Most revolutionary cookbook you've never seen.

What happens when a Cambridge quantum theory cosmologist collaborates with a futurist on a cookbook? What if they got real crazy & invited an award-winning nature photographer to contribute and a former Chief Technology Officer from Microsoft tagged along? What if they were all one person and his name was Nathan Myhrvold?

After earning a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics at Princeton, working with Stephen Hawking on curved spaced time and quantum field theory at Cambridge and serving as chief technology officer for Microsoft, what's left to accomplish? Turns out write a cookbook.


Typical of Myhrvold, it's not a typical cookbook. A 6 volume 2,400 page revolution described by luminary chef and molecular gastronomist Ferran Adria as changing the way we understand the kitchen. And for $625 Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking can be yours. In March. Probably - the date has been pushed several times.
(Notice the preview pic only had 5 volumes)

Learning of Myhrvold and Modernest Cuisine in Saveur I was intrigued, determined to purchase a copy. Until I saw the price. Holy wow. Why so expensive? Turns out the high cost is pretty simple if only midly less frustrating. With a custom laboratory/kitchen designed and built for the research and a staff of 20 researchers - they had to write the book on writing the book. And then publish it themselves. And the Myhrvoldian cherry - he developed new photographic techniques to document the research contained in the book.

From the book's site: In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inven­tors, and accom­plished cooks in their own right—have cre­ated a six-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing food that ranges from the oth­er­worldly to the sub­lime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astound­ing new fla­vors and tex­tures by using tools such as water baths, homog­e­niz­ers, cen­trifuges, and ingre­di­ents such as hydro­col­loids, emul­si­fiers, and enzymes. It is a work des­tined to rein­vent cooking.

Also worth checking out - The Modernist Cuisine blog.

With postings on Inside the Lab with the team, sick photos like this one of a cutaway wok while cooking, or you just want to check out a high speed video of The Leidenfrost Effect - should keep you occupied while you're saving.

The Pad Thai Cutaway fea­tures a halved wok con­tain­ing siz­zling hot oil, noo­dles, and the dish’s other components.