The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

are you to say that there’s a better way?
Well, there are a number of answers I could give to this
question: It’s my job to study food, test it, and answer
questions about it. I have a degree from one of the top
engineering schools in the country. I spent a good eight
years cooking behind the stoves of some of the best
restaurants in the country. I’ve edited recipes and articles in
food magazines and on websites for almost a decade. These
are all pretty good reasons to put your faith in what I say,
but the truth of the matter is this: you shouldn’t trust me.
You see, “Just trust me” was the way of the old cooks.
The MO of the master-apprentice relationship. Do what I say
and do it now, because I say so. And that’s exactly the
mentality we’re trying to fight here. I want you to be
skeptical. Science is built on skepticism. Galileo didn’t come
to the conclusion that the Earth revolves around the sun, not
the other way around, by blindly accepting what everyone
else was telling him. He challenged conventional wisdom,
came up with new hypotheses to describe the world around
him, tested those hypotheses, and then and only then did he
ask people to believe in the madness that he was spouting
from behind that awesome beard of his. He did, of course,
die under house arrest after being tried by the Roman
Inquisition for all of his troubles. (Let’s hope that doesn’t
happen to any of you budding kitchen scientists.) And that
was for something as trivial as describing the shape of the
solar system. Meanwhile, we’re here tackling the big issues.
Pancakes and meat loaf deserve at least as much scrutiny!
The point is this: if at any time while reading this book
you come across something I’ve written that just doesn’t