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Geeks and haute cuisine

By Gearhead, NetworkWorld.com, 04/14/05

"It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life." -- Emmet Fox, American author and lecturer, 1886-1951.

A popular image of the techie is someone who lives on a diet of soda and Twinkies. While there are surely some techies who fit that stereotype the fact is that many of us geeky types have more than a passing interest in food.

While traditional cooking (follow the recipe, hope for the best) works for many people there's another approach to cooking that will appeal to the more technically minded: Cooking as engineering.

Cooking as engineering is about understanding the processes involved including the chemistry, physics, and human physiology and psychology that define and create good food. If you are haute geek then we have some books to recommend:

I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown *

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee *

The Science of Cooking by Peter Barham

Cookwise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking by Shirley O. Corriher

Cook-Book Decoder by Arthur E. Grosser

What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke

The first two books are outstanding -- Alton Brown is a particularly geeky kind of cook who has a profound interest in the "why" of cooking while Harold McGee's book is an encyclopedic classic.

Finally, take a look at these Web sites: "Cooking for Engineers" which takes a novel and highly effective approach to recipe layout while "Chemical Engineering in Cooking" is more oriented to the physics and chemistry.

"This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate two eggs, but it doesn't say how far to separate them." -- Gracie Allen, comedienne.

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