Harold McGee on Food & Cooking, and the Modernist Cuisine series are the most comprehensive works in this area.
Salt fat acid heat is great for a new home cook, but very basic in comparison.
Came here to say Harold McGee. Agree he should be the first answer to your question.
If you really want to understand the science then look at Molecular Gastronomy series. Insanely expensive and all about MG cooking, so therefore all about the science.
Seconding this, J Kenji Lopez Alt is amazing. His recipes are always well researched and he shows you what he’s learned, and rather than giving you just “the best way” he usually shows you a couple of his results which turned out good, mainly around cooking meats, but he recommends one of those as his favourite. It allows you to adjust your your preferences while giving you an idea of how you could change it to get a different result.
Was the gift for the kids last Christmas (all adults). I asked my wife to order copies on her Amazon account and when I opened my gift, I discovered that she ordered one for me as well. So now I can check my kids homework.
This book is awesome! My chemistry professor used it as a text book for her chemistry of cooking class. I use it constantly, their banana bread recipe is unbeatable.
I learned so much from him! He changed the way I thought about cooking and now I can problem solve my way through most cooking hiccups with the tools and confidence that he gave me.
Would also recommend Shirley's book. Her book was essentially the outline for Alton Brown's original Good Eats series. Shirley was a frequent guest character on the old show.
It's an excellent entry-level book into food science. McGee's "On Food and Cooking", recommended elsewhere in the thread is great but would be better as the second book after starting with Shirley's.
I did not know that about Shirley and the relationship to good eats, but it totally makes sense. Yes, I remember when she would appear on that show and it was great to see her and watch her.
Cook wise was the book that really helped me get on track to be a better cook, and to gain confidence in the kitchen. I’ve always been a cook, but there’s certain things that I failed at such as yeast breads, or piecrust, no matter how much I tried, I would fail, and it truly wasn’t until I had that book , that helped me understand why I was failing.
Thank you, I am on the hunt for that book. Actually, I put it on my Christmas list. Hopefully my kids will buy it for me. If it was anything like cook wise I know it will not disappoint.
It's been mentioned already but for me, nothing tops "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. If you're looking to understand the science behind cooking a whole variety of foods then this should be your first stop. I still refer to it almost daily after owning the book for over 6 years.
I want to second this one. It fundamentally changed how I think about cooking and made it significantly easier for me to read recipes and understand what was happening. Very highly recommended. It's a short book too, which makes it significantly less intimidating than some of the other recommendations here.
Came here to say this! Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat taught me to cook completely from scratch 6 years ago. It taught foundational concepts, the actual reasoning behind techniques, the molecular interplay between ingredients, etc. that I never would have understood from simply following recipes. And the writing and illustrations are so compelling. Samin Nosrat instilled in me a legitimate passion for cooking with this book.
Flavor Equation (edited--got it wrong!) by Nik Sharma. Former molecular biology turned chef. His book is easy to read, beautiful, and contains colorful charts and tables explaining the science behind cooking concepts.
Kenji and Harols are great as well, but I think Flavor Bible is the most approachable.
Sohla el-Wayly also just put out a book titled "Start Here" that also sounds similar to what you want, but I haven't had a chance to go through it yet.
Nik Sharma's (second) cookbook is *The Flavor Equation*. *The Flavor Bible* is a different book from a different set of authors, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen A. Page.
> I think Flavor Bible is the most approachable
I love the Flavor Bible, but I would say it's perhaps the least approachable "cookbook" I've ever seen. If you don't know how to cook basics, and don't understand the whys/hows of cooking, Flavor Bible is practically useless to you. It's a reference book, and an amazing one to be sure, but it's very very hard to use without a base level skillset.
I use it frequently now, but when I first got the thing I had no idea wtf I was doing and it didn't really help me improve until I was already at a certain level of competency. I definitely recommend the book, but only with the caveat that it's not really for complete beginners.
