nathanm

People who ordered already have locked in a very low price. Ordering now will get you the benefit of the $500 price, and perhaps lower if it dips down. The book is also available from Barnes and Noble, also at $500 price point. I don't pretend to understand the dynamic pricing algorithms that Amazon, B&N and others use, so I don't know if the price is going to stay at $500, or go up or down...

Amazon just raised the price to $500, so the pre-order discount appears to be going away, or at least changing.

The burger certainly is feasible for any home kitchen. You need a meat grinder to grind the meat of course, but there is nothing exotic in the equipment. You don't even need sous vide for the burger if you are OK cooking it in a pan. Sous vide tends to make burgers a bit too dense. You can cook them in a bag that is unsealed, or with low vacuum.

We are intrigued by the idea of a similar book on pastry, but frankly we need to survive getting this book done before we get too serious about it!

Our goal with this recipe was to make the ultimate hamburger. That isn't a very well defined thing of course because everybody has their own definition, in part shaped by their experiences. Comfort food is often heavily influenced by nostalgia. Part of the recipe is about using state of the art techniques to execute a more or less standard hamburger. We use short rib as the meat for the burger. The meat is ground via a special technique to align the grain, which makes it seem jucier. The cheese is made using an emuslifier so that it melts perfectly, the way so-called American cheese does, but it is made of real Swiss cheeses so it has high quality cheese flavor. The bun is made using l-cystene, an amino acid that helps make buns soft. The tomato is vacuum compressed to make it denser. At the same time we wanted to put some twists in the dish. I ate at a restaurant in Seal Beach, California that had smoked lettuce. So we decided to add that, but we wanted the lettuce crispier than theirs so we did it by vacuum infusion of liquid smoke. For the ketchup and mayo we wanted to do something a bit more unusual flavor wise. So we developed our own ketchup recipe. We used mushrooms as the base, and then worked some other flavors in. Now, you might think that mushroom ketchup is something new, but no it isn't, see this Wikipedia article , which includes this photo of a bottle of mushroom ketchup hailing originally from 1850. Mushroom ketchup is also discussed here You may think that Thai fish sauce is unusual, but in fact anchovies are present in Worchestershire sauce, so it is not as odd as you may think. The same is true for allspice, which is found in many ketchup recipes. The overall goal is to have a recipe that is both familar and different at the same time. I think we achieved that, but of course there are a lot of other things that one could do.

The burger is really good!

It will be available for pre-order on Amazon UK soon, but I am not sure exactly how soon. I am happy to sign copies if they are physically accessible to me, but the logistics of signing and then shipping are difficult. The books are packaged in a shipping box at the printing plant - much like you would get a DVD player, flat panel TV or some other consumer electronics. It goes from there by ship to warehouses for Amazon, or other book distributors. The book weighs so much that paying for shipping to ship it to me to sign is pretty expensive. We are looking into a way for me to sign a bunch of books and then give them to Amazon or others as a special signed edition. This only makes sense if there is a lot of demand for a signed book. Another approach is to sign bookplates which get stuck in the book. We will look into various solutions...

The heat channel theory they propose seems very unlikely to me. We have not noticed this, nor is there any reason to think it should be true. Perhaps there is a small amount of fluid flow in the channels, but that is the only way I could think of it working, and even then it seems very unlikely to be a large effect. Testing it is possible but would be quite a chore. Normally a marinade or a brine has to soak through the meat, which takes time. It takes a very long time to penetrate a thick piece of meat with a marinade or brine. Country hams are cured for MONTHS because of this. There are a couple ways to fix this. Injection of the marinade or brine is one way. Vacuum tumbling is another. Jaccard is a third way. All of them tend to decrease the time to penetrate to a certain depth. In a big chunk of meat like a ham or a pork shoulder we often do all three - jaccard, inject then vacuum tumble. It speeds things up quite a bit. Jaccarding by itself without vacuum tumbling will speed things up but by a smaller amount. We have some suggested times and concentrations in the book - I don't have that chapter handy at the moment - Chris is working on it.

Total recipe count depends a bit on how you count it because we have some unique types of recipes that have many possibilites. I would estimate about 1000 recipes total in the book, distributed through most of the volumes. The plated dish recipes include side dishes and garnishes. Each one is multiple side recipes. However, the book is not just a recipe book. We could fit a lot more than 1000 recipes in that page count if that is all we wanted to do - we have a lot of technique and "how to" photos.

This topic is, of course, treated at length in my upcoming book , so that is one way to find out all about it . We find that Jaccarding is best done prior to cooking - either immediately, or prior to marinading or brining. With sous vide cooked meat it works very well with tough cuts - for example short rib, flat iron, hanger steak. Even if you are going to cook them for a long time (12 ot 48 hours) there is a benefit. Meat that is jaccarded is significantly more juicy, as discussed in posts above. I don't have figures on increase marination uptake. The key advantage is not the increased absorption is is getting the marinade deeper than it would otherwise get. Vacuum tumbling or infusion helps this further. Decreased cooking time is an odd claim. If you are doing fast cooking (like grilling) there is a benefit in tenderness, but no change in cooking time. If you are doing long slow SV cooking, then to get the same tenderness you probably don't have to cook as long, but the effect is not exactly the same and we don't have precise figures.

