Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Harold McGee: Keys to Good Cooking

Good evening everyone. My name is Rachel Kass and on behalf of Harvard bookstore I am delighted to welcome you to this after this evening's conversation with food science writer Harold McGee and Cambridge's own Jody Adams. This week marks the final week final full week of author events in Harvard bookstores 2010 author event series. Wednesday will be hosting a national book award winning memoirist Carlos Eire as he discusses his new memoir Learning to Die in Miami about his experience as a Cuban immigrant in the United States. And Thursday evening we're delighted to host a local baker Joanne Chang whose flower bakeries in central square and two of them in Boston always draw long lines and she'll be talking about her first cookbook also entitled flower. Both of those events will be here in Harvard bookstore at 7:00 PM 7:00 p.m. this week. And keep an eye out for our January 2011 events calendar. It's currently being posted online at Harvard dot com and print copies will be available in the store over the next couple of weeks. In just a moment I'll turn the floor over to this evening's moderator the fantastic Jody Adams.

Jody Adams is the James Beard Award winning chef and owner of reality show. Her restaurant in Harvard Square that excels at showcasing local New England ingredients interpreted through regional Italian cuisine. She has received numerous awards and honors over the years including most recently the humanitarian of the year award from Share Our Strength which is an organization an organization devoted to fighting childhood hunger and her induction recently into the Massachusetts hospitality Hall of Fame. She also recently participated in the second season of Bravo TV's Top Chef Masters commentary competition. But now I'm very pleased to introduce Harold McGee. Harold McGee writes about the science of food and cooking a vocation he took on after studying at the California Institute of Technology and at Yale University. And after several years as a writing instructor and literature instructor at Yale. He's the author of the award winning classic on food and cooking. And it's more personal follow up. The Curious Cook. And he writes a monthly column also called The Curious Cook for the New York

Times. He too is the James Beard Foundation honoree having been named to the who's who in American food in 1905 and in 2000 in 2005 he was named going up to teen magazines food writer of the year his new book Keys to Good Cooking takes the intricacies of food chemistry and applies them to a practical everyday setting. The book contains tips on everything from choosing and preparing produce to safety tips on how to prepare and store foods. Two ideas for how to improve flawed recipes. After the talk we will have time for questions followed by a signing here at the front. As always I'd like to thank anyone who purchases a copy of Keys to Good Cooking here at Harvard bookstore tonight. By doing so you're supporting both the local independent bookstore as well as this author series. So now I'll turn the floor over to Jody Adams. But please join me in welcoming Jody Adams and Harold McGee. Thank you all and thank you all for coming tonight. Just to

reiterate that supporting local bookstores I think is as important as supporting local farms. They actually may be in more danger than farms in some ways. Both my parents were librarians so I have a very warm place in my heart for libraries and books and all things that come out of them. So I first met Harold McGee not in person but in 1984 when his first book came out and I was a line cook at seasons. I was definitely a curious cook. I had a. The chef that had them or the cooking teacher that had the most influence on me was Madeline Kaman whose book had really good. So it's a start to scientific information and then your book came along and just sort of kicked it off. And I assume most of you know the book and have read the book and understand what's in there but I have to tell you that my I was telling Harold earlier when we were up there spying on you that that my favorite story after I

learned about you know why holidays worked and what emotions were and the whole notion that in Manet's it was the oil that was being suspended not the other way around which is totally counterintuitive right. But that if you did was it you have a question or somebody asked the question why do my glasses get grease on the inside when I cook and you did all kinds of intricate experiments and found out it was because you were leaning over like this and that. Right now you know that it showed that he had a sense of humor like that so I'm going to start out just asking you some questions that aren't really about science at all but just about who you are and why you are where you came from so what is your earliest most vivid food memory. What was the food culture in your family. What kind of year were you as a child and how do you think all of that influenced what you're doing today.

OK well last answer first probably you know any way you want to do it you can. You don't have to answer them all. OK. Probably not that much because it was really a series of very particular incidents that put me on the path that brought me here. But the earliest memory I have of I have two very early memories of what I can tell which is really ARE one was of ripe mango. And one was of coffee ice cream. Mm hmm. So I was probably you know two or three something like that and these would have been in Connecticut. And who introduced me to the coffee ice cream. My parents both. My mother was born and raised in India which is why they would go out of their way to find mangoes and because mangoes and I could probably not an easy thing to buy.

