2.24.25 | Reading is FUNdamental

What books most influenced your thinking about food?

Matt’s Pick

“This a strange book to have on my most influential books list, but after going through my list, this one kept circling back to the top. I have never even read it straight through. It is a dry boring brick of a tome that you should never read.

However it is also an amazing book, especially for answering those nagging obscure questions you have about food science.”

When I was a young cook at a fancy-pants hotel, I asked the executive sous chef why you can whip white heavy cream into yellow butter and he said, “Why's the sky fucking blue! Get back to work!” So when no one was looking I stole a quart of heavy cream, took it to the back of the kitchen behind the baking department where I could hide and whipped white heavy cream into a yellow wet blob of butter. I was kind of fascinated and also perplexed: What in the hell did I just do?

I went to the bookstore and found this book by Harold McGee and starting fingering through the pages. So if you’re wondering, when you whip white heavy cream you break the membrane of the tiny droplets of fat globules that are dispersed throughout the cream. They are naturally yellow due to beta-carotenes, but they’re too small for the eye to see. So as you break the thin membranes around the fat they start to lump together, getting larger and larger and finally large enough for them to reflect enough light for the eye to see. Soon enough you have a wet milky blob of yellow butter.

Absolutely fascinating! Join me next week when we talk about emulsions and phospholipids!

—Matt

Becca’s Pick

“This is one of the first books that changed the way I think about food.

Temple Grandin’s theory is that her particular manifestation of autism makes her brain work a lot like that of an animal. It gave her the ability to see things from their perspective.”

In this book, Grandin describes how when she walked through poorly designed cattle shoots, she could understand how the angles and shadows were confusing and scary to the cattle. Because of that perspective, she was able to design stress-free cattle handling systems for farmers.

Growing up on a small farm, I was raised to believe in the importance of animal welfare, so Grandin’s focus wasn't a new concept for me. However, I really liked the idea that animal welfare could be achieved on a larger scale.

I know that large scale agriculture is far away from what it ideally should be, but the book provided some hope that I feel is essential to hang on to.  

—Becca