The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking

daeley writes "Wired has a feature on Alton Brown, host of FoodNetwork's Good Eats and favorite chef of geek foodies everywhere: The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking. AB has his own website, of course, and his own blog, of course. (If you are familiar with Alton's distinctive delivery, you can hear his voice as you read. My only complaint is that he doesn't write anywhere near often enough.) He's also been interviewed on Slashdot. From the Wired article: 'Brown, 41, is a culinary hacker, the poster boy for a movement that's coming to a boil in kitchens across America. The essence: Cooking is a science, not an art, informed by chemistry, physics, and biology. "Everything in food is science," Brown says. "The only subjective part is when you eat it."'"

finally!

[lawngnome]

finally I can wear a labcoat and a chefs hat in the kitchen and not feel like a dork.

Next book...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Endocrinological Joy Of Sex"

This is why he rules...

[darth_MALL]

From the article:
"What other chef writes a script in which he gets punched in the head by Boxing Nun puppets named Tender and Flaky, as they fight over whether the two textural qualities can coexist in one pie crust?" Truly an American Icon :-P

The Science Mastered

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

I don't know how they did it, But McDonalds [mcdonalds.com] has created the perfect food. It contains more calories per gram than any fuel on the planet, ask Morgan Spurlock [rottentomatoes.com], you can obtain it in a Jiffy [216.239.41.104].

It is only edible by humans, I've never seen anything else touch my #2. And it never spoils (leave it out and it just gets hard, no mold, no green, no nothing!).

Culinary perfection.

Everything is Science

[Manassas]

food, sex, food, sex, food, sex...

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[Anonymous Coward]

Noononono. You've got it backwards. Biologists wish they were chemists. Chemists wish they were physicists (because ultimately, thats where the root of their studies is)... And physicists wish they were god (and ultimately, they are more likely to be more god-like than all of the above--Atom bomb and all).

Except perhaps that biologists could unleash plagues of locusts, by tweaking the environment, which is close enough. Chemists are just wanna-bees.

Re:Forgot a credit

[GPLDAN]

It would be great if Alton went over and smacked Bobby Flay upside the head with a meat tenderizer. Repeatedly. Hard.

Where the "art" comes in.

[Araneas]

The Wife looking in fridge: "There's nothing to eat."

Me looking in same fridge 10 sec later: "Eggs cheese, muchrooms and a chunk of left over ham. Omlettes coming right up."

Wife=happy.

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[Anonymous Coward]

And God wishes He were a mathematician.

I use a microwave oven

[WormholeFiend]

so, can I call it "magneto-thermo-nuclear" cooking?

Re:crap

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fatherland, not motherland, you stupid prick.

Of course, in Soviet Russia, that would be different...

Speaking of Food Network ... Rachel Ray is hot

[alien666]

Rachel Ray is hot! [foodnetwork.com]

Re:If cooking is science

[Enry]

Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

Hmm..if by that you mean "overhyped nonsense", then I guess so. But it's not really fair to Java.

Re:If cooking is science

[outsider007]

Does that make Jamie Oliver java?

I would've went with python because of that huge tongue

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[shawb]

I thought Physicists thought they were mathemeticians, who thought they were philosophers, who thought they were sociologists, who thought they were psychologists, who thought the were biologists, who thought they were chemists, who then thought they were physicists...

Re:Not a very profound assertion

[Tackhead]

> Bakers are, in a sense, biologists. They know that yeast in bread and rolls thrive in warm temperatures, and that the ideal temperature for yeast activity is between 120 an 130 degrees F. Heat the dough to 140, and the yeast dies. Salt will kill yeast if brought in direct contact with it as well. And yeast loves sugar - so much so that if you leave the sugar out of bread, the yeast will start breaking down the complex sugars in the flour, which in turn changes the flavor of the breads.

So when a recipe calls for a certain amount of honey to be added to a dough that also includes flour and eggs, you're really just tweaking the bee-puke input in order to adjust yeast-shit output as a function of how many bird menstruation products you added.

(And yet, I still enjoy bread and beer, and am still hungry. Go figure.)

Re:Cooking Will Get You Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, no matter how many times you call your right hand "your wife", or "a woman", it still won't come true. Best to realize that early.