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Loading... Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (2013)by Michael Pollan
  
No current Talk conversations about this book.  majackson | Apr 22, 2022 |  Michael can write about food! Each section of this book encouraged me to bake bread, braise some meat, and now make some sauerkraut. I enjoyed this book, partly due to a couple of BBQ restaurants i I enjoy visiting regularly in NC were discussed. If you have seen Cooked on Netflix, it's pretty much the book on TV. (  ) donhazelwood | Mar 11, 2022 | This is the fourth book of Pollan's that I have read and I must say that he goes from strength to strength. From his simple mantra for eating (Eat food, not too much, mostly plants) in the Omnivore's Dilemma to his exploration of how food scientists over-emphasize micro elements in food in In Defense of Food, I have been given much (dare I say it) food for thought. This book was no exception. The subtitle of this book is A Natural History of Transformation and Pollan examines four types of transformation that our food can go through. Each of these transformations is tied to an elemental force: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. For each section Pollan apprenticed himself to a master of that particular transformation. In Fire, he went to the American south and learned about barbecue. I'm not talking about throwing a piece of meat on the grill for a short length of time; I'm talking about slow cooking a whole pig in a pit for a day. If this section doesn't make you salivate you must be a really dedicated vegan. In Water he also explores slow cooking but it's the type of cooking done in a pot with liquid and some vegetables and some type of meat, probably a cut that would be tough unless cooked this way. Air is all about bread baking and how the air is essential to make a good tasting loaf of bread. He includes a recipe at the back for a sourdough type of bread which made me wonder if all those people who started baking sourdough in the beginning of the pandemic had read this book. As persuasive as he is with his passion for sourdough bread I think I'll probably stick to using yeast. Which gives me a nice segue into the final chapter which is all about treating food with microorganisms to ferment them. Fermentation also takes quite a long time but very little is required from the cook; instead those little bacteria do all the work. I think it might be time to make another batch of sauerkraut but unlike Pollan I'm not going to get a 7.5 liter crock. I'll stick with a quart preserving jar. In addition to vegetable fermentation, Pollan looked at cheese making and beer and wine brewing. Who needs barbecued or braised meat when you could have cheese and wine accompanied by some pickled and/or fermented vegetables? Remember Pollan's mantra and eat mostly plants. I see Pollan has branched off into the effects of plants on our minds in his latest books. I will have to see what fascinating insights he has discovered there. (  ) gypsysmom | Mar 9, 2022 | If you like to eat (and who doesn't), a great read even for those who don't like to cook ( ) jimgosailing | Nov 18, 2021 | This will be saved as one of my favorite books of all time. Which is saying a lot because I hate cooking with a passion, but he addresses the reason why and so many other people in this age hate cooking. He makes me want to drive to North Carolina and have some whole hog BBQ, and has given me an appreciation for all the types of food in this book are Slow Food. Not only is his journey learning to cook these dishes great but just the general info about food and culture and society is great as well. I am going to try my hand at live yeast culture artisan bread this next month and after we have our own garden established we will be canning and fermenting our goods! I recommend everyone read this book! ( ) Joy_Bush | Jul 22, 2021 |
 His eye for intricacy is well-suited to unpacking a sophisticated scientific or cultural phenomenon, but that same talent turns a description of actual cooking into a tediously reported, many-paged affair. It’s too bad, because Pollan’s premise is absolutely right: getting into the kitchen does solve a lot of society’s ills. But if anything, this book is more likely to turn people away from the kitchen. Like the Food Network, it may actually make cooking seem more, not less, complicated than it needs to be.  Paragraph by paragraph, he’s still a joy to read, conveying the deep satisfaction of, say, experimenting to achieve a sourdough bread that’s wholesome but still airy. Yet the richness of his engagement with cooking refutes his own nostalgia. Judging by Pollan’s own kitchen, for those with the will and the resources, the world of cooking has never been as golden as it is now. For all the exoticism of this book's adventures, Mr. Pollan does not stray far from familiar ground. Simple but true: food becomes "literally more wonderful (and wonderfully more literal)" when we remember that who we are and what we eat are parts of the same world. Is contained inContains
Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements--fire, water, air, and earth--to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)641.5 — Technology and Application of Knowledge Home and family management Food And Drink CookingLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.99)
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Wikipedia in English (2)
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• Fire. Food prepared via primarily fire: masculine, power, dangerous. It was kind of informative, if not particularly attractive to me. I definitely like the food, but am not all that interested in going to the lengths described here to prepare it.
• Water. Boiling, steaming , simmering: feminine, gentle. Also kind of informative, and slightly more attractive to me—inasmuch as it’s more accessible, if not as exciting or tasty as Fire.
• Air. The production of aerated foods, generally through baking in the oven. Informative and a bit more attractive.
• Earth. Fermentation. This is definitely the most interesting way of preparing food because the results are still alive when you consume them.
What makes this more than just a book about food (definitely NOT a cook book) is the transcendental/spiritual aspects of the preparation of food over the course of human evolution. Pollan explores—but of course can’t answer—the questions of who/why/when homo-sapiens first stopped eating raw meat and vegetables and started to “prepare” food: burn/boil/bake/ferment. Just think about how you, personally, would go about preparing: a dead animal, a tuber just dug up from under the earth, some rotting fruit spoiling on the ground, if you didn’t have someone else teaching you.
It's also very informative to think about how so many of the physical ailments we suffer today did not exist until we developed “fast food processing”. As far as I’m concerned you could live without reading this book…but it would be well worth the effort to read the section on Earth food production and fermentation and bacteria. This book only underscores some other books I’ve read in suggesting that we may likely discover that the cure for most modern ailments lies in merely eating healthy, rather than “purified” foods. Rather than looking for a “silver bullet” to cure our illnesses we should return to living with a little more “dirt”. (