Tag: cuisine

The $625 Cookbook on Modernist Cuisine

In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inven­tors, and accom­plished cooks in their own right—have cre­ated a six-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing food that ranges from the oth­er­worldly to the sub­lime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astound­ing new fla­vors and tex­tures by using tools such as water baths, homog­e­niz­ers, cen­trifuges, and ingredients such as hydro­col­loids, emul­si­fiers, and enzymes. It is a work des­tined to rein­vent cooking.

Weighing 40 lbs., and with over 3200 images, the book is rumoured to have taken over 5 years to complete at a cost of up to $10 million dollars. That means they’ll have to sell at least 16,000 copies just to break even! According to their blog, they did an initial printing of 6,000 and based on pre-sales are now contemplating a second run of 25,000.

Micheal Ruhlman did an excellent write up in the New York Times after spending several weeks with the book.

The book can easily be found for around $460 on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. If you don’t have that kind of cash to plunk down though, and are still interested in Modernist Cuisine, check out the Molecule-R Cuisine Revolution Molecular Gastronomy Kit.