2008-05-05 Many anecdotes, little culinary knowledge

I bought this book hoping to learn some hard science behind cooking and I'm very disappointed. The book consists mostly of anecdotes of what scientists from Dijon found in one kind of wine/cheese/meat or another but hardly any of this can be extrapolated to everyday cooking and it doesn't give any sort of a big picture view on food - just a lot of details.

The book also contains a few interesting ideas, especially on non-traditional emulsions/foams/suspensions/gels - in particular chapter 97 "Everything Chocolate" is very interesting.

Overall I'd suggest buying another book. It's pleasant to read but amount of useful or enlightening content is quite low.