time / don't do sous-vide at home, but otherwise, yeah.. best avoided.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/

> Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#37

Post by entropie »

jorvi wrote: post #36
scarby2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really…

Plus, y'know, leaching plastic into your food is generally ill-advised. It won't matter much if you don't eat out all the time / don't do sous-vide at home, but otherwise, yeah.. best avoided. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/ > Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable…

You can do sous vide without plastics. For example I infuse oil via sous vide with biomaterial in weck jars.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#38

Post by fn-mote »

cwizou wrote: post #30

The good thing about Modernist Cuisine is that it goes deep into some niche topics (gelling and hydrocolloids, food safety, etc etc), so if you like that kind of thing (and crazy photography of sliced in half stuff), it's great. In terms of recipes, some have mentioned it but it's barely practical, even if you like spending hours reproducing recipes from Michelin stars restaurant books. There are a few gems, like the…

> The site has been bought by Breville

At $69/year I’d say it’s pretty clear the direction the site is going.

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