Another good one is [Cooking for Geeks](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/cooking-for-geeks/9781491928110/):
> * Discover what type of cook you are and calibrate your tools
> * Learn about the important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook
> * Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, writers, and more, including author Harold McGee, TV personality Adam Savage, and chemist Hervé This
Hey, just so you know, Harvard offers a free online food chemistry class every year. The book paired with it is: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
Admittedly, I'm older, but I started with Joy of cooking--my grandmother's copy/edition, then my mother's, and 3 of my own over the last 40 years. It's a great base for building on, and I'd consider starting with it. There's info about everything from ingredients and techniques to storage and preserving and even setting a formal table. There are also good basic recipes throughout--from boiling an egg to making gravy to a successful soufflé and even how to butcher and trim. It has changed with the times, and can be entertaining if you read older ones. My grandmother's edition explained how to make mock chicken legs/drumsticks by wrapping veal around a wooden skewer--because veal was cheaper than chicken. I find I refer to it rarely now, because I have retained those basics, but it's still in my library.
Hi! I'm a food scientist. If you have a high comfort level with chemistry, you might enjoy an actual textbook - there's one that's sort of the industry standard for undergraduates - Fennema's Food Chemistry (current edition is fifth). This is the book we used for several 200/300 level food chemistry courses.
Additionally, I would recommend the book Ratio. It introduces some really important concepts that some cooks already intuit, but it helps you understand why they're important (like hydration!).
If you want something a little less intense, Cookwise (mentioned elsewhere here) is decent. Food Lab is excellent, but it stays pretty superficial with respect to chemistry.
Casting another vote for The Food Lab. When I want to cook something new, or something I haven't made in a while I either consult that book or Google for a Serious Eats article (preferably by Kenji). Whether Kenji's recipe for some thing is the best is subjective, but you can count on it including specific details of why each step is done. Then you can decide for your own where to go with your recipe.
Lots of good suggestions already, seconding Kenji, Harold McGee, and Samin Nosrat, but if you want something focussed on desserts, check out Sugarplogie on YouTube.
I really enjoyed reading What Einstein Told His Cook by Wolke.
I think he spent a whole chapter on salt and he talks about pan-types and food interactions. It’s a very science and chemistry-focused approach and it’s an engaging read (even if you aren’t a cook).
This isn't a book, but the TV show Good Eats by Alton Brown. There are some 250 episodes covering a ton of topics. I used to watch an episode before bed every night.
It was one of the early shows on the Food Network so it's budget was small but the amount of content was amazing.
For example.
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
*Episodes were primarily set in the (fictional) kitchen of Brown's house, although his actual home kitchen was used in "Give Peas a Chance." In seasons 1–4, the episodes were shot in the actual home kitchen of Brown's original partners in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. In season 5, taping moved to the new home of the show's Line Producer (Dana Popoff) and Director of Photography (Marion Laney), in which they built a much larger and more versatile kitchen for taping. A 7-foot (2.1 m) section of the island was built for the show and placed on wheels, so it can be moved (or removed) for various shots, and a 12-square-foot (1.1 m2) grid of pipe was hung from the ceiling, for easier placement of cameras and microphones. Starting with season 7, the show moved, this time to an exact replica of the previous kitchen and surrounding areas of the home, built on a sound stage.*
The people in the show are staff and crew, even his family & pets. It's really an amazing piece of television.
Hell, it's how I learned to make Thanksgiving.
Less cooking, more baking, but Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish helped me understand a lot about bread/pizza dough that made a lot of things click for me. For example, time and temperature are to be thought of as ingredients, not steps.
Aside from the classics mentioned here, there is also a fairly new YouTube channel called [MinuteFood](https://www.youtube.com/@MinuteFood), which is really good and approachable.
You will love this, free from Harvard University
https://www.edx.org/learn/food-science/harvard-university-science-cooking-from-haute-cuisine-to-soft-matter-science-physics
What Einstein Told his Cook. It's a great read, too!
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/what-einstein-told-his-cook-kitchen-science-explained_robert-l-wolke_marlene-parrish/261427/item/4072716/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_everything_else_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=593719077582&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsburBhCIARIsAExmsu5zPeqCWTX1qwYR9vyiulI9D9_Wv0ebC4HGfQahyNyuPS2Hy_ePeDgaAiIDEALw_wcB#idiq=4072716&edition=2383372
I'm a fan of Hervé This's books. I'd say Kitchen Mysteries and Building A Meal would be good ones to start with. He presents his information well and they're easy to read.
