On Food and Cooking

workings of the natural world.
A lot has changed in twenty years! It
turned out that On Food and Cooking was
riding a rising wave of general interest in
food, a wave that grew and grew, and knocked
down the barriers between science and
cooking, especially in the last decade. Science
has found its way into the kitchen, and
cooking into laboratories and factories.
In 2004 food lovers can find the science of
cooking just about everywhere. Magazines
and newspaper food sections devote regular
columns to it, and there are now a number of
books that explore it, with Shirley Corriher’s
1997 CookWise remaining unmatched in the
way it integrates explanation and recipes.
Today many writers go into the technical
details of their subjects, especially such
intricate things as pastry, chocolate, coffee,
beer, and wine. Kitchen science has been the
subject of television series aired in the United
States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and