Microsoft CTO Turns Cooking Expert
Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former first chief technology officer, is making headlines with his new venture, a six-volume cookbook containing some 2,400 pages and weighing nearly 50 pounds. Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, examines cuisine "through the lenses of science and innovation" according to cnet.com. Eric Mack of CNET goes on to say the book "attempts to fuse the worlds of the geek and the gastronome."
Susie
Mesure in The Independent claims Mr. Myhrvold left Microsoft "because
he felt working there impinged on his cooking time." Advised by "72
of the world's best chefs" who contributed some of the 1,500 recipes,
plus a team working in what is described as a "multimillion-dollar Seattle
food lab," the book "investigates the physics -- and maths -- behind
a plethora of cooking techniques from making the ultimate cheeseburger to how
to make Neapolitan-style pizza without investing in a brick oven, offering
cooks inventive new ways of cooking old favorites."
Forewords have been
written by two celebrated proponents of molecular gastronomy, Heston Blumenthal
of The Fat Duck in England and Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Spain. Like their
methods, however, not all of those in the book are likely to be tackled by
home cooks. Amongst equipment used for recipe testing were homogenizers, centrifuges
and ingredients such as hydrocolloids and enzymes.
To illustrate, cnet.com's Mr. Mack quotes instructions for the ultimate cheeseburger: "We infuse smoke flavor into the lettuce; we make a special cheese slice. When the cheese melts, it doesn't separate out and get greasy. We grind the meat in a particular way so that we align all the grains of meat; we cook it in a very specific way using liquid nitrogen ..." Photos of those microscopic meat fibers are included.
More down to earth advice includes adding more oil if fried food is soggy and not wasting money on expensive pans or organic food.
Defending the cover price of $625 (or $461.62 on discount on Amazon.com), Mr. Myhrvold apparently observes that an equivalent weight of other cookbooks would come in at an equivalent price.