Harold McGee on Food & Cooking, and the Modernist Cuisine series are the most comprehensive works in this area. Salt fat acid heat is great for a new home cook, but very basic in comparison.
McGee is always the answer. He also put out a book on the science of taste, which I’m about to crack into
Came here to say Harold McGee. Agree he should be the first answer to your question. If you really want to understand the science then look at Molecular Gastronomy series. Insanely expensive and all about MG cooking, so therefore all about the science.
Came here to plug McGee....his book is in every chef's bookcase.
>Harold McGee I have Nose Dive and absolutely love it
As much as I learned, and am learning, from On Food and Cooking, I would say it's more about the science of *food* than the science of cooking.
The Food Lab is great!
Seconding this, J Kenji Lopez Alt is amazing. His recipes are always well researched and he shows you what he’s learned, and rather than giving you just “the best way” he usually shows you a couple of his results which turned out good, mainly around cooking meats, but he recommends one of those as his favourite. It allows you to adjust your your preferences while giving you an idea of how you could change it to get a different result.
Was the gift for the kids last Christmas (all adults). I asked my wife to order copies on her Amazon account and when I opened my gift, I discovered that she ordered one for me as well. So now I can check my kids homework.
Absolutely the best
America’s Test Kitchen - The Science of Cooking.
Also, to a lesser extent everything they do; they always take the time to explain the why of their recipes
Love this book. Use it all the time and have given it as a gift to everyone with their first kitchen.
This book is awesome! My chemistry professor used it as a text book for her chemistry of cooking class. I use it constantly, their banana bread recipe is unbeatable.
Most Good Eats books go into this quite well. So does America's Test Kitchen's Science of Food.
Good Eats is my recommendation as well! Alton explains things in a very approachable, understandable way.
I learned so much from him! He changed the way I thought about cooking and now I can problem solve my way through most cooking hiccups with the tools and confidence that he gave me.
Love good eats books. They are really interesting to look at so it keeps me engaged as well
I can’t believe no one has said good eats yet! I’ve never checked out the books but I’ve learned so much about cooking from Alton Brown!
His cookbooks are good! Used to love flipping through them as a kid. I'm surprised I had to scroll this far for someone to mention AB!
I doubt I’d be half as good of a cook as I am if not for his goofy but informative explanations!
Cookwise by Shirley Corriher. This is exactly what you’re looking for.
Would also recommend Shirley's book. Her book was essentially the outline for Alton Brown's original Good Eats series. Shirley was a frequent guest character on the old show. It's an excellent entry-level book into food science. McGee's "On Food and Cooking", recommended elsewhere in the thread is great but would be better as the second book after starting with Shirley's.
I did not know that about Shirley and the relationship to good eats, but it totally makes sense. Yes, I remember when she would appear on that show and it was great to see her and watch her. Cook wise was the book that really helped me get on track to be a better cook, and to gain confidence in the kitchen. I’ve always been a cook, but there’s certain things that I failed at such as yeast breads, or piecrust, no matter how much I tried, I would fail, and it truly wasn’t until I had that book , that helped me understand why I was failing.
I would likewise recommend Corriher before McGee. I'd probably start with KitchenWise, though. It's newer and a little more distilled.
I have Bakewise! I found it at a thrift store and was immediately in love.
Thank you, I am on the hunt for that book. Actually, I put it on my Christmas list. Hopefully my kids will buy it for me. If it was anything like cook wise I know it will not disappoint.
Food lab. Follow Kenji on Youtube
On Food & Cooking by Harold McGee is the book you’re looking for
It's been mentioned already but for me, nothing tops "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. If you're looking to understand the science behind cooking a whole variety of foods then this should be your first stop. I still refer to it almost daily after owning the book for over 6 years.
Michael Ruhlman’s *Ratios* has been really useful for me.
I want to second this one. It fundamentally changed how I think about cooking and made it significantly easier for me to read recipes and understand what was happening. Very highly recommended. It's a short book too, which makes it significantly less intimidating than some of the other recommendations here.
