Does anyone know of any books or websites that discuss cooking chemistry? By this I mean, how ingredients affect each other, what things are needed to make a recipe and have a certain result, what results will be obtained if you add more of ingredient a and less of ingredient b, that sort of thing.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), April 22, 2000

Answers

R, not exactly what you want, but a lot of the home ec books for upper grades and post-secondary classes have anywhere from a little bit of chemistry information to a lot. I've got some extremely old books that have a great deal of information, but they'd be hard to find and expensive. More recent home ec books can often be found at rummage sales and used book stores fairly cheaply. There might be some web sites aimed at home ec teachers, I've never stumbled across one but they could be out there. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), April 23, 2000.

Gee is Home Ec still even being taught? I have my BA in it, but it's no longer offered at the University that I went to. (Not relevant, but Martha Stewart is?? Sheesh..) Home Ed never was just toasters, and clothing construction! I had to take Physics, Biology, Nutrition, Chemistry, plus all the liberal arts requirements. I loved it, esp. textiles. Imagine that.

There is a book: Food Values of Portions Commonly Used, by Jean A. Pennington that might have some information useful to you. It has nutrient content (albeit a lot of commercially packaged food, too). Any good nutrition book should have some biochem stuff in it. Gerbil is right on.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 23, 2000.

Funny thing is, I can't cook. At all. Anything. However, my mother was a home ec teacher. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), April 24, 2000.

Here's three books that I think you'll find useful. Rather than retype it all, I excerpted the below out of resources and publications section of my book. If you only get one, be sure to get On Food and Cooking by McGee, it's been a world of help to me in understanding what's going on in bowl and pot and I enjoy reading it just for pleasure.

The Curious Cook; Harold McGee; 1990; ISBN# 0-02-009801-4 (softcover); Macmillan General Reference

A sequel of sorts to his earlier, larger work, On Food and Cooking, described below. The Curious Cook is a further exploration of the science involved with food and cooking, nutrition and why we experience and perceive food the way we do. Perhaps not directly useful to a food storage program, this book can help you to understand the theory and science of what happens in pan, pot and oven. I found it to be very intriguing reading.

Kitchen Science: A Guide to Knowing the Hows and Whys for Fun and Success in the Kitchen; Howard Hillman; 1989; ISBN# 0-395-48072-8 (softcover); Houghton Mifflin, Inc.

Kitchen Science is another work that explains the science of food. Written for the lay audience it explains such phenomena as how yeast, sourdough, baking powder and soda leavens bread, why onions make us cry, how to make perfect custards and other tips to improve your kitchen performance.

On Food And Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen; Harold McGee; 1984; ISBN# 0-02-034621-2 (softcover); Collier Books

In my opinion, the largest and best work concerning food science written for the lay audience. McGee's work covers both the history and the science of a tremendous number of foods, cooking methods and preparation techniques. If you really want to understand why a food does what it does when you cook, prepare or store it, why one kind of fat is nutritionally better than another, and why it is that the odor of a food has so much to do with it's flavor I highly recommend this book. I have always found it good reading. It should be on the bookshelf of any serious cook.

.........Alan.

The Prudent Food Storage FAQ, v3.5

http://www.ProvidenceCo-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), April 24, 2000.

Hi R., I have a cookbook called Cookwise by Shirley O. Corriher. She's a chemist and the book explains chemically how ingredients interact with each other. Haven't tried many of her recipes in it, but use it more for the reference part. Really like it.

-- Anne (mistletoe@earthlink.net), April 25, 2000.

Sheepish, why would anyone need to learn home-ec, when you can just go out and buy the stuff ready to heat and eat? ;-) Seriously though, I garden as much as I do because it is getting harder and harder to find raw ingredients in the local stores. Our so called 'veggie' section in the freezer aisle is now a huge selection of 'just add meat' one dish meal packs, with very little in the way of plain veggies. I am also running into checkout girls who think that packaged raw meat is 'gross', and don't want to touch it. Amazing, isn't it.

-- Connie (connie@lunehaven.com), April 27, 2000.

Connie, that's a good one!! I don't for the life of me know why anybody in their right mind would want to learn Home Ec, in a way! I was pretty much a weirdo in the program because in the 70's there were still women kind of cruising for husband material and working the university system as a dating resource! A lot of them were in the program. I, OTOH, was one of those obnoxious university brats in jeans and boots and was always pushing the envelope on acceptable Home Ec behavior! Ha. I used to make fun of it myself. However, it was important information and I loved it despite the reputation (or in spite of mine!) Glad I took it, too. I know it used to be a sexist way of regimenting everyone (guys took machine shop or mechanical drawing and girls took Home Ec in Jr. High) but it was still good, solid stuff to know. BTW, I was kicked out of PREschool for jumping off the tables because they wouldn't let me use the wood saw (to make piles of sawdust) because I wasn't a boy! Sheesh. Glad some things have changed, or have they? Why am I boring everyone about this?? Yawn...BTW, Gerbil, I can't cook either!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 27, 2000.

Gerbil & Sheepish: I suspect you are either too modest, or you speak with forked tongue. Can't cook! Right! Just don't forget that I am the rightful King of France!

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), April 27, 2000.

Gerbil, Sheepish, and - of course - Your Royal Highness,

I set the kitchen on fire in Freshman Home - ec. It was suggested that I might not wish to participate the following year - NO PROBLEM!! I had managed to go to State Fair (4-H) with my sewing twice before I reached High School - got a D on my skirt and blouse in Home Yechh - go figure! We were in the counselor's office my daughter's freshman year, filling out her schedule and a pre-plan for the rest of high school and she was adament about not taking home-ec classes. Counselor asked her "What are you going to do when you get married and have children?" Sis looked askance and replied " Why, my Mom's going to come live with me and cook and take care of the kids!" I'm cool with that!! We are a three generation household now, and in my family, someone has always either lived with, or next door to the Grandparents - it's just the way we are!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), April 27, 2000.

Ahh, junior high school home economics. I'm not sure what it was that posessed me to take that class. I think it was something about improving my cooking skills. Ha! I think I spent most of the class disagreeing with instructor about what constitutes good cooking. I learned at home starting with washing dishes because my mother said "if you're going to make a mess you're going to learn how to clean it up!" Even in junior high school I could cook a tastier meal than the instructor could though I will give her best on a nice presentation. It took me a while to learn to appreciate that. Not that I'm going to have six sets of tableware or anything.

The sewing portion of the class was a bust. Mostly because it's an area I have no interest in. Did manage to run my finger through the needle not once but twice before the course was over. If I'm forced to take up needle and thread now I do it strictly by hand!

..........Alan.

The Prudent Food Storage FAQ, v3.5

http://www.ProvidenceCo-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), April 28, 2000.

Alan, my old high school became enlightened enough so that by the time my brother went through it, they had a class called "Bachelor Homemaking". They taught sewing basics, food prep, etc. For the final test, students had to prepare a dinner and serve it to a friend or two that they could invite. My old boyfriend bravely went to my brother's dinner/test. The only highlights that I can recall were them playing handball with my brother's biscuits in the hall corridor! To this day, I am somewhat more accomplished than he, but cuisine is not much of a concept in our home!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), April 28, 2000.