Harold McGee

This is the completely revised and updated version of the hardcover in paperback for the first time in this books 20 year history.

The answers to many kitchen conundrums in one easy-to-use volume, from the author of the acclaimed culinary bible On Food and Cooking.From our foremost expert on the science of cooking, Harold McGee, Keys to Good Cooking is a concise and authoritative guide designed to help home cooks navigate the ever-expanding universe of ingredients, recipes, food safety, and appliances, and arrive at the promised land of a satisfying dish.A work of astounding scholarship and originality, Keys to Good Cooking directly addresses the cook at work in the kitchen and in need of quick and reliable guidance. Cookbooks past and present frequently contradict one another about the best ways to prepare foods, and many contain erroneous information and advice.Keys to Good Cooking distills the modern scientific understanding of cooking and translates it into immediately useful information. Looking at ingredients from the mundane to the exotic, McGee takes you from market to table, teaching, for example, how to spot the most delectable asparagus (choose thick spears); how to best prepare the vegetable (peel, don't snap, the fibrous ends; broiling is one effective cooking method for asparagus and other flat-lying vegetables); and how to present it (coat with butter or oil after cooking to avoid a wrinkled surface). This book will be a requisite countertop resource for all home chefs, as McGee's insights on kitchen safety in particular- reboil refrigerated meat or fish stocks every few days. (They're so perishable that they can spoil even in the refrigerator.); Don't put ice cubes or frozen gel packs on a burn. (Extreme cold can cause additional skin damage )-will save even the most knowledgeable home chefs from culinary disaster.A companion volume to recipe books, a touchstone that helps cooks spot flawed recipes and make the best of them, Keys to Good Cooking will be of use to cooks of all to beginners who want to learn the basics, to weekend cooks who want a quick refresher in the basics, and to accomplished cooks who want to rethink a dish from the bottom up. With Keys to Good Cooking McGee has created an essential guide for food lovers everywhere.

When Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking was published in 1984, it proved to be one of the sleepers of the year, eventually going through eight hardcover printings. It was hailed as a minor masterpiece" and reviewers around the world prasied McGee for writing the first book for the home cook that translated into plain English what scientist had discovered about our foods. Like why chefs beat eggs whites in copper bowls and why onions make us cry."

The ultimate guide to the smells of the universe – the ambrosial to the malodorous, and everything in between – from the author of the acclaimed culinary guides On Food and Cooking and Keys to Good CookingFrom Harold McGee, James Beard Award-winning author and leading expert on the science of food and cooking, comes an extensive exploration of the long-overlooked world of smell. In Nose Dive , McGee takes us on a sensory adventure, from the sulfurous nascent earth more than four billion years ago, to the fruit-filled Tian Shan mountain range north of the Himalayas, to the keyboard of your laptop, where trace notes of phenol and formaldehyde escape between the keys. We'll sniff the ordinary (wet pavement and cut grass) and the extraordinary (ambergris and truffles), the delightful (roses and vanilla) and the challenging (swamplands and durians). We'll smell one another. We'll smell ourselves.Through it all, McGee familiarizes us with the actual bits of matter that we breathe in—the molecules that trigger our perceptions, that prompt the citrusy smells of coriander and beer and the medicinal smells of daffodils and sea urchins. And like everything in the physical world, molecules have histories. Many of the molecules that we smell every day existed long before any creature was around to smell them—before there was even a planet for those creatures to live on. Beginning with the origins of those molecules in interstellar space, McGee moves onward through the smells of our planet, the air and the oceans, the forest and the meadows and the city, all the way to the smells of incense, perfume, wine, and food.Here is a story of the world, of every smell under our collective nose. A work of astounding scholarship and originality, Nose Dive distills the science behind the smells and translates it, as only McGee can, into an accessible and entertaining guide. Incorporating the latest insights of biology and chemistry, and interweaving them with personal observations, he reveals how our sense of smell has the power to expose invisible, intangible details of our material world and trigger in us feelings that are the very essence of being alive.

● 改變全球廚房的傳奇之書 25年前，哈洛德．馬基（Harold McGee）首創以科學探討烹飪，將廚藝由藝術和文化提昇至科學領域，讓《食物與廚藝》甫一推出立刻掀起風潮，席捲並影響了美、加、英、法各地。《食物與廚藝》重新賦予食物更深刻的科學意義和文化風貌，發動革命建立了民眾對烹飪的新態度、新觀念，連電視節目也開始製作廚房科學的節目，不僅帶動「廚房科學」風潮，也催生了現今當紅的「分子美食」！● 四分之一世紀 歷久不衰 如今歷經四分之一世紀，《食物與廚藝》仍是國際三星級大廚奉為圭臬的重要寶典，於2004年新增近600頁內容後，再掀高潮。再沒有哪一本書，將食材描述得如此詳盡精確、將變化講解得這麼深入淺出，並將專業的飲食科學成功轉化為大眾普遍接受和理解的廚房科學知識。人類食物的起源、構成，以及各種食材如何透過廚藝變身為誘人美食的過程，盡收於此。● 導覽飲食的文明與奧秘 《食物與廚藝》是全世界美食愛好者和職業廚師的「聖經」，連結了烹飪與科學，從各色食材的化學組成，探究滋味、香氣、質地、顏色和營養，如同牛津大學的物理學家暨食物愛好者尼可拉斯．克提（Nicholas Kurti）所言：「我們有能力著手測量金星的大氣溫度，而且還真的這麼做了，卻不知道舒芙蕾內部發生什麼反應。」《食物與廚藝》從我們未曾想像過的科學之窗窺探廚房實驗室的神奇變化，透視人類歷來飲食的文明，宛如廚房中的羅塞塔石碑，完美呈現了生命延續的無窮奧秘與無邊魅力。 原書厚達近900頁，從人類生命起源的乳汁，到文明發展後的飲料、甜點，各種食材皆有鉅細靡遺的介紹。《食物與廚藝：奶、蛋、肉、魚》的內容包括乳與乳製品、蛋類、肉類、海鮮等葷食，以及烹調方法與相關器具、四種基本的食物分子（水、蛋白質、脂質、碳水化合物）和化學入門等。

植物是我們最早的食物，因此，也是唯一適當的食物。蔬菜、果實、穀物和香料本身就是是芳香美味的食物，還能增添奶、蛋、肉、魚等料理的趣味，這些植物對我們生命有益，同時也向我們開啟一個愉侻繽紛的感官世界。你知道嗎……香草中的芳香或辛辣物質原本是用來嚇走動物的警訊，人類是如何透過烹調將危險變成情趣？植物的顏色是對生命的禮讚，但如何從紅、橙、綠、紫等不同色彩解讀營養價值？為什麼說菇蕈類並非真正植物？它們比美肉類的濃郁風味與香氣是由何而來？香料、茶與咖啡又是如何改寫人類感官的版圖，帶來餐桌上的革命？植物以色彩、味道和氣味來威嚇敵人並吸引朋友，這些化學反應的產物，即為感官的寶庫，喚起我們的視覺美感和味覺愉悅。百萬年來，人類一向以植物為食。我們的祖先以各色果實、葉片和種子等雜食維生：帶土味的根部、苦辣並醒腦的葉片、芳香的花朵、讓人滿口生津的果實、帶堅果風味的種子，還有香甜、嗆酸、辛澀、爽口之苦，以及成千上萬種芳香氣味……如今我們得以攝取的植物種類之多，可謂盛況空前。我們和我們所食用的植物，在彼此的演化進程中相互為伴。這是自然和人類合作創造出的迷人遺產，而且還在不斷演化中。在《食物與廚藝：蔬、果、香料、穀物》中，我們將取自植物的食物分門別類，歸入不同範疇，並細細說明它們各自的起源、營養素、風味、特色與烹調、應用。

你知道嗎……泡芙的法文為何是「甘藍菜」？又為何被稱為「修女的屁」？美乃滋和油醋醬，都是由1:3的水液與油液所組成，但成品的表現為何差異那麼大？高海拔地區的蛋糕烘焙，和在平地的烘焙法有何不同？為什麼嬌生慣養的葡萄藤蔓，反而產不出最好的葡萄酒？高濃度葡萄酒和烈酒為何會有「淚珠」或「美腿」這種奇特現象？不同於滋養人類成長的奶蛋肉魚，也不同於人類最早的蔬果穀物，麵食、醬料、甜點、飲料等等的食材與變化，展現出一項驚人事實：它們以變化萬千的姿態，呈現了人類在歷史演變中，大幅躍進的想像力和創意，不僅僅表現出大自然令人歎為觀止的轉化潛力，也意味著人類能夠根據自己的需要去塑造自然物質，這些美食已超越人類生存的必備，而是更進一步跨到為五感帶來愉悅和驚喜的另一個向度。這些豐富而多彩的變化，是至今仍讓所有大廚與廚藝愛好者探詢不倦、津津樂道的無窮秘境，就如同人類文明的縮影，從基礎變身進階，從簡單走向繁複華麗，透過文化、歷史、地區特色的調味，變身為人類除了滿足基本生理需求之外，更具魅力的享樂泉源。