You and Harold and Bob

[Fat Guy]

Russ, I often notice your book, How to Read a French Fry, compared to the work of McGee (On Food and Cooking) and Wolke (What Einstein Told His Cook), and generally categorized as a "kitchen science" book.

Does this annoy you? When you were shopping your proposal around to publishers, did you ever punch an editor for saying, "Oh, we already have McGee on our list"?

Personally, I see your book as totally different in tone and structure. I particularly like that everything inexorably works towards recipes and practical applications. And of course you write much better than either of those guys.

How would you describe your place in the pantheon of authors who have tackled food-science subjects?

[russ parsons]

Thanks for the compliments and the chance to get this off my chest:

I wrote that book with the ghost of Prince Hal hanging over my shoulder. Don't get me wrong, he's a buddy and "On Food and Cooking" is one of the most remarkable books of its kind. Further, I don't think I would have been able to do "French Fry" if he hadn't done his book first.

That said, every night for two years while I was writing the book, I woke up dreading that someone would compare the two books (not that it's not an honor to be compared to "On Food"). What I was going for in French Fry, though was something entirely different than what Hal did. I regard "On Food" as a kind of work of 19th century gentleman scholarship. I wanted my book to be intensely practical. Truth be told (and I blush to admit it), the model for my book was really much more along the lines of James Beard's "Theory and Practice of Good Cooking," which had a constant place on my bed table for the first five years I was learning to cook. I've always stressed that "French Fry" was about cooking rather than about science.

I was lucky when the book came out that the major critics seemed to pick up on this. Of course, I'm still stewing over the guy on Amazon.com who called it "McGee Lite". Grrrrr.

There are several other books on this same general topic and they are each different. Shirley Corriher ("CookWise") probably knows more about flour mechanics than any of us. Bob Wolke is crankier. I hope people will read them all.

[Fat Guy]

James Beard's "Theory and Practice of Good Cooking"

An underrated masterpiece.

Thanks again for your answers.