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"Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet (Part 3)


ShaneH

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Of course, the most egregious error in the entire set is the claim that when cooking eggs, only temperature, and not time, is all that matters. That wasn't a typo, but a fundamental lack of understanding and experimentation...

Umm, I took that to mean that 10 hours at 130 F would simply not set the proteins like a minute at 170 F, for example. Obviously, if you have a dozen yolks blended together they won't set as fast as a single one.

So, am I wrong? Can an egg cooked at 120 - 130 for a day give the same result as a few minutes at 150?

See the "Culinary Biophysics: On the nature of the 6XC Egg," article by César Vega & Ruben Mercadé-Prieto. Google it, as I don't have the link available right now.

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Are there any other potential UK customers for this book, who have orders with Amazon.co.uk?

Did any of you get an email yesterday stating

"We regret to inform you that your order will take longer to fulfill than originally estimated. Our supplier has notified us that there is a delay obtaining stock for the following items you ordered on June 08 2011.

Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking"

Or is it just me?

Given that they've already cancelled my order once, I wondering what you have to do to buy a copy of this book in the UK.

I got the same mail a few hours ago (my order date was June 9 after I had cancelled my original amazon.de order - the UK price at that time was a lot better than it is now. I'm starting to think I have to order in the US. Unfortunately, with a US$ 400 purchase, that is a customs nightmare.

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Of course, the most egregious error in the entire set is the claim that when cooking eggs, only temperature, and not time, is all that matters. That wasn't a typo, but a fundamental lack of understanding and experimentation...

Umm, I took that to mean that 10 hours at 130 F would simply not set the proteins like a minute at 170 F, for example. Obviously, if you have a dozen yolks blended together they won't set as fast as a single one.

So, am I wrong? Can an egg cooked at 120 - 130 for a day give the same result as a few minutes at 150?

See the "Culinary Biophysics: On the nature of the 6XC Egg," article by César Vega & Ruben Mercadé-Prieto. Google it, as I don't have the link available right now.

Strictly speaking, the answer to my loosely framed question, based on the cited research, is no.

As far as I can tell from the paper (much of which I only partially understand,) the experimental findings, based on their figure 4, are that an egg yolk held at 127 F for 166 days will have the same viscosity as the same yolk at 158 F for 1 minute.

However, if I had asked "Is a yolk held for a day at 140 similar to one held at 150 for 15 minutes," the answer would be yes.

It does appear that MC might need revision of position. It is demonstrated that within the 6X C range, the viscosity of a yolk is time dependent. However, as the paper notes:

"Short cooking periods at low temperatures do not increase the viscosity (e.g., temperature <61 °C for <50 min)"

and so at temperatures below 140, one should not expect a set yolk in any time frame usually mentioned for boiled eggs.

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Are there any other potential UK customers for this book, who have orders with Amazon.co.uk?

Did any of you get an email yesterday stating

"We regret to inform you that your order will take longer to fulfill than originally estimated. Our supplier has notified us that there is a delay obtaining stock for the following items you ordered on June 08 2011.

Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking"

Or is it just me?

Given that they've already cancelled my order once, I wondering what you have to do to buy a copy of this book in the UK.

had exactly the same :sad:

is there any news on the UK availability of MC?

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Question for NathanM (if he is watching this thread). MC does not have a pastry section. I have read elsewhere that you are planning to write a book on pastry in the future. I was wondering whether you have started work on this book. If you have ... where can I put my deposit :)

There is no love more sincere than the love of food - George Bernard Shaw
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  • 3 weeks later...

Just one small problem now... where do I start?? :)

Queue Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music,

Just start at the very beginning,

A very good place to start,

When you read you begin with...

Unfortunately "History and Fundamentals" don't rhyme but a very good place to start, I learnt a lot. But also use it as a reference and go for some of the recopies. It's a book with many facets enjoy them all.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

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Is it available for Melbourne Australia??? I want to buy

Buy it locally and you'll spend a lot of money. Can get it for half of that online--Amazon Canada is the cheapest for us at the moment.

Chris Taylor

Host, eG Forums - ctaylor@egstaff.org

 

I've never met an animal I didn't enjoy with salt and pepper.

Melbourne
Harare, Victoria Falls and some places in between

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  • 2 weeks later...

Support your local bookshop - I bought mine from Books for Cooks in Fitzroy for $650.

Keith,

I bought mine including postage from Amazon for $431. I'm afraid my local support doesn't move to $220 extra, or 1/3 of the purchase price. Retail in Australia has gouged us for too long and too deep.

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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I am horribly late to the party here. But look what got delivered today:

P1010287.JPG

I had the online preview when that was made available to press. My press loaner copy went to Chris Amirault because I was moving and had no place for it. Now, half a year after he got mine, I finally have my own courtesy of the Cooking Lab. Thanks Cooking Lab. There goes the rest of 2011.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Saw Chris today in Chicago giving a lecture on Modernist Cuisine. He was a very good and engaging speaker and told his story about how he got started - by having a meal at Fat Duck, his tenure there and meeting Nathan, and coming back to the states and helping to create "The Book". Chris, thanks for the great presentation!

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

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It took longer than we would have liked but Eat Your Books has now indexed Modernist Cuisine. 714 astounding recipes for which we had to add 144 new ingredients! Mainly chemicals but also veal jowl fat, Douglas fir buds, pigeon blood. http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/80695/modernist-cuisine-the-art-and

[Moderator note: The original "Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: "Modernist Cuisine" by Myhrvold, Young & Bilet (Part 2)]

Edited by Mjx
Moderator note added. (log)

Jane Kelly

Co-founder of Eat Your Books

www.eatyourbooks.com

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