On food and eating

back. Learning about food—learning to eat—is a series of edible adventures and surprises. For instance, just when you think you have mastered the potato, that such a basic ingredient could have nothing new to offer, you discover aligot, a velvety blend of mashed potatoes, garlic, and Cantal cheese. Or you are introduced to the unlikely but

Peter Mayle • French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew (Vintage Departures)

By simmering the vegetables until soft, the cook breaks down their cell walls and releases the cell contents into the water. These contents include salts, sugars, acids, and savory amino acids, as well as aromatic molecules. Carrots, celery, and onions are almost always included for their aromatics, and mushrooms and tomatoes are the richest source... See more

Harold McGee • On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

What’s the difference between herbs and spices? Herbs are the leaves and stems of plants. Spices include all the other parts: bark, fruit, buds, seeds, roots. That’s the difference! That’s it!

Hilah Johnson • Learn To Cook: A Down and Dirty Guide to Cooking (For People Who Never Learned How)

that salt added after cooking that is not fully dissolved [into solution] has a more pronounced salt flavor than dissolved salt [Thomas Keller.

Science of salt

I have come to believe that food is history of the deepest kind. Everything we eat tells a tale of ingenuity and creation, domination and injustice—and does so more vividly than any other artifact, any other medium.

Robin Sloan • Sourdough: A Novel

The internet certainly played its part. As we spend increasing hours buried in our computers the very fact that food can't be consumed virtually gives it a special resonance. You can, of course, post pictures of what you’re eating - people do that by the millions - but that’s no substitute for the scent of onions caramelizing in butter, the sound... See more

Food Writing Grows Up

But the food narratives we create when we shop, cook and eat don’t need to be exotic, expensive or rarefied. They shouldn’t be estranged from the humdrum, ugly, familiar mess of everyday life. They don’t even have to taste good. The important thing is giving yourself time to imagine your food, to touch, taste and smell the ingredients, and to

Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want

If our nose is blocked by a cold or pinching fingers, it’s hard to tell the difference between an apple and a pear. So most of what we experience as flavor is odor, or aroma. Herbs and spices heighten flavor by adding their characteristic aroma molecules.

Harold McGee • On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

The whole point of it is that nothing hinges on your baking success or failure. You won’t go hungry if it all goes wrong, because cake was never going to form the backbone of your diet in the first place. And whatever happens, you’ll still get to lick the bowl.

Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want

Bake anyways. Even if you suck at it.