Thanks for all the positive feedback!

We really cut things in half! Lots of things... Photoshop was also needed in some cases. For example to show a pot cut in half we usually had to glue pyrex glass over the half, then use photoshop to take out the evidence of the glass at the edges. This is like in Hollywood movies where people fly through the air supported by wires, then they digitally remove the wires.

At long last our web site for my book Modernist Cuisine is up and running! We announce it officially on Monday, but I thought that you might like to check it out a bit early. The site is a work in progress and we will improve it over time, but the basic version still gives a lot more information than has been available up until now. The Table of Contents gives a good overview of what is in the book. The web site also shows some of the photos. The sous vide chapter is 86 pages, but sous vide information occurs throughout the entire book. The book itself is still being finished - we are reviewing galley proofs of some volumes, and doing final proofreading of other volumes this weekend. We have a few more weeks of work ahead of us to get evething done. There are a lot of details to check in 2400 pages! Publication date is still December 2010. I hope you like the book, but in the meantime, I hope you like the web site. This thread, and the feedback I got from posts here was the main inspiration for the book. Thanks to everybody here for the help and encouragement over the years!!

We are trying to figure out the logistics of how we could sell signed copies. So there is no offical plan to do so yet, but we may come up with one. Right now our focus is on finishing. I have about 400 pages to proofread and correct this weekend.

Amazon will stock it world wide. It will also be distributed to various book stores, and we have talked to people about distributing for us in Australia. I am not sure what you mean by "book depository" - if that is a specific distribtor. The book is being packed into a shipping box at the printing plant. So it should arrive in its own shipping box the way that a TV or computer would be packed.

If you order through Amazon now you are guaranteed the lowest price between now and when your order ships. They may raise the price later - but this is not something I am involved with. Table of contents will be up soon - on both the Amazon page and a new web site. But we're busy with the book at the moment. The photos are of step-by-step methods and final dishes and everything else in between.

It will be on Amazon.ca. I have no control over the discount, but my understanding is that Amazon Canada discounts more or less like the US site does. We are not selling it as separate volumes - the book is written with extensive cross referencing between the volumes, so each volume would not stand alone very well.

Indeed, we are working night and day to meet our deadlines. We have a LOT of pages to proofread! We will have a website up soon, but for now our priority is the book.

The AOC system of regulating names is a bit of a red herring. I never meant to imply that. While it is true that some of the foods of Europe are protected by specific laws regulating the naming, that came long after the foods themselves were developed. Many of the foods which do have AOC (or similar laws in other countries) are recent additions. It was the tradition for wine for a long time, but only in some regions. Products that can be sold at retail are typically the only ones that have AOC protection - wine and cheese being the main examples. AOC is ultimately a marketing issue. Most traditional cuisine has no AOC protection. There is no AOC for bouillaibase, or cassoulet or tarte Tatin, or fondue, or.... I can't think of a single dish that has AOC - because it is really about retail sale of a ready to eat product. In the case of Bresse chickens, or Kobe beef it is not ready to eat, but still it is a commodity product, not a dish. I can't think of any AOC designations for food served ready to eat in a resaurant. Barbeque is most similar to the dishes - to bouillaibase or cassoulet. It is (mostly) served ready to eat. Yes, brisket in North Carolina would be an outlier - but your example actually proves my point. There is a typical BBQ style in NC, and it does not include brisket. So if you found brisket in NC it would be notable precisely because it would be counter to expectations. What I am talking about here is mapping those expectations. Indeed that is why I am omitting Austin. Its BBQ places are exceptions, as might be found many places (like BBQ in NYC). Meanwhile Kansas City and Memphis are large cites that do have distinctive styles. That doesn't mean it is impossible to find outliers. There undoubtedly are Chinese restaurants in KC and Memphis and for all I know they have char su pork which is a kind of Chinese barbeque. There could be other weird outliers. But that does not negate the fact that there are distinctive regional styles. Similarly, if I said "typical Georgia style pastrami" it would be odd because pastrami does have tradition, but not based is Georgia. The phrase "typical New York style pastrami" makes a lot more sense. Of course there are exceptions, but that does not refute the notion that there are traditional BBQ styles that originate in specific places.

