Rating: 
Summary: Buy Corriher¿skip Parsons.
Review: "How to Read a French Fry," by Russ Parsons, is a fun-to-read introduction to the science of cooking for the mildly curious. I read it on the beach at Duck, NC last summer and marked it up a lot, while jamming the binding with sand grains. Only once did I fall out of my beach chair. Parsons says, "There is no fixing a broken hot emulsion." Try throwing out a large batch of fresh but broken hollandaise sauce and see what your chef has to say. Two other authors own the science and cooking scene. "Cookwise," by Shirley Corriher, is an award-winning cookbook worth owning. Its antecedent, "On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee," is a masterpiece of scholarship. Read Corriher-skip Parsons.
Rating: 
Summary: Bill the Science Guy for Cooks
Review: Although I don't have much interest in science, my wife thought I'd enjoy this since I love to cook. Initially, I was a little skeptical but as I started to peruse this, I found the information both very interesting and extremely helpful. It IS advisable to understand why the things you know work in cooking actually happen so you can transfer them to other dishes/situations.I found the observations about vegetable and fruit selection (e.g.: shopping) and preparation the most instructive, with those on seafood being helpful as well. However, I really can't say I was particularly wowed by the recipes. They are not for the low fat, low calorie, or unusual dish type of cook. I was particularly disappointed that he didn't offer suggestions for using fruit other than as a dessert or breakfast type of item. While not rivetting, this is an interesting and useful reference. Reviewing it is certainly bound to enhance the culinary skills of even the most experienced cook.
Rating: 
Summary: Best food science book available
Review: As a chef and avid cookbook collector, this book is on my top 5 of all times. Forget what other 'critics' have said. I've read all the Corriher, Wolke, McGee, Fennema, Belitz... books from first to last page and I can state to you in all honesty: this book is the most practical an useful book of all the 'food science books' currently available. It is a must for amateur cooks and chefs alike. I've learned things here that I never heard in professional cooking school or restaurant kitchens, I've read practical cooking hints that I never saw in any other 'cookbook'. Parsons has the 'audacity' to unveil 'chefs cooking secrets' that a lot of chefs desperately want to keep to themselves so as to distinguish themselves from the 'amateur cooks'.
If you are a cook who wants to know 'WHY?' and so mold your own style, recipes and techniques, instead of just wanting to know 'WHAT?' and blindly following a very often not working recipe 'developped' by a top chef or his aide or his copywriter, because you are working in your 'amateur' kitchen and the chef or his ghost writer has developped the recipes in a professional kitchen, then this is your book. The difference between an average cook and a good one is that the average one just blindly follows recipes, doesn't ask questions and hasn't got a clue why some things work and others not. Result: he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Parsons doesn't loose himself in totally useless ego stroking circus experiments like Harold 'Saint' McGee' does. Parsons also goes beyond the Ann Landers-format of FAQ's and answers of Robert Wolke and he is much more up to date and practical than Shirley O'Corriher. AND... he writes better than all three combined! This book is not only a treasure trove of kitchen knowledge, 'chefs secrets' and 'dry food science', it is also fun to read. And very well organised. Parsons divides his book in the most commonly used kitchen techniques and subjects like 'frying', 'vegetables', 'meat'... No truffles and foie gras here, thank God! Parsons first explains all the scientific ins and outs of the subject in a very readable manner. All the while sprinkling it generously with sometimes amazing practical hints. And he tops every chapter off with a summary of the most important 'rules' concerning the chapter-subject. 