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What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert L. Wolke
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy Used: $6.77
You Save: $19.18 (74%)
New (48) Used (37) Collectible (2) from $6.77
Avg. Customer Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 59646
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 350
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0393011836
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5
EAN: 9780393011838
ASIN: 0393011836
Publication Date: May 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Why do recipes call for unsalted butter--and salt? What is a microwave, actually? Are smoked foods raw or cooked? Robert L. Wolke's enlightening and entertaining What Einstein Told His Cook offers answers to these and 127 other questions about everyday kitchen phenomena. Using humor (dubious puns included), Wolke, a bona fide chemistry professor and syndicated Washington Post columnist, has found a way to make his explanations clear and accessible to all: in short, fun. For example, to a query about why cookbooks advise against inserting meat thermometers so that they touch a bone, Wolke says, "I hate warnings without explanations, don't you? Whenever I see an 'open other end' warning on a box, I open the wrong end just to see what will happen. I'm still alive." But he always finally gets down to brass tacks: as most heat transfer in meat is due to its water content, areas around bone remain relatively cool and thus unreliable for gauging overall meat temperature.Organized into basic categories like "Sweet Talk" (questions involving sugar), "Fire and Ice" (we learn why water boils and freezers burn, among other things), and "Tools and Technology" (the best kind of frying pan, for example), the book also provides illustrative recipes like Black Raspberry Coffee Cake (to demonstrate how metrics work in recipes) and Bob's Mahogany Game Hens (showing what brining can do). With technical illustrations, tips, and more, the book offers abundant evidence that learning the whys and hows of cooking can help us enjoy the culinary process almost as much as its results. --Arthur Boehm
Product Description
Does the alcohol really boil off when we cook with wine? Are smoked foods raw or cooked? Are green potatoes poisonous? This work provides plain explanations of kitchen mysteries, with a liberal seasoning of wit. Organized into basic categories for easy reference, this book contains more than 130 lucid explanations of kitchen phenomena involving starches and sugars, salts, fats, meats and fish, heat and cold, cooking equipment and more. Along the way Robert L. Wolke debunks some widely held myths about foods and cooking.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 What Mr. Wizard asked his cook. November 4, 2008
I might have liked this book better if I read it before I read On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. But I read that one first and enjoyed the technical explanations. Some of the same questions are explored in both books, and in McGee's book you will get a detailed explanation suitable for a college student. This book you will get an explanation suitable for about 7th grade. It's more like Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye asked these questions instead of Einstein. If you want easier reading and simple answers, this book is for you. But I felt it was dumbed down compared to McGee's book.
There are better not bad for beginners October 31, 2008
Not bad, easy read, but if you are really interested in this stuff there are may better kitchen science books that leave this in the dust. It depends on your level of interest and sophistication. I have no idea why he through some his wifes recipes in. His other books are better.
(try "On food and Cooking" by McGee if you want more)
No Reason to Invoke Einstein September 21, 2008
This book is REALLY interesting! So far, I've just skipped around from section to section but soon will inevitably read it from cover to cover and love it all.
So far though, I see absolutely no rhyme or reason why the name Einstein was used at all in the book title. It just seemed like a weird marketing gimmick.
The book is good and stands on it's own. There's no need to tie it to the genius of Einstein. Or maybe I just missed the point....
 Want more? March 1, 2008
Full of trivia as well as little morsels of fact everyone wonders about. Completely worth the price, it just so happens we have all new facts and ideas!
Informative and easy read December 28, 2007
I found this book to be a very easy and entertaining read. The author did a very good job of making it entertaining with some anecdotes and tongue in cheek writing style. It was also very informative. If you are a fan of Alton Brown style of delivery, you will probably enjoy this book.
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