McGee - On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Along with many food writers today, I feel a great debt of gratitude to Alan Davidson for the way he brought new substance, scope, and playfulness to our subject. On top of that, it was Alan who informed me that I would have to revise On Food and Cooking before Id even held the first copy in my hands! At our first meeting in 1984, over lunch, he asked me what the book had to say about fish. I told him that I mentioned fish in passing as one form of animal muscle and thus of meat. And so this great fish enthusiast and renowned authority on the creatures of several seas gently suggested that, in view of the fact that fish are diverse creatures and their flesh very unlike meat, they really deserve special and extended attention. Well, yes, they really do. There are many reasons for wishing that this revision hadnt taken as long as it did, and one of the biggest is the fact that I cant show Alan the new chapter on fish. Ill always be grateful to Alan and to Jane for their encouragement and advice, and for the years of friendship which began with that lunch. This book and my life would have been much poorer without them.

I would also have liked to give this book to Nicholas Kurti bracing myself for the discussion to come! Nicholas wrote a heartwarmingly positive review of the first edition in Nature, then followed it up with a Sunday-afternoon visit and an extended interrogation based on the pages of questions that he had accumulated as he wrote the review. Nicholass energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm for good food and the telling little experiment were infectious, and animated the early Erice workshops. They and he are much missed.

Coming closer to home and the present, I thank my family for the affection and patient optimism that have kept me going day after day: son John and daughter Florence, who have lived with this book and experimental dinners for more than half their years, and enlivened both with their gusto and strong opinions; my father, Chuck McGee, and mother, Louise Hammersmith; brother Michael and sisters Ann and Joan; and Chuck Hammersmith, Werner Kurz, Richard Thomas, and Florence Jean and Harold Long. Throughout these last few trying years, my wife Sharon Long has been constantly caring and supportive. Im deeply grateful to her for that gift.

Milly Marmur, my onetime publisher, longtime agent, and now great friend, has been a source of propulsive energy over the course of a marathon whose length neither of us foresaw. Ive been lucky to enjoy her warmth, patience, good sense, and her skill at nudging without noodging.

I owe thanks to many people at Scribner and Simon & Schuster. Maria Guarnaschelli commissioned this revision with inspiring enthusiasm, and Scribner publisher Susan Moldow and S&S president Carolyn Reidy have been its committed advocates ever since. Beth Wareham tirelessly supervised all aspects of editing, production, and publication. Rica Buxbaum Allannic made many improvements in the manuscript with her careful editing; Mia Crowley-Hald and her team produced the book under tough time constraints with meticulous care; and Erich Hobbing welcomed my ideas about layout and designed pages that flow well and read clearly. Jeffrey Wilson kept contractual and other legal matters smooth and peaceful, and Lucy Kenyon organized some wonderful early publicity. I appreciate the marvelous team effort that has launched this book into the world.

I thank Patricia Dorfman and Justin Greene for preparing the illustrations with patience, skill, and speed, and Ann Hirsch, who produced the micrograph of a wheat kernel for this book. Im happy to be able to include a few line drawings from the first edition by my sister Ann, who has been prevented by illness from contributing to this revision. She was a wonderful collaborator, and Ive missed her sharp eye and good humor very much. Im grateful to several food scientists for permission to share their photographs of food structure and microstructure: they are H. Douglas Goff, R. Carl Hoseney, Donald D. Kasarda, William D. Powrie, and Alastair T. Pringle. Alexandra Nickerson expertly compiled some of the most important pages in this book, the index.

Several chefs have been kind enough to invite me into their kitchens or laboratories to experience and talk about cooking at its most ambitious. My thanks to Fritz Blank, to Heston Blumenthal, and especially to Thomas Keller and his colleagues at The French Laundry, including Eric Ziebold, Devin Knell, Ryan Fancher, and Donald Gonzalez. Ive learned a lot from them, and look forward to learning much more.

Particular sections of this book have benefited from the careful reading and comments of Anju and Hiten Bhaya, Devaki Bhaya and Arthur Grossman, Poornima and Arun Kumar, Sharon Long, Mark Pastore, Robert Steinberg, and Kathleen, Ed, and Aaron Weber. Im very grateful for their help, and absolve them of any responsibility for what Ive done with it.

Im glad for the chance to thank my friends and my colleagues in the worlds of writing and food, all sources of stimulating questions, answers, ideas, and encouragement over the years: Shirley and Arch Corriher, the best of company on the road, at the podium, and on the phone; Lubert Stryer, who gave me the chance to see the science of pleasure advanced and immediately applied; and Kurt and Adrienne Alder, Peter Barham, Gary Beauchamp, Ed Behr, Paul Bertolli, Tony Blake, Glynn Christian, Jon Eldan, Anya Fernald, Len Fisher, Alain Harrus, Randolph Hodgson, Philip and Mary Hyman, John Paul Khoury, Kurt Koessel, Aglaia Kremezi, Anna Tasca Lanza, David Lockwood, Jean Matricon, Fritz Maytag, Jack McInerney, Alice Medrich, Marion Nestle, Ugo and Beatrice Palma, Alan Parker, Daniel Patterson, Thorvald Pedersen, Charles Perry, Maricel Presilla, P.N. Ravindran, Judy Rodgers, Nick Ruello, Helen Saberi, Mary Taylor Simeti, Melpo Skoula, Anna and Jim Spudich, Jeffrey Steingarten, Jim Tavares, Herv This, Bob Togasaki, Rick Vargas, Despina Vokou, Ari Weinzweig, Jonathan White, Paula Wolfert, and Richard Zare.

Finally, I thank Soyoung Scanlan for sharing her understanding of cheese and of traditional forms of food production, for reading many parts of the manuscript and helping me clarify both thought and expression, and above all for reminding me, when I had forgotten, what writing and life are all about.