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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

#41

Post by skyyler »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #25
skyyler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means? He covers this in the first 5 pages or so, doesn't he?

I know what you're talking about and it's been a while but I remember it being kind of a headscratcher. He says some stuff about innovation and then mentions bauhaus but (in my memory at least) failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way. And also failed to convince me that he knew anything about modernism except the name and a vague association with mid-20th-ce…

>failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way

I had a completely different reaction to it, but then, I wasn't a member of the modernist movement.

I just like food that tastes good.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#43

Post by kjs3 »

entropie wrote: post #37
jorvi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah...what a weird derail. My sous vide has a small maybe 3"x0.5" plastic cap at the end and rest is stainless steel. I could have gotten a different one without the plastic I'm sure (maybe more expensive?), but I can read the science and be reasonably sure I'm not going to die horribly from that much exposure. Stainless steel or aluminum[1] pot and you're blissfully plastic-death free.

[1] I shouldn't have said that...the 'aluminum pots give you Alzheimers' crowd could descend at any moment.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#44

Post by kjs3 »

dluan wrote: post #13
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…

i hated the era of foam, gel, and sous vide everything. as a home cook, i want the randomness that comes with hand technique, but if im paying for a 2/3 star meal i still also want the randomness and authenticity that comes with hand technique, not to be bored out of my mind or trying to show me some impressive lab grade "consistency". in another 20 years, we'll look back on this like we did mayonnaise and meat aspic…

I'm with you: Meat aspics and horrifying fruit jello concoctions endemic to the South was exactly what I thought of the first time I went to a Modernist restaurant.

Mayonnaise on the other hand...that didn't exactly fall out of fashion.

And, as a home cook, I find a sous vide very convenient. For example, I can do a little prep in the morning, drop some meat in, come home, do a quick sear and drop in on the plate. It's another kind of slow cooker. It only becomes a 'consistency' fetish if you let it.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#46

Post by turnsout »

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…

This comment is gold, and helps me contextualize a “book” which has always intrigued me. What are your takes on the later additions, Modernist Bread and Modernist Pizza? I have the Bread tome, and some of the base recipes have worked out.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#47

Post by amluto »

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…

Forget ChefSteps. As far as I’m concerned, this is the reference:

https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#48

Post by shalmanese »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #18
jofer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hesitate to call this a "cookbook". It's closer to a coffee-table photography book. It's somewhat more art than instruction, though it is both. It's inspiring, for sure, but is very different than most. I also thought it had been out of print for years, but it seems I'm wrong... Perhaps this is news because it's no longer out of print? Or was I just misremembering?

I was given a "copy" about ten years ago. It came in a lucite box. I brought it home on the subway, and when I took off my pants later that night I found a horizontal line of bruises across my thighs. As of a couple years ago there’s a gallery around Seattle’s Pike Place market that displays various photographs from the series.

Per pound, the book is actually a lot more affordable than most cookbooks.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#49

Post by shalmanese »

A few months after the book launch, some marketing manager at Barnes and Noble decided to do a 50% off any book promo, not thinking too hard about it and it instantly spread through all the foodie forums.

Later on, they did the same promo but Modernist Cuisine was prominently listed as a book the promo didn’t apply to.

Anyway, that, my friends, is the story of how I made $313 impulse purchase.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#50

Post by Wistar »

kjs3 wrote: post #43
entropie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah...what a weird derail. My sous vide has a small maybe 3"x0.5" plastic cap at the end and rest is stainless steel. I could have gotten a different one without the plastic I'm sure (maybe more expensive?), but I can read the science and be reasonably sure I'm not going to die horribly from that much exposure. Stainless steel or aluminum[1] pot and you're blissfully plastic-death free. [1] I shouldn't have said tha…

It’s not the SV circulator but the plastic vacuum bags folks are most worried about.
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