An intensive review of just a section of a book? Sure, when it is the five volume, $600 tome known as Modernist Cuisine. We review the Coffee chapter in this highly anticipated and hyped set of books.
dms Senior Member Joined: 15 Mar 2009 Posts: 138 Location: PNW Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Tue Mar 22, 2011, 9:28pm Subject: Re: Modernist Cuisine Coffee Section Review by Mark Prince
Excellent review Mark -- I think you've captured the spirit of the books through the coffee section. I received my copy in the first wave a couple of weeks ago, and I've been reading and cooking ever since.
Nathan and his team have provided in depth info about modern food and cooking techniques (like food chemistry and cooking methods like sous vide), and then they've taken apart ~1500 recipes, looked at the traditional approach and the goal, and finally recast them to use the best techniques to achieve that goal. As you've noted, some myths get shattered along the way. My personal favorite was that the internal temperature of food continues to rise even if you take it from boiling water and plunge it into an ice bath. This is a significant achievement, and I don't see it being surpassed for quite a while. At the very least, it'll take 4 years, a few culinary greats (including 2 alumni chefs from the Fat Duck), and a whole bunch of money...
The page budget for coffee underscores the complexity of the topic (and perhaps the myths to bust). In contrast, bbq got 18 pages, and Nathan is an avid bbq'er. Avid in the sense of being on a team that got some first place ribbons at the Memphis in May competition.
Apparently one of the lead authors (Chris Young -- one of the Fat Duck alumni) is "wild about cofffee". There was an interview with him a few months ago on eater.com Click Here (eater.com)
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
= No New Posts since last visit 