The concept of a bbq town is certainly not perfect. Here is the reasoning behind it. There are many regional food specialties in the world. Bouillabaisse is a fish stew from the region near Marseille, for example. Regional foods in Europe are well known and highly respected. This includes regional cheeses, and also wines. The quote that there are "no great wines only great bottles" may have some truth at one level, but the entire structure of the wine industry is oriented in the opposite direction. I don't think any wine expert would endorse that view. Different wine regions are famous for their distinctive styles. There really is a meaning to the phrase "white Burgundy". It denotes a style of winemaking that originated in a very specific place. Over time it has been imitated other places (i.e. California Chardonnays), but the wellspring of the tradition traces back to a specific place - the white wines made in the Cote de Beaune. Winemakers within that region borrowed ideas from each other and collectively developed the distinctive style that has since become popular worldwide. Barbeque is a classic regional American cuisine. There are very significant local variations. Texas barbeque has several styles. Kansas City and Memphis are both regional centers (and are pretty large cities). KC and Memphis fit because historically they have really driven barbeque style. There really is such a thing as KC style barbeque, and Memphis style. Kentucky also has its own style - including mutton as a BBQ meat. North Carolina has at least two distinctive regional styles. These are all very real regional differences driven by barbeque that originated in specific places. My map is an attempt to document this. I think that American barbeque has not gotten as much respect as it deserves as a unique cultural cuisine. European food culture is honored to the point of worship - whether it is bouillabaisse, or wine or cheese.... much of Europe is honored in this manner. I think that BBQ in the Southern US is every bit as deserving of recognition. I did not make this clear in my first post, and it seems to have been confusing to some of the people who post here. If you view the only purpose of a map as to plan a way to got get some BBQ to eat, then yes you need the name of the pit or restaurant. While I love the idea of going to eat BBQ, my purpose is a bit more abstract and high level. I am trying to document the geographical orgins of traditional American BBQ.

Thanks - I had seen that site before posting here. Its top categories pretty much map to my list. At the risk of being controversal, let me ask people a question. So far I have resisted putting Austin on the map, and I want comments on that. Here is my reasoning. Austin is a big city, and many big cities will have a BBQ restaurant, but that is not in and of itself enough to warrant a place on the map. In NYC, for example, Hill Country is a facsimile of a CTx meat market style BBQ place. But it is clearly a facsimile imported from Texas not a real expression of "local" NYC barbeque culture. NYC does not count because of Hill Country (or Fette Sau, Dinosaur, Daisy's). A friend of mine argues that NYC ought to be listed for a different reason - which is that pastrami (at Carnegie Deli, Katz's etc.) ought to count as New York/Jewish barbeque - it is, after all cured, spice rubbed and smoked. I agree with all that. Pastrami really is "NYC local style BBQ". I haven't put in on the list because my map only covers the American South, and NYC isn't part of the South. I have eaten BBQ in Austin for over 20 years - I have had to travel there beacuse I work in the tech industry. And in general, averaged over many meals at many place, I would say that Austin is quite mediocre as a place to get BBQ. Often quite terrible. So overall I am uncomfortable with the idea of listing Austin as a geographical center for Texas BBQ. I have not eaten at Franklin Barbeque, but I am told it is quite good. But frankly given how close great BBQ is to Austin, it is surprising how much mediocre barbeque there is (and always has been). It is depressing how many people in the tech industry have tried to drag me to County Line, for example. I think that putting Austin on the map just isn't fair to the places where regional style actually comes from. That Austin might have a decent place, or two, isn't enough. Even though it is in Texas, it is more a follower (and a distant one) than a geographical leader in BBQ style. Any comments on this?

OK, I just didn't want to offend anybody if the map has zero places in Lousisana marked. I know that New Orleans is not a BBQ destination, but I thought that someplace near the Texas, Arkansas or Mississippi borders might be more in tune with the rest of the south.

We've been working hard to make it a book that you'll feel good about - and I hope you think so once you see it!

A few replies to recent posts. Hanging vertically is in general better than horizontal, because the water in contact with the food is cooled, which makes it slightly denser, so it sinks vertically (beacuse gravity points down). This process is called natural convection. An extreme version happens with your freezer. Hold you hand below the door while you open it (assuming it has a vertical door), and you will feel the cold air pour out. For a freezer this is bad - it means you lose lots of cold air every time you open it. Chest freezers don't have this issue. Anyway, in an unstirred bath like Sous Vide Supreme, natural convection is important source of movement, and in general it is better if you place food so that natural convection will be encouraged. With a stirred bath (i.e. one with a pump) this is less important. The pump produces forced convection which in general dominates the much weaker natural convection. Natural convection is weaker because the temperature difference is generally pretty small so the density differce is pretty small too. Of course these are generalities that apply to packing a bunch of flat items (say, a half dozen steaks). If you have a spherical object, "horizontal" and "vertical" have no meaning! That is pretty much true for cylinders also. If you are cooking a whole squab, or a chateaubriand or some other cylinderical food, it really isn't going to matter that much. Also, if you have a small object in a large bath, it won't matter much. The goal in all cases is to get good water circulation. Jamming the bath very full is a bad idea no matter what orientation is used.

OK, so here is question inpsired by the authoritative answers on Texas barbeque style. There are many good examples of CTx style - both the famous pits and the towns there are in. I have that covered, with the addition of the towns mentioned above. But, so far as I can tell, the only town mentioned for "cowboy style" is Llano. The only town mentioned for East Texas style is Huntsville. No town is mentioned for barbacoa, but it also says that isn't practiced per se. Are there other barbeque places/towns that should be listed for cowboy style or East Texas style?