'Rules' which a lot of chefs honestly but sadly don't have a clue about. As dessert to each chapter he serves some (very tasty) recipes to bring the science into practice. As for the famous 'fixing hollandaise' subject, Parsons nowhere in the book says to throw away curdled hollandaise. However, he says that when the hollandaise is too far gone and you have literally scrambled eggs, there is no fixing that should be served to a paying restaurant guest. And he's right! I know, some chefs throw the scrambled eggs-hollandaise into the food processor, add some butter and other camouflage stuff, and serve this as authentic 'hollandaise' to their clients. I wouldn't go near a restaurant with such a chef! Better to throw away your scrambled eggs than to recycle them and serve as 'hollandaise' to a paying guest. And I would never read or recommend a book that promotes such 'recycling'. Paying guests are not stupid cash cows that must be cheated, they must be served good, tasty, professionally cooked honest food, not some recycled waste product. And that's what this book is all about: Parsons has the guts to tell it like it is: don't recycle rotten or spoiled food and never serve it to paying customers for the chef's profit! Don't use dirty food tricks. And he's right. Don't be fooled: this book isn't 'McGee lite' it's the book that McGee always wanted to write but didn't do because he lost himself in outreageaous experiments for the sake of expermenting. Look ma, no hands! Parsons book should be essential reading for all the so called professional and amateur chefs. Highly informative, fun to read, tasty anecdotes. This book is just great. An absolute must for every chef or cook that isn't into cheating his guests or milking them as cash cows but wants to know why his food works or doesn't. If it doesn't here he can find ways to cure his recipes, not to 'fix' his spoiled food. Ultimately with this book, a cook can let his guests enjoy his food more by using Parsons' vast and practical knowledge. And that's what cooking is all about, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: Demystifies cooking
Review: Clear and conversational, LA Times food editor Russ Parsons' first book demystifies the chemistry and physics of cooking. Knowing why makes knowing how easier, from picking the best vegetables to creating a stable hollandaise sauce to cooking a tender roast. From the first page, on which Parsons explains why onions make you cry - a compound called sulfonic acid, lacking in Vidalias, which accounts for their raw sweetness - his book is full of fascinating, illuminating facts. He begins with deep-frying, and explains how to cook efficiently and healthfully, with fat. It's all a matter of getting oil temperature right so that the steam in the food repels the oil. And then there's the little details - why fresh oil fails to brown food, why batters should be firm. The vegetable chapter - how to pick the freshest and tastiest - and how to keep them that way - is especially useful, explaining why mature vegetables are tougher, how the absence of green in a nectarine is more important than a rosy blush, which fruits can safely be purchased under ripe, why potatoes change color when exposed to air, why to cook green vegetables uncovered, why lemon preserves color. Parsons explains emulsifying and the miracle properties of the invaluable egg; he explains how beans and grains go from toothbreaking hard in their raw state to tender soft in cooking and how this property can be used in a variety of ways from making perfect gravy to reheating rice; he deconstructs the mysteries of heat on meat and explains why treating piecrust tenderly produces tender piecrust. Each chapter includes a summary list of tips and a selection of recipes demonstrating the properties and techniques discussed. An understanding of the science of cookery, Parsons says, enables the cook, freeing her or him from recipes. "The only limit will be your creative ability." Armed with the science, the reader feels more in control, more expert, more willing to branch out. A useful resource for any cook.
Rating:
Summary: Includes over 100 recipes
Review: How To Read A French Fry by Russ Parsons is more than an ordinary cookbook: it provides the reader with a informative focus upon the science of kitchen events, ranging from why onions make you cry, to what happens when making a starch-based sauce. In addition to a wealth of practical information on the science of cooking, How To Read A French Fry includes over 100 recipes, but the heart of the title lies in its scientific explanations of everyday kitchen events.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not what I expected
Review: How to Read a French Fry touts itself as a book about the science of cooking. Unfortunately, it contains more recipes than science. While I did learn some things about cooking at the molecular level, overall, it was more like reading an everyday cookbook. While some of the recipes do look pretty interesting, if you're looking for just the science.....the hows and whys of cooking.....I would stick with McGee's books.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not what I expected
Review: How to Read a French Fry touts itself as a book about the science of cooking. Unfortunately, it contains more recipes than science. While I did learn some things about cooking at the molecular level, overall, it was more like reading an everyday cookbook. While some of the recipes do look pretty interesting, if you're looking for just the science.....the hows and whys of cooking.....I would stick with McGee's books.
