Искал книгу «On Cooking: A Textbook Of Culinary Fundamentals», где-то видел рекомендацию, типа, это textbook (в названии так и написано!), нашел вместо нее «On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen», на всякий случай скачал, на всякий случай открыл и впечатлился.
В книге простым английским языком написана история (lore) еды и «почему это работает» (science). Ну, например, «почему жидкие яйца твердеют при тепловой обработке?». Или «что появилось в начале, курица или яйцо?».
Книга огромная и очень подробная, по всем-всем продуктам, про один только сахар написано страниц 30.
Случайная цитата:
The sensations caused by “hot” spices and vegetables — chillis, black pepper, ginger, mustard, horse-radish, onions, and garlic — are most accurately described as irritation and pain. The active ingredients in all of these are chemical defenses that are meant to annoy and repel animal attackers. Very reactive sulfur compounds in the mustard and onion families apparently do mild damage to the unprotected cell membranes in our mouth and nasal passages, and thus cause pain. The pungent principles of the peppers and ginger, and some of the mustard compounds, work differently; they bind to a specific receptor on the cell membranes, and the receptor then triggers reactions in the cell that cause it to send a pain signal to the brain. The mustard and onion defenses are created only when tissue damage mixes together normally separate enzymes and their targets. Because enzymes are inactivated by cooking temperatures, cooking will moderate the pungency of these foods. By contrast, the peppers and ginger stockpile their defenses ahead of time, and cooking doesn’t reduce their pungency.