-
16 votes
-
The health impacts of red meat - reviewing a recent study and current recommendations
10 votes -
Analysis of a common preservative used to kill pathogens in food shows that it also affects beneficial bacteria
19 votes -
Food scientists at Finnish startup SuperGround have found a way to make chicken nuggets and fish cakes out of otherwise discarded bones and hard tissues
28 votes -
Coffee connoisseurs have long believed that adding a little water to beans before grinding them makes a difference. A new study by researchers at the University of Oregon seems to confirm exactly why.
35 votes -
99% of the world’s bananas are threatened by a fungus. To save them, scientists are turning to genetic modification.
24 votes -
Red, juicy, heat resistant: The hunt for a climate-proof apple
9 votes -
More than twenty-year-old assumption about beer aroma disproved
12 votes -
You say tomato, these scientists say evolutionary mystery
6 votes -
Is this the protein plant of the future? New study finds ‘sweetness gene’ that makes lupins tastier
16 votes -
A list of commonly recommended cookery books
Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books. These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed!...
Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books.
These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed! I'm sure there are lots of great books that I haven't heard of. I wanted to link to a bookshop, but I got stuck with that so I used Wordery, unless they didn't have it in which case I link to Amazon. Some of these books have hardback and soft-cover versions, or newer editions, so go careful with the links because I just link to any version of the book. I have done no research at all into the authors or illustrators here, so if I've included people who are toxic arseholes please do let me know and I'll fix it. (This post is episode 2 of "DanBC goes down a rabbit hole and dumps the results onto Tildes").
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking - Samin Nosrat and Wendy MacNaughton.
A review from Kitchn: 8 cooks on why "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is such a special, unlikely, hit
A lot of people love this book. Beginners say it gave them a bit more confidence, and good home cooks say it helped elevate their cooking by giving them usable information.
How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman.
How to Cook Everything - the basics - Mark Bittman. A review from ShelfAwareness.
A lot of people don't know how to cook, and have never cooked anything. Mark Bittman's books are often recommended to this group of people. And the books are excellent sources of information, and so they're useful to lots of people. They're very clear and easy to use.
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan.
A VERY SHORT, almost bullet point, review from FiveBooks And a longer review from LitHub
She wrote two books in the 1970s, and these were combined and updated in the 1990s for this book. These books are widely credited as introducing people outside Italy to "authentic" Italian cooking. LitHub review has already said everything that I'd want to say about this, but better than I could.
On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen - Harold McGee.
This is a heavy duty book about the science of food. It's often described as the best single reference book for the science of food and cooking.
Food Lab: Better home cooking through science - J. Kenji López-Alt.
A review from Chemistry World
Surely everyone knows J. Kenji. He's really approachable. He give you science, but it's actionable and achievable.
In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean - Hawa Hassan, Julia Turshen.
A mini-review from Kitchn. So, I'm cheating here because I haven't seen this recommended by anyone but I wanted more books that are not Euro-US focussed. This book focuses on food from Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros
Each chapter starts with a short geo-political intro. You'll be familiar if you've ever read the CIA World Factbook. It then has a short interview with a grandmother, and then it gives some recipes.
Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making - Wordery link - James Peterson.
A review from MostlyFood
"Don’t be put off by the size of this book. It’s true that it’s as big as a small piece of furniture but it’s as big as that for a good reason. There isn’t any padding in Sauces. It’s cover-to-cover solid information that will be welcomed by anyone wanting to perfect sauce-making. Nothing seems to be omitted or overlooked. Every imaginable sauce is described, including Asian Sauces which have been added since the publication of the first edition."
Lots of people like that "no padding" feature.
How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food - Nigella Lawson.
A review by Food 52
"Thinking back on the lifespan of this formative book, I can’t help but feel that it’s to the recipes in it, and of course to Lawson herself, that I owe much of my confidence in the kitchen today."
Lots of people just want to cook tasty food and they're not bothered by The Science. Lawson's books are excellent if you want great home cooking.
The Professional Chef - The Culinary Institute of America
There are lots of versions of this book. The current version will be expensive. The older version are usually very similar and will be much cheaper.
Home cooks often get into weird habits and that's fine - it's your kitchen, do what works for you. But if you want to get better in the kitchen by improving your techniques and skills this is the book for you.