Rating:
Summary: Walking a Tight-Rope, by fermed
Review: I must say this is a strange book. Its cutsey title ("How to read a French-fry") begs for a snippity, dismissive retort; and yet, despite the many reservations that I have about this book, it remains an important volume and one that I highly recommend. The tight-rope has to do with the author's continuos flirtation with disaster, in which he tiptoes gingerly on the edge of culinary catastrophe (with us in tow) while he insults our minds and irritates our emotions restlessly; and just as we are on the verge of throwing the book in the trash, he suddenly pulls us away from the abyss and rewards us with wondrous information. Certainly if one reads the recipes, one after another, the book produces profound dismay: they are generally long, complex, they often require ingedients not found in the well stocked kitchen, some are eccentric and others just don't seem worth the effort. Strawberry soup might be very good, but somehow I don't see myself gathering a bottle of red wine, a 3-inch vanilla bean, 2 pints of strawberries, 1 1/2 cups of vanilla icecream, and a cup of sugar to produce it; oh, and six almond cookies. Nor will I spend six hours with my oven at 425 degrees to obtain "lamb and lentils to eat with a spoon." There are many ways, faster and easier, to cook lamb to succulent tenderness. Just because it is amazing that the lamb in this recipe doesn't turn into a dried, charred mess (as Mr. Parsons promises us it won't)is no reason to prepare the dish. Perhaps, out of the 100 recipes in the book, there are ten or so that were intriguing and possibly delicious; but the recipes it contains are not the reason to own this book. No, it is the discussion of food and food techniques that I find outstanding and that makes the work enlightening. The author recognizes his indebtedness to Harold McGee, whose "On Food and Cooking" is one of the great classics of cookery and available from Amazon, of course. There is a difference, though. McGee has more authority and depth is his discussions, but Parsons has the writer's skill that brilliantly explains great complexities in simple terms; and makes the reader want to keep on reading. Parsons's discussion of potatoes is wonderfully simple. He states clearly the difference between baking potatoes and the boiling kind, so that in the future one will only simmer the boiler in order not to overcook it (starches in potatoes are fully gelatinized at 160 to 180 degrees and should not be boiled beyond that temperature). We will all most likely produce better mashed potatoes after experiencing this book. There are, of course, many more insightful wonders in the material that lies between the recipes. But even in this material Mr. Parsons can be infuriating: he speaks, for instance, of "daubes." I looked through a dozen of my encyclopedic cookbooks and there was no entry for "daube" until I found it in Jacques Pepin's "La Technique." It turns out to be a French word for "stew." My bet is that people reading this book will become better cooks. The book will improve their (own, old, standby) recipes as a result of the wisdom this book imparts. It is for this reason that I give it five stars: the wisdom found between the recipes trumps the terrible recipes themselves; this wisdom overcomes the lack of a bibliography; it overcomes the awful index (look up "croquette." It is not in the index. Look at page 164 and you will see that the ratio of 3 tablespoons each of fat and flour per cup of liquid makes the thick white sauce that can be used as a base for croquettes!); the wisdom makes you ignore the pedantic "daube" and all other assorted shotcomings of the text. A cookbook that so surely will improve almost everyone's cooking deserves nothing less than five stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Good start but it runs out of steam
Review: I now know more about cooking fries than I suspected there was to learn. If he covered other cooking topics in such detail this would be a fine book. As it is there are several better beginning kitchen science books.
Rating:
Summary: McGee-lite plus recipes
Review: If Harold McGee's works go into a little more detail than you're interested in, or if you would like a friendly introduction to kitchen science, complete with illustrative and interesting recipes, then you will enjoy this offering by LA Times food editor Russ Parsons. This book is well-organized. Separated into chapters about frying, produce, eggs, starches, meats and doughs, approximately a dozen pages of explanatory text is followed by a chapter synopsis and then recipes. There were more recipes than I'd expected, and sometimes these seemed to be chosen more for illustrating the principles discussed than for being appetizing, but there are also quite a few delicious-sounding recipes and the several that I've tried so far have been winners. If you love goat cheese, salmon or lamb, as the author seems to, you will find a LOT to do! All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed the fascinating and lucid text, and learned a lot. The author writes well and explains the science of cooking in a clear manner. The recipes are a mixed bag, but there are so many that you will undoubtedly find a number that will be of interest. Bon appetit!
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