Showing titles in Gastronomy

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.

Over the past three decades, Lew Bryson has been one of the most influential voices in whiskey. In Whiskey Master Class, Lew shares everything he's learned on his journey through the worlds of bourbon, Scotch, rye, Japanese whiskey, and more (yes, there are tasty Canadian and Irish whiskeys!).

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.

Ruhlman propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnamable elements of great cooking.

Everyone knows how to drink beer, but few know how to really taste it with an understanding of the finer points of brewing, serving, and food pairing. Discover the ingredients and brewing methods that make each variety unique, and learn to identify the scents, colors, flavors, and mouthfeel of all the major beer styles. Recommendations for more than 50 types of beer from around the world encourage you to expand your horizons. Uncap the secrets in every bottle of the world's greatest drink!

Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when medieval physicians boiled juniper berries with wine to treat stomach pain. The Drunken Botanist uncovers the surprising botanical history and fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, and fruits (and even a few fungi).

Having conquered the world's taste buds and established itself as a staple in our daily lives, coffee has mirrored the moods and movements of society for centuries - yet, how much do we know about its history? In his riveting new book, A Short History of Coffee, Gordon Kerr investigates the fascinating history behind the global obsession with coffee, from its Ethiopian origins, the legends, myths, geographical locations and somewhat eccentric characters that have helped make it the staple that it is today.

In this engaging, anecdotal history of food, world conquest, and desire, a chef-turned-journalist tells the story of three legendary cities, Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam, that transformed the globe in the quest for spice.

Every home cook has thoughts on the right and wrong ways to use spices. These beliefs are passed down in family recipes and pronounced by television chefs, but where do such ideas come from? Many are little better than superstition, and most serve only to reinforce a cook's sense of superiority or cover for their insecurities. It doesn't have to be this way. These notes On Spice come from three generations of a family in the spice trade, and dozens upon dozens of their collected spice guides and stories. 

Here is Anthony Bourdain's long-awaited sequel to Kitchen Confidential, the worldwide best seller. A lot has changed since then - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business, and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present.

Like so many American women, Shauna M. Ahern spent decades feeling not good enough about her body, about money, and about her worth in this culture. For a decade, with the help of her husband, she ran a successful food blog, wrote award-winning cookbooks, and raised two children. In the midst of this, at age 48, she suffered a mini-stroke. Tests revealed she would recover fully, but when her doctor impressed upon her that emotional stress can cause physical damage, she dove deep inside herself to understand and let go of a lifetime of damaging patterns of thought.  

You've seen the headlines: Parmesan cheese made from sawdust. Lobster rolls containing no lobster at all. Extra-virgin olive oil that isn't. Fake foods are in our supermarkets, our restaurants, and our kitchen cabinets. Award-winning food journalist and travel writer Larry Olmsted exposes this pervasive and dangerous fraud perpetrated on unsuspecting Americans.

Michael Ruhlman, author of best-selling books about professional cooking and chefs and best-selling cookbooks with such chefs as Thomas Keller, Eric Ripert, and Michael Symon, turns his reporter's eye and engaging style on himself to answer the question "how on earth did I get here?" In an unlikely and unplanned series of chance connections, and work often motivated primarily by fear of poverty, he managed to carve a unique place for himself in the increasingly obsessive world of restaurants, chefs, and writers.

In this follow-up book to A Natural History of Wine and A Natural History of Beer, authors Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall yet again use alcoholic beverages as a lens through which to gain a greater appreciation of natural history.

Craig Carlson set out to do the impossible: open the first American diner in Paris. Despite never having owned his own business before - let alone a restaurant, the riskiest business of all - Craig chose to open his diner in a foreign country, with a foreign language that also happens to be the culinary capital of the world. While facing enormous obstacles, Craig and his diner, Breakfast in America, went on to be a great success - especially with the French.

Thirteen chapters evoke the joy and discovery of reading a menu dotted with the sharp-eyed annotations of a linguist. Jurafsky points out the subtle meanings hidden in filler words like "rich" and "crispy," zeroes in on the metaphors and storytelling tropes we rely on in restaurant reviews, and charts a micro-universe of marketing language on the back of a bag of potato chips.

Patrick E. McGovern takes us on a fascinating journey through time to the dawn of brewing, when our ancestors might well have made a paleo brew of wild fruits, honey, cereals, and botanicals. Early beverage makers must have marveled at the magical process of fermentation. Their amazement grew as they drank the mind-altering drinks, which were to become the medicines, religious symbols, and social lubricants of later cultures.

The complete history of the legendary Venice landmark where Hemingway, Welles, and others were regulars. A meeting place for writers, artists, models, and the stars of stage, screen, and corporate boardrooms, a luxurious restaurant whose fabulous concoctions and timeless decor have often been imitated but never matched, Harry’s Bar in Venice has remained one of the world’s most renowned watering holes for more than 60 years.

Professor Jennifer Cognard-Black takes you on a culinary tour of fiction, from Proust’s evocative madeleine and the voracious hunger of fairy tales to the intersection of recipes with storytelling and the emotional consumption of food on film. These lessons look at how food can be so much more than mere set dressing in a great story.