25 votes -
Inside Big Beef’s climate messaging machine: Confuse, defend and downplay
8 votes -
Why it took thirteen years to engineer the Taco Bell Crunchwrap
8 votes -
Food giant Unilever is planning a dairy ice cream that uses milk that doesn’t come from a cow
11 votes -
The inside scoop on ice cream innovation – a Tetra Pak product development centre where future recipes and technology are tested out
6 votes -
Climate change is altering the chemistry of wine
5 votes -
Why modern sandwich bread is different from 'real' bread
6 votes -
Can lab-grown dairy proteins give us a cow-free future? | Lab-Grown
6 votes -
How humanity has changed the food it eats
3 votes -
How long does a bottle of wine last after it is opened?
10 votes -
No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time. Singapore’s approval of chicken cells grown in bioreactors is seen as landmark moment across industry.
14 votes -
A close look at the science of lactic acid fermentation, the process responsible for some of the sour foods we all know and love: sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, yogurt, and more
4 votes -
How to make olive oil-based mayonnaise, without a bitter aftertaste, using a simple trick - use boiling water to strip away the oil's polyphenols
11 votes -
The race to redesign sugar
5 votes -
How to capture wild yeast for bread (and why it works)
5 votes -
Should tomatoes go in the fridge? Apparently, it doesn't matter much: the variety of tomato is much more important
7 votes -
Inside the mad-science world of a professional fermentation chef
4 votes -
There’s an entire industry dedicated to making foods crispy
8 votes -
Flavor networks reveal universal principle behind successful recipes
5 votes -
So long, salt and vinegar: How crisp flavours went from simple to sensational
15 votes -
Shio Koji: The same ingredient that gives us miso, soy sauce, and sake is also the key to a versatile marinade
3 votes -
Planet Money: Fries Of The Future
From the transcript: By 1988, for the first time, more fast-food orders were taken at a drive-through window than at the restaurant. And this was a problem for the wimpy french fry because by the...
From the transcript:
By 1988, for the first time, more fast-food orders were taken at a drive-through window than at the restaurant. And this was a problem for the wimpy french fry because by the time you got home from the drive-through, the fries were no good.
[...]
So back then - almost 20, 25 years ago - Lamb Weston invented a coating called Stealth, which was their secret coating that you couldn't see and you couldn't tell was on the french fry, but it lasted - it was crispier longer, up to 12 to 15 minutes.
[...]
But this potato company has a new problem now - delivery. And a 12- to 15-minute lasting Stealth french fry isn't going to cut it because delivery takes longer than a drive-through. The average delivery wait time in a busy city is 20 to 30 minutes because drivers pick up multiple orders and make multiple stops.
[...]
They're starting to pitch these fries to fast food chains now. So they're not in stores yet, but Deb says they could be in a couple months. You won't know it's a crispy on delivery fry just like you don't know when you're eating a stealth fry. You'll just know you had a better french fry delivery experience.
6 votes -
Scientists figured out a cool way to make better gluten-free bread
10 votes -
Inside the launch of the Cosmic Crisp apple, the “largest launch of a produce item in American history”
9 votes -
Shalt thou eat an Impossible Burger? The definitions of "halal" and "kosher" are being challenged by new food technology
9 votes -
How to make alkaline, low-hydration ramen noodles at home
9 votes -
Lab-grown dairy: The next food frontier
9 votes -
Scientists from the University of Borås are exploring the possibility of converting old pieces of glutinous waste into yarn
4 votes -
A conversation with the team that made bread with 4500-year-old yeast from ancient Egyptian pottery
13 votes -
Would you eat a burger made out of CO2 captured from the air?
9 votes -
So far cultured meat has been burgers – the next big challenge is animal-free steaks
6 votes -
The case for room-temperature foods: There are many dishes and delicacies that benefit from being served at room temperature
9 votes -
How almonds went from deadly to delicious
5 votes -
Here's the trick to caramelizing onions: There is no trick. The best caramelized onions cook low and slow.
10 votes -
Why is your wine crying? Scientists say shock waves likely play a role
3 votes -
The rise and fall of turkey brining
8 votes -
The science of good chocolate
9 votes -
Edible cottonseed is now a thing — and it could have big implications for world hunger
8 votes -
How to get that great “hoppy” beer taste without the exploding bottles
6 votes -
Cheese played a surprisingly important role in human evolution
10 votes