What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained

The book “What Einstein Told HIs Cook,” by Robert L. Wolke brings a scientific outlook to the normalities of food and the kitchen. The book, assigned to our Chemistry class by the teacher, was a lot of fun to read and held attention despite its educational context. Its fun, understandable subject matter makes rebuking myths fun to read. Wolke himself is quite distinguished in the field of chemistry, and currently is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. His decision to debunk cooking myths and explain why certain things occur allow for an interesting read due to the easily relatable subject. An example of Wolke’s discussions would be when he speaks of non-stick frying pans, and how they work chemistry-wise. The metal itself of course doesn’t prevent sticking but the spray on coating of PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene. PTFE is quite special- on the atomic level it doesn’t want to bond with anything. Of course this means any foreign substance should slide right off, or at least not stick to it. Why does this work? Wolke explains that PTFE is a fluorolymer, meaning the chemical is made up of many smaller structures, in this case containing fluorine and carbon. The way it is arranged fills the outer energy levels of each fluorine, and therefore fluorine wants nothing to do with any other atom, creating the non-stick surface we all know and love. A second myth Wolke adresses is whether or not lemons yield more juice after being rolled and microwaved. He tests this with a large pool of lemons, and finds that simply squeezing holds up pretty well to those that had been rolled and microwaved. Of course the automatic squeezer claimed the best results. However, Wolke finds that rolling and then microwaving the lemon has the best results for hand squeezing. The rolling breaks the cell walls, followed by the microwaves exciting the water molecules creates this. Overall, the book was a fun and understandable read, with well organized evidence. Fun topics, such as the mysterious non-stick frying pan, and how to properly juice lemons. Wolke does a good job making a book that is relatable to the audience, yet at the same time is fun to read. I would easily recommend this book to anyone- an interest in chemistry is not required to enjoy this book.

Robert Wolke wrote a fabulous book in What Einstein Told His Cook. It centers around the chemistry of cooking and can be understood by all ages. I read this book for class but I believe it can be used by chefs, chemistry students, and readers interested in science. I highly recommend this book for these groups of people plainly for how useful the book is for day-to-day operations. What Einstein Told His Cook makes chemistry understandable for all experience levels. For example, I had no idea there were multiple types of sugar until I finished this book. But now I know these types and it honestly affects my daily life. I also did not know the difference between saturated and unsaturated but fully understood the two types after reading this book. If you have any kitchen or cooking fears then this book is for you. This book proves and disproves many myths that relate directly to our health while still using language that is easy to digest. One of the biggest myths it disproved was that microwaves can cause cancer/are dangerous. It also explained why the green spots on chips aren't dangerous in an understandable way. What Einstein Told His Cook is a thoughtfully done piece that is a must read for everyone who eats food. All the facts in the book are as true as chemists know being that Wolke is a professor at University of Pittsburgh. If you aren't sure whether the book is for you, put your trust in me; this book is useful for everyone.

This book is about what science can tell us about working with food. It is one answer to my wish that every TV chef who is attempting to teach cooking to us foodies take a two semester course in chemistry. The book is not a rigorous approach to the chemistry of sugars, salt, fats, chemical leavenings, heat, acids, bases, and the like. Rather, it is a collection of enhanced answers to questions posed to the author in a regular newspaper column. This makes the book more interesting to read, if a little less available as a resource to applying its teachings to new situations.The second chapter on salt is a perfect example of the kind of misunderstandings this book clears up. More than one TV chef (and more than one cookbook author) has spoken at great length about differences in salt, giving one the impression that there is a basic difference between table salt, kosher salt, and sea salt. There is, of course, a difference, but that difference is based almost entirely on the physical differences, akin to the difference between liquid and frozen water. All salt is sodium chloride. By weight, no type of salt gives a saltier result than another. The very small additional differences between, say, kosher salt and sea salt are in the presence of incredibly small quantities minerals in addition to sodium chloride. Even differences in taste may be due to the differences in physical form. I have a sense that these considerations may be just a little too subtle to be worth all this fuss. I'm inclined to agree, until it occurs to me that if someone hears a statement that `kosher salt' is less salty than table salt, they may use this as a reason to use more kosher salt and ignore the evidence of their senses that they are indeed eating a lot of salt. This becomes significant if one must lower their intake of sodium chloride.This book addresses many such confusions, and addresses them accurately and persuasively. It does this so well that Alton Brown wishes he would have written this book. My suggestion to Alton Brown is that with the lesson of this book, he would be able to do a better job of it.I may be stepping on an intellectual land mine here since I have not yet read Shirley Corriher's book `Cookwise' so I do not know if she has already been over this territory, but here goes.I think the definitive book on food science for the masses has not been written yet. This book covers many of the right topics and I found no inaccuracies in the science. But, the book suffers from being a collection of edited columns. Science is about theories explaining facts. For example, a full explanation of salt would involve a discussion of what a salt is, in general, and use this information to show, among other things, why salt is dangerous to people with hypertension and how chemicals other than table salt can influence body fluid volume in hypertensives.A scientific discussion would extend the notion of salts to what it means to dissolve a salt in water. By doing so, it would clear up the most seriously abused work in cooking explanations. That word is `dissolve' and it's various past, past perfect and pluperfect tenses. Almost every culinary demonstrator on TV and many writers in cookbooks misuse the term dissolve by applying it to the very different operations of creating an emulsion, melting, and creating a colloid.I think what I am really recommending as some future Alton Brown project is a book that combines physics, chemistry, and physiology to give an UNDERSTANDING of food, cooking, and health. Understanding is the real goal of science, so that one can apply what one knows in one situation to cooking food in other situations. Strange as it may seem, this is an almost perfect characterization of what Herr Brown believes he is doing.The subtitle of this book, `Kitchen Science Explained' is a perfect representation of how this book is not science itself, but the carrying of science to the `gentiles'. In itself, the title is a redundancy, since science itself is explanation incarnate.This is a very good book. I found no errors (I was a professional chemist, so I would probably have found really bad errors if there were any) in science. I believe the writing is lucid and entertaining. I believe the author is always intellectually honest in saying when either he does not know the answer or if science in general does not yet have an explanation.The only point of my ranting is that this is not the ideal book on food science which bridges the gap between the research of Harold McGee and the practical worlds of Alton Brown and Shirley Corriher. A book that comes a lot closer to this goal is McGee's book, `The Curious Cook'.I recommend this book to anyone with any curiosity about food. Excellent reading even if you don't cook.

Gifted to a friend who teaches science along with the 2nd book. Nice reference book to use the practical, food, to teach science.

A great book. The chocolate mousse has become a holiday staple in my house.

I bought this book as a birthday present and the person was really pleased with it.

Some parts are better than others (the scientific analysis combined with recipes is quite peculiar), but for people interested in food it is quite interesting.

Speedy delivery, copies of a fascinating book

Great explanations of the chemistry of food.