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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?
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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: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: "Fictional stories of scientific falshoods"...
Review: If you are interested in learning about the *actual* science of food, but don't want to learn any science, at least read a book by someone who *did* learn it. There is so much grossly erroneous information in this book that he discredits himself entirely. "Oil is more dense than water-- and that's why it can be heated to higher temperatures than 212". As a chemist and formulator I can assure you that nearly all oil is lighter than water, and even if it weren't that's *not* the reason it has a higher boiling point. Ever make oil & vinegar salad dressing? Ever seen crude oil on the ocean? How about the funk on top of old greasy dish water? Folks, oil floats on water... and the earth is not flat. Either this guy is a complete moron, or he is a very clever con artist. Either way, save your money... and buy that blind Amish author's book "Semiconductor Microengineering for Dummies" instead. It's better researched.
Rating:
Summary: I'll Read It, But I Won't Eat It
Review: It's telling that Russ Parsons titles his book with the one food that's on virtually no one's diet: The French Fry. Now that the forbidden fruit has got my attention, I am deep frying myself in this compendium. I read all the food science books and get something from each one, but I like Parsons' way of putting things. For example, he entitles a chapter "fat, flour, and fear," the fear relating to failure or perhaps a piecrust. This is smart, because this kind of thing happens. Food science helps, with a good dose of hands-on experience. As Parsons tells us: "The only way to learn how to make a good piecrust is to make enough bad ones..." Of course, we knew that already, but it helps seeing it repeated in a science context. Applying the science is the key. Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com
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Summary: One of the Best Popular Books on Food Science
Review: Russ Parsons is a `Los Angeles Times' culinary columnist originally hired by Ruth Reichl who, with Shirley Corriher (`Cookwise'), Alton Brown (TV's `Good Eats'), and Robert Volker (`What Einstein Told His Cook') work at explaining cooking to us all. I have not read Corriher's very highly regarded book, but I would give Parsons the highest regard when compared to Brown and Volker when looking at what they do in common. To anticipate any thoughts that I am overlooking Harold McGee, I believe McGee's book `On Food and Cooking' is literally in a class of its own, from which all of these other authors have probably borrowed. While Brown and Volker give scientific explanations of culinary phenomena, with Brown's chapters in `I'm Only Here for the Food' being somewhat deeper than Volker's question and answer format, Parsons is looking at culinary facts from a much broader point of view. It is as if all three understand food and all three have good scientific explanations for food facts, but only Parsons understands SCIENCE. Alton Brown gives an excellent metaphor for science in describing what he does as drawing a roadmap of a neighborhood (of custards, for example) rather than simply giving step by step instructions as one would when writing out the method for a recipe. Brown, however, seems constantly constrained by the limits of a 30-minute `Good Eats' episode or of a book chapter on braising. Parsons addresses the whole field of food science from the other direction. He doesn't talk about what causes meat to brown (and why this tastes so good) or how simmering in water creates gelatin in stocks, or how the barbecue method is so good at producing tender meat from tough primals. Instead, he talks about MEAT, its composition, and how it reacts, in general, to heat, and what the variations are from chicken to pork to veal to beef to lamb. From these, we can see the similarities between, for example, barbecue and braising. This is what science is all about. Explaining individual facts without an underlying theory becomes nothing more than description. Alton Brown uses the theory to explain the facts. Russ Parsons talks about the theory, with facts as examples of how the theory works. What so frustrates me about the clarity with which Parsons writes is that in spite of this, TV food show hosts continue to perpetuate myths about cooking like the one about searing meat is done to `seal in the juices'. Both Parsons and McGee have refuted this statement, yet some Food Network hosts make that statement over and over. I think all people who make their living by writing or speaking about food should be required to take a good chemistry course, followed by a food science course before they are let loose with word processor or microphone. But I digress. Parsons' book is composed of six essays, each on some basic aspect of food composition or behavior. These chapters are: How to read a French fry: Frying and the chemical and physical properties of frying oils.
