Cook, Taste, Learn How the Evolution of Science Transformed the Art of Cooking by Guy Crosby

Cook, Taste, Learn How t

he Evolution of Science Transformed the Art of Cooking by Guy Crosby published these weeks by Columbia University Press, is a wonderful, at the same time interesting excursus in the art of cooking and what it meant for the humanity this act.

Eating is one of the main priorities of the humans; the first one; drinking water and eating with moderation mean preserving the body from dangerous risks.

Starting from the evolution of the man, so with the Homo Erectus and his possibility of increasing more intelligence thanks to a different and more researched food, passing through the art of cooking food thanks to the "invention", discovery of the fire and its potentialities.

A discovery this one in grade of assuring a best way of eating, killing in various cooked food various potential patogenic microorganisms. Humans detect six basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami and fat. 

With the time men understood something crucial: the possibility of planting seeds in grade of giving them food for the rest of the year. This one, the birth of agriculture, a process not only indispensible but wonderfully important for eating well.

Cooking is not just an act of love; if you read a cookbook, you'll understand that cooking is a mixture of chemistry, physics, food science. 

It's only in the 1500-1799 that cooking became an art thanks to the dicoveries of illuminating men like Lavoisier. But it will be during the French Revolution in Paris that cooking became thanks to Careme, who later would have inspired the same Auguste Escoffier, the most legendarious french chef who would have remarked "The fundamental principles of the science of cooking, which we owe to Careme, will last as long as cooking itself." 

The life-story of Careme is a real fairy-tales with a good end. Abandoned by his parents, he started an apprenticeship at a Paris pastry shop working later for Talleyrand during the Napoleon's years and later for many other influential people. He also wrote a book L'art de la cuisine francaise with more than 300 soups and 358 sauces.  It's always France, thanks to the legacy left by Careme that will make the difference in the art of cooking although later Germany became a good competitor. At the moment, we know a lot about food, and eating and what eating means for living a longest life, trying to find good and natural ingredients for great, good, natural dishes.

In the book you will also discovered several delicious recipes.

Interesting, informative, the cover is magnificent as well.

Highly recommended.

I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori