Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Hervé This (pronounced "Teess") is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

Molecular Gastronomy , This's first work to appear in English, is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. He goes on to discuss the physiology of flavor and explores how the brain perceives tastes, how chewing affects food, and how the tongue reacts to various stimuli. Examining the molecular properties of bread, ham, foie gras, and champagne, the book analyzes what happens as they are baked, cured, cooked, and chilled.

Looking to the future, Hervé This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a soufflé rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Originally published in France, This?s book documents the sensory phenomena of eating and uses basic physics to put to bed many culinary myths. In each short chapter This presents a piece of debatable conventional wisdom?such as whether it is better to make a stock by placing meat in already boiling water, or water before it is boiled?and gives its history, often quoting famous French chefs, before making scientific pronouncements. In the chapter on al dente pasta, for instance, This discusses pasta-making experiments, the science behind cooking it and whether it is better to use oil or butter to prevent it from sticking. Most of the discussions revolve around common practices and phenomenon?chilling wine, why spices are spicy, how to best cool a hot drink?but more than a few are either irrelevant or Franco-specific (such as the chapters on quenelles and preparing fondue). This?s experimentation, however, is not for the mildly curious, but readers unafraid to, say, microwave mayonnaise will find many ideas here. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

CHOICE Review

This charming book is the latest in the series "Perspectives on Culinary History" (most translated from the French). This (pronounced "Teess") is a physical chemist as well as a gastronome and French TV personality who performs scientific experiments in the culinary arts. Gastronomy is the science of food, but This takes it further. Many of these topics are discussed in detail by both debunking and verifying a number of culinary myths and traditional practices, including those involving hard-boiled eggs, seasoning and cooking of meats, potatoes, pasta, and the preparation of fondues. Another section explores the mystery, science, and physiology of taste and flavor. Breads, wines, and cheeses are among the foods detailed. Good culinary tips are scattered amidst the discussion of culinary science, practice, and history. DeBevoise's translation appears to be good. An excellent companion to Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking (rev. and updated, 2004; 1st ed., CH, Apr'85), This's book is for anyone who likes to eat or cook, as well as students or teachers in food science, culinary arts, and chemistry. Glossary. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. R. E. Buntrock formerly, University of Maine

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Hervé This is a physical chemist of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. One of the two founders of the science called molecular gastronomy, he is the author of Columbia's Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking and of several other books on food and cooking. He is a monthly contributor to Pour la Science , the French-language edition of Scientific American .