The second life of plants: Changes to fruits and vegetables after harvest and cooking.
Miracle in a shell: Eggs and their amazing emulsifying properties.
From a pebble to a pillow: Starches from rice, beans, flour, potatoes and their ability to thicken.
Meat and heat: The Maillard principle, collagen, fats, and what it is that gives meat its flavor.
Fat, flour, and fear: Pie crusts, butter or lard, and gluten formation. Each essay is longer or much longer than a typical newspaper column. It is also a level of writing that rarely sees the food pages of my local newspaper. I suspect most of the articles were serialized over several issues. These essays alone make the book worthwhile. Parsons goes on to give practical cooking tips. All these tips should now be fully understandable and therefore eminently easy to remember once the cook has read the essay on which they are based. A favorite for me is the recommendation to thicken sauces with flour rather than with cornstarch or arrowroot. If one is exposed to a little Chinese cooking, cornstarch acquires a great attraction and is seemingly easier to use than flour. What experienced chefs know, but never say, is that flour is a much more stable thickener and will stand up to reheating much better than other starches. For those of us who dote on `Molto Mario' and `Good Eats', many of the hints, especially for pasta, will seem obvious, but then not everyone mainlines the Food Network six hours a day. Parsons caps each essay with a collection of recipes appropriate to the lessons in the essay. Most of the recipes are old standards that the foodies among us have seen often before, such as snickerdoodles, macaroni and cheese, pot roast, and ratatouille. This means that anyone with a cookbook collection of any size may not find very much new in these pages, except as concrete examples of the science presented in the essays. I will say the recipes I examined are highly respectable and should produce excellent results. The author does provide a complete table of all recipes by principle ingredient (fish) or course (dessert). I think this should be a feature of every cookbook. It is doubly useful when ingredient or course does not organize the book. My only regret about this book is that it is so short and that so few people will be attracted to reading it. We need food science to replace the extensive drilling in cooking techniques that we used to get at our mothers or grandmother's side. That has disappeared, and it wasn't all that great to begin with. With sincere apologies to Alton Brown, who gives me more laughs in one `Good Eats' episode than Parsons has in this whole book, I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone who likes to read about food.
Rating:
Summary: I wanted to love it
Review: This is a recipe book dressed up as "part textbook, part kitchen guide, part recipes." Parsons is too wired to the tastes of an LA Times food critic to notice that he isn't really satisfying any of his target audiences very well. This book *should* simultaneously: (1) serve the gourmet community in providing some recipes grouped along less-than-traditional lines, (2) provide lay-explanations for real kitchen dummies of some interesting science that goes on in the art cooking, and (3) provide an interesting new spin for those people that know a lot about cooking, but really still aren't gourmet chefs. He doesn't quite succeed, except for goal (1). The book people must have loved him when he walked in with this manuscript, since it really only consists of 70 or so pages of real text about "food science" to edit, and can still be marketed in a neat niche that will disguise the kind of book it really is. I agree with the above reviewer who noted that of 100+ recipes, maybe only a dozen make me stand up and listen. The only conclusion I can draw is that just like other haute cuisine/california cuisine books, this one has that special disease which comes from the author living in another world from my own in terms of the time, and expense of gathering ingredients and preparation. I wish he'd had more chapters and more text concerning kitchen science. At least 50% of the information will be old to a seasoned home cook, even if it is written well in many spots. The instructive recipes could have been trimmed to take up 50 pages/recipes, and the Bill Nye science act could have taken up 120-150 pages over 8-10 chapters instead of the 6 themes he stuck with. (As I said: the marketeers probably loved this.)
Rating:
Summary: Clever but not accurate
Review: This is an intriguing book, a quick read and informative. Great recipes illustrate the points made in the text. It both demystifies and mystifies cooking at the same time. You'll never look at a lowly french fry the same way again, and you'll never be at a loss for cocktail party conversation.
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