And you know so it was it was my parents. And then there was another question after. After that well kind of either where you eager was I was rotund was a child Oh good. Yeah. Now in fact there are times when I wish I could kind of take that back on again you know we're all or around in a phone booth in a new come out looking more like James Beard because people do look at me sometimes and say and write about for me but you don't really like it do you. Yeah yeah. People say you never trust a skinny chef. So but you probably move a lot. Yeah yeah. And and both my parents again are are slight I mean they're they're thin. I eat I eat plenty. So what was your earliest memory memory from a kitchen where you said why does this happen. I

mean I wonder why that why that does that word. I mean I sort of skipped the whole beginning of why you got to where you are because I think most people know that that maybe that's something that should be included here. OK well very briefly I couldn't get a job teaching poetry and and I had been interested in science astronomy in particular so in a way I've just put it in front of what I originally said. So I couldn't get a job I thought I would I would try and experiment for a year and try writing about science and see if I could make a living doing that and pick food because not because I was a great cook or deeply interested in food at that time but it seemed to be. An activity you know every day every day a life in which we took an active part. So you know I could have written about the weather but you know we just suffer from it we can't do

anything about it with food or we're we're changing things we're making things every day and that that's makes it I think a much more interesting subject in a way. And it appealed to me because it meant that I could not only read about what was going on from the food technology literature but then go into the kitchen and give it a shot and see if that that was really the story or whether that kind of thing made sense in a you know a home or restaurant kitchen context. So you had no idea that what you did in the book that you published in 1994 would bring you to where you are today. No no in fact I thought I was writing a book not for professionals but for amateurs like myself who really didn't know that much could kind of use some some help. Because we didn't cook so much. We we needed in the sort of and intellectual understanding would replace yours at the stove and give us some help that way. Also it seemed to me

naively at the time why would professional cooks need a book like that. I mean when you were already cooking good stuff. And. And you knew what you knew not because of any science but because thousands of years of tradition had developed these wonderful protocols for making certain things on so your you were fine you didn't need this book it was I thought interesting information but not essential. Except that probably Conner's school is not the information but those of us who didn't go to a colony or school didn't have it. Well and in fact Cullen area schools at the time I heard the first people who took the book seriously I think as a group because chefs certainly didn't the few that I met who were none of them were American they were here but they weren't. Eric and I had no use for it. The people I started hearing from were actually students or recent graduates from calling area schools who thanked me

for writing it because it and the book answered questions that their teachers refused to answer or didn't know how to answer probably. Didn't know how to end it. Yeah. So how do you think your book has changed cooking culture in this country. It's hard for me to say because it seems to me that the food and cooking culture was in the process of changing even as I began to write. They had the changes and really hadn't manifested themselves much yet. But I feel very lucky to have sort of caught the wave. You know I started to write about the subject when the food scene was still kind of quiet and you know we didn't know about specialty coffee drinks or olive oil or I mean so many things that have become so important.

And so I think rather than my book Changing the culture I think my the culture kind of created an interest in what I had chosen to write about despite the culture if you know what I mean. So there was more of a kind of for me very happy coincidence. I don't think you give yourself quite enough credit. Because I think that it really I don't think anybody else was really doing that you know asking those kinds of questions and I think it was at a time when you're right that our you know the food was just really becoming something that people were interested in. On all fronts. But they were also interested in how do we you know how do we make something that that doesn't necessarily involve heavy French sauces and how do we. Cook in a way that I hope maintains the best quality of the ingredients and I think I mean I know in learning that searing meat I mean it

seems so obvious now but searing meat doesn't in fact seal in the juices which is interesting. You know in a kitchen there's an old wives tale that if you burn yourself as a cook then you the way you seal that burn is to burn yourself again. You know that no you know. It's serious and the juice is on you. And I've never done it but that's you know that's what kids were told to do if you bring some just go burn it again and you'll be fine. I think that that's actually where the idea of searing sealing the juices and came was from because that's cauterizing a wound. Yeah and I think that's what leaving this chemist back in the 19th century thought was going on. He was a chemist he didn't do experiments clearly he just theorized. But I think that's that's word that's what he was thinking was was cautery and it might work for wounds. I know you never tried it. I hope I never have yeah. But it doesn't work for meats.

So what do you what do you hope people will do with this new book that you written and how does it you know what how does it what's the transition from the first two books or the first few books to this so that the other books have done or more books to read sitting down in an arm chair. If you're interested in in a particular ingredient or a particular technique read a few pages or more. This this new one Keys to Good Cooking is meant to be read standing up in the kitchen when you're in the midst of something and you need help with something or you're wondering about whether this thing in this is a step in the recipe is necessary or the best idea. It's meant to be used in the heat of cooking and not not as a reference point. Can you give us an example of something that you sometimes somebody who isn't. Yeah yeah. Well and actually let me back up and say even before you

get into the kitchen into a recipe choosing a recipe or choosing a way to go about doing something. What I try to do is give an overview of particular techniques preparations so that you know what kinds of choices you have and that can help you choose the recipe that that makes the most sense. So I mean just use an example of something that you. I don't know how you feel about it we haven't talked about it but cooking pasta. OK I know something about you. Yeah. Where every cookbook I've ever looked at says you need to bring quarts of water to a rolling boil before you on the pasta and salted salt salted to prevent the pasta from getting stuck to itself prevent it from coming out gluey at the end. All these All these reasons and

