I've been looking forward to tonight's interview with Nathan Myhrvold. Here's one interview intro:
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Nathan Myhrvold about his upcoming book, MODERNIST CUSINE: The Art & Science of Cooking (by Dr. Nathan Myhrvold & Chris Young). But this is no ordinary cook book – it is a 4-volume tome totaling over 2200 pages on recipes and techniques you might think of as “molecular gastronomy”. Although Nathan humbly denies the analogy, this book is poised to do for modern cooking what Escoffier did for classical cuisine a hundred years ago.
If you haven’t heard of Nathan Myhrvold, you’ll likely enjoy his Wikipedia bio, which should be cataloged somewhere between the biography of Leonardo da Vinci and The Adventures of Baron von Münchhausen, except that all of his accomplishments are verifiably true. Nathan, a native Seattleite, is the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures, a company that specializes in “the business of invention”. His resume includes a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics and awards in wildlife photography. His archeological paleontological expeditions have discovered more T-Rex fossils than any other group, and he has published breakthrough research on the trajectory patterns of penguin feces. He designs nuclear reactors and laser guns that zap mosquitoes in mid-air. And he is a major food geek.
Here's some more about the book:
Here's the recipe for the most astonishing cookbook of our time: Take one multimillionaire computer genius, a team of 36 researchers, chefs and editors and a laboratory specially built for cooking experiments. After nearly four years of obsessive research, assemble 2,400 pages of results into a 47-pound, six-volume collection that costs $625 and requires four pounds of ink to print.
To call inventor Nathan Myhrvold's "Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking," on sale next month, a "cookbook" is akin to calling James Joyce's "Ulysses" "a story." The book is a large-scale investigation into the math, science and physics behind cooking tasks from making juicy and crisp beer-can chicken to coating a foie-gras bonbon in sour cherry gel. There is precedent in this genre—science writer Harold McGee has published popular books explaining kitchen science, and chefs Thomas Keller and Ferran Adrià have written about sous vide and other techniques of avant-garde gastronomy—but nothing reaches the scope and magnitude of Mr. Myhrvold's book. While it will likely appeal to professional chefs, within its pages are insights that even the humblest home cooks can use to improve their meals. The book puts traditional cooking wisdom under scientific scrutiny, destroying old assumptions and creating new cooking approaches...
And there's this:
It hasn't even been released yet, but the highly-anticipated magnum opus Modernist Cuisine has already been inducted into the gastro-literary Hall of Fame.
The six-volume, 2,438-page set was given the honor at the annual Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris March 3, as part of the Paris Cookbook Fair, the largest event dedicated to cookbooks and wine books.
Hailed as a "masterpiece," the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards called the culinary encyclopedia "the most important cookbook of the first 10 years of the 21st century."
Lots more out there, much of it linked at ModernistCuisine.com (and on facebook and twitter), and Scientific American has an excerpt. There's also a (gorgeous) brochure/excerpt linked at Amazon, where the book is 26% off at $461.62 (B&N's interpretatation of 26% off is $462.50, but I guess I'll give them that). Preorder, of course: the initial printing of 6,000 sold out, and the second printing (25,000) is still on its way. Wonder if Stephen's got his copy yet.
Twitter tells me:
@ModernCuisine Modernist Cuisine
Nathan on Colbert Tonight! Jokes made here, by hand and with attention to detail. Happy to be sitting in the... http://fb.me/...
1 hour ago
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@michbarnes shelbyb
RT by ModernCuisine
Nathan preps Colbert crew for MC style demos. Watch tonite! @moderncuisine http://yfrog.com/...
Even the non-geeks among you should enjoy that.
Oh, and anyone got a spare $462 around? I *want* this.
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