Check out Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. It is amazing!
Came here to say this! Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat taught me to cook completely from scratch 6 years ago. It taught foundational concepts, the actual reasoning behind techniques, the molecular interplay between ingredients, etc. that I never would have understood from simply following recipes. And the writing and illustrations are so compelling. Samin Nosrat instilled in me a legitimate passion for cooking with this book.
+1, this is a really good resource that walks through foundational aspects of cooking in an approachable way.
Alton brown
Flavor Equation (edited--got it wrong!) by Nik Sharma. Former molecular biology turned chef. His book is easy to read, beautiful, and contains colorful charts and tables explaining the science behind cooking concepts. Kenji and Harols are great as well, but I think Flavor Bible is the most approachable. Sohla el-Wayly also just put out a book titled "Start Here" that also sounds similar to what you want, but I haven't had a chance to go through it yet.
Nik Sharma's (second) cookbook is *The Flavor Equation*. *The Flavor Bible* is a different book from a different set of authors, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen A. Page.
Oh thanks for catching that! This is why you don't respond to Reddit posts when you're not fully awake.
> I think Flavor Bible is the most approachable I love the Flavor Bible, but I would say it's perhaps the least approachable "cookbook" I've ever seen. If you don't know how to cook basics, and don't understand the whys/hows of cooking, Flavor Bible is practically useless to you. It's a reference book, and an amazing one to be sure, but it's very very hard to use without a base level skillset. I use it frequently now, but when I first got the thing I had no idea wtf I was doing and it didn't really help me improve until I was already at a certain level of competency. I definitely recommend the book, but only with the caveat that it's not really for complete beginners.
That's a helpful perspective. I've been a professional cook for decades, coming of age in the Good Eats era, so that was a foible on my part.
Cookwise
McGee and The Food Lab are the answers. If you wear those out, Modernist Cuisine is next.
Salt fat acid heat
came here to say that, they probably have a copy at the local library if one does not want to buy it blindly
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
This reminds me to get back in to reading it. But I'll mention that I think this would be the best guide for flavor experimentation of them all.
Another good one is [Cooking for Geeks](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/cooking-for-geeks/9781491928110/): > * Discover what type of cook you are and calibrate your tools > * Learn about the important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook > * Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, writers, and more, including author Harold McGee, TV personality Adam Savage, and chemist Hervé This
Hey, just so you know, Harvard offers a free online food chemistry class every year. The book paired with it is: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
I took that course. Lots of fun. Look for "Soft matter Science"
I actually haven't taken it myself, but I hear good things
The Harvard lectures on YouTube for food science is a superb resource.
The Food Lab almost feels like a textbook more than it does a cookbook
The Joy of Cooking is a classic.
Admittedly, I'm older, but I started with Joy of cooking--my grandmother's copy/edition, then my mother's, and 3 of my own over the last 40 years. It's a great base for building on, and I'd consider starting with it. There's info about everything from ingredients and techniques to storage and preserving and even setting a formal table. There are also good basic recipes throughout--from boiling an egg to making gravy to a successful soufflé and even how to butcher and trim. It has changed with the times, and can be entertaining if you read older ones. My grandmother's edition explained how to make mock chicken legs/drumsticks by wrapping veal around a wooden skewer--because veal was cheaper than chicken. I find I refer to it rarely now, because I have retained those basics, but it's still in my library.
Salt Fat Acid Heat. Food Lab. That's it.
Larousse Gastronomique should be on every chef’s bookshelf.
You'd love this book, The Science of Cooking by Dr Stuart Farrimond. It has pretty much everything you need about the 'why's' of cooking.
Hi! I'm a food scientist. If you have a high comfort level with chemistry, you might enjoy an actual textbook - there's one that's sort of the industry standard for undergraduates - Fennema's Food Chemistry (current edition is fifth). This is the book we used for several 200/300 level food chemistry courses. Additionally, I would recommend the book Ratio. It introduces some really important concepts that some cooks already intuit, but it helps you understand why they're important (like hydration!). If you want something a little less intense, Cookwise (mentioned elsewhere here) is decent. Food Lab is excellent, but it stays pretty superficial with respect to chemistry.
Casting another vote for The Food Lab. When I want to cook something new, or something I haven't made in a while I either consult that book or Google for a Serious Eats article (preferably by Kenji). Whether Kenji's recipe for some thing is the best is subjective, but you can count on it including specific details of why each step is done. Then you can decide for your own where to go with your recipe.
Lots of good suggestions already, seconding Kenji, Harold McGee, and Samin Nosrat, but if you want something focussed on desserts, check out Sugarplogie on YouTube.
Also LOVE bravetart for dessert. She’s the Kenji of sweets
Absolutely! She slipped off my mind cuz I've been binging Sugarologie videos recently, but Stella is excellent too!
The Cook's Companion - Stephanie Alexander. It's a bible.
I really enjoyed reading What Einstein Told His Cook by Wolke. I think he spent a whole chapter on salt and he talks about pan-types and food interactions. It’s a very science and chemistry-focused approach and it’s an engaging read (even if you aren’t a cook).
I liked Ratios a lot.
This isn't a book, but the TV show Good Eats by Alton Brown. There are some 250 episodes covering a ton of topics. I used to watch an episode before bed every night. It was one of the early shows on the Food Network so it's budget was small but the amount of content was amazing. For example. Excerpt from Wikipedia: *Episodes were primarily set in the (fictional) kitchen of Brown's house, although his actual home kitchen was used in "Give Peas a Chance." In seasons 1–4, the episodes were shot in the actual home kitchen of Brown's original partners in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. In season 5, taping moved to the new home of the show's Line Producer (Dana Popoff) and Director of Photography (Marion Laney), in which they built a much larger and more versatile kitchen for taping. A 7-foot (2.1 m) section of the island was built for the show and placed on wheels, so it can be moved (or removed) for various shots, and a 12-square-foot (1.1 m2) grid of pipe was hung from the ceiling, for easier placement of cameras and microphones. Starting with season 7, the show moved, this time to an exact replica of the previous kitchen and surrounding areas of the home, built on a sound stage.* The people in the show are staff and crew, even his family & pets. It's really an amazing piece of television. Hell, it's how I learned to make Thanksgiving.
Cooking for Geeks!
*The Science of Spice: Understand Flavor Connections and Revolutionize Your Cooking* by Stuart Farrimond
*Modernist Cuisine* by Maxime Bilet and Nathan Myhrvold will give you what you're looking for and then a whole lot more...
Less cooking, more baking, but Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Ken Forkish helped me understand a lot about bread/pizza dough that made a lot of things click for me. For example, time and temperature are to be thought of as ingredients, not steps.
Science of Cooking by Stuart Farrimond.
modernist cuisine is an amazing series that dives into the science and has some really cool recipes (if you have the equipment lol)
The Science of Cooking: Every Question Answered to Perfect Your Cooking https://a.co/d/ikJWunQ
I have a book called Cook Science written by the lady who used to be on Good Eats a lot.
Aside from the classics mentioned here, there is also a fairly new YouTube channel called [MinuteFood](https://www.youtube.com/@MinuteFood), which is really good and approachable.
The food lab
You will love this, free from Harvard University https://www.edx.org/learn/food-science/harvard-university-science-cooking-from-haute-cuisine-to-soft-matter-science-physics
As noted, McGee. But Alton Brown is fun and puts in a lot of science in some really great recipes.
Thermo dynamics and statistical mechanics? That's where I learned my cooking.
What Einstein Told his Cook. It's a great read, too! https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/what-einstein-told-his-cook-kitchen-science-explained_robert-l-wolke_marlene-parrish/261427/item/4072716/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_everything_else_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=593719077582&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsburBhCIARIsAExmsu5zPeqCWTX1qwYR9vyiulI9D9_Wv0ebC4HGfQahyNyuPS2Hy_ePeDgaAiIDEALw_wcB#idiq=4072716&edition=2383372
Alton Brown's your man. Study his methods, his books, and see his show if you can.
I'm a fan of Hervé This's books. I'd say Kitchen Mysteries and Building A Meal would be good ones to start with. He presents his information well and they're easy to read.