it occurred to me one day that as I was pouring the hot water down the drain having done this and it took me half an hour or so to heat the water up and then 10 minutes to cook the pasta and I'm throwing all this water and and energy down the drain I live in California so we think about the water as well the energy and my glasses were steaming up and I couldn't see anything for 15 seconds. I wondered why am I doing this. Really is it is it that much better a technique to do it that way as opposed to say taking the pasta. Putting cold water on it. Maybe just a cork and a half or so just enough to cover it. Turning the heat on so that it heats up. Pasta and water both then it's just enough water to hydrate the pasta. And is it really going to be that gummy or not much worse. Came out OK. Slightly gummy.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing right. So so gummy No says in the eye of the beholder. Yeah right and if you it depends on what you're looking for of course but you you end up with thicker pasta water. There's some leftover and it's the Kurgan it would be otherwise but the pasta itself is just fine and you can turn that thick pasta water into a sauce quickly. Well because we you know when you make pasta you should have your sauce here. You're a John or miss part of lemon water and you scoop the pasta out and put it directly into the sauce hoping that there's some starch still on the pasta but that makes. All the sense and there's there are plenty of pasta recipes that are made in the moment in a pan like the dance which is a Spanish technique and there isn't huge amounts of wine at all. Yeah yeah. And in fact when I publish this in The New York Times Of

course the first thing that happened was I heard from all kinds of people saying that's not a new idea. Yeah everybody does that anyway so. So what I try to do in key is for something as simple as cooking pasta is to say there are several different ways you can cook pasta. The standard way you'll see in most recipe books is lots of water lots of time to heat and so on but you can also do it this way so that you have a perspective on whatever recipe is that you're you're choosing to use and do and have you found in traveling around that that's the kind of book that people are looking for. I didn't do a lot of market research. Although in a way it the book began with a little bit of sort of uninvited consumer commentary so what would happen is that I would hear from professionals and home cooks both that they liked on food and cooking lots of great information in there but when they had a particular practical issue in the kitchen

he would either take them forever to find the relevant paragraph in the 900 pages of other stuff or there wasn't the relevant paragraph because I didn't get down to that level of detail. And so this is meant to answer that and that criticism well it sounds like you're going to I think that these days people who haven't grown up cooking don't have an intuitive sense of how to make things work often. And so recipes are extremely important. And following rules is extremely important. And what it sounds like you're saying is you're sort of doing the opposite I hope. Chris Kimball is here the doing the opposite of what cooks magazine does which is sort of to distill everything down to the perfect recipe what you're saying is there are all these options and. There isn't the perfect. Yeah that's exactly it. The idea of the perfect recipe really bothers me. I don't I really don't think there's any such thing because so much depends on what it is you're looking for different

people want different things fruit from their foods and sometimes the the process is as important as the result. I mean there are ways that you like to make things in ways that you don't like to make things and that counts too. So I it seems to me that the more people understand about the basics of what's going on the more they can make their own decisions about about things like that. And even a perfectly distilled recipe is still a blueprint. You know you still have to adapt it for your kitchen and your ingredients your stove. Your tastes and so there's always a process of translation and adaptation. And again the more you know about what's going on the more easily you can negotiate that. So we were talking also earlier about how there are so many different sort of food forces right now in the world.

Everything from the dreaded world word molecular gastronomy which we don't like anymore too local of or sustainable you know farm kinds of perspective and then there's also the whole notion that we deal with every day of food security. And so if I could ask you what you think about. Well the fact that the organic local sustainable movement is sometimes considered the latest romantic and really unrealistic. Well. You know there's there's an element of truth to all of that. But there's also an element of truth to the idea. I think that that's the best way forward. And sometimes you know you get

a mixture of those sorts of qualities in the in a particular movement. So I think it is true that it's a lot easier for some people to afford that kind of eating than others and to take the time to cook and so on. But at least it presents as a possibility that way of looking at at the food supply in that way of looking at food and that way of looking at cooking as not just a chore but also looked at in the right from the right perspective. An opportunity to in a way make the best of life. I mean what's what's better than making something with your own hands that gives pleasure to other people who you care for. And that's that's also cooking. Cooking is work but it's also that. And so I think. As you said it's a complicated world these days there are all these different forces at play and I think

that example romantic elitist. It may be but it's it's got a lot going for it you know. I er in the Newsweek had an article about food this last week and there was someone quoted saying the rich farmers grow for poor people and poor farmers go for rich people. And I thought that how that's and that's a really clear way of looking at things I think it will help us in sort of teasing out where we need to go because it is so complicated. I've you know we have genetically modified food issue is also a very complicated one that I think. I know for me as a chef you know that it's I'm never quite sure. Where I stand because I never know if I have enough information about it because we know that food has been modified forever. And what exactly does it mean to have something that is

genetically modified and how does that make it different than something else. Well all of all domesticated crops are genetically modified in the sense there that their genetics have been modified by human intervention and so do the modern version of that. Which is where the abbreviation comes from GM I was. It turns out to be in a way the most precise and surgical way of modifying crops and animals of all the methods that that human beings have used over the millennia. So it's I would say it's not a. Radical departure from what human beings have been doing and what part of what makes them human is that they has that we. We we change nature. You know the Pilate nature for our own

purposes. And this is just one more step in that direction in some ways it's it's a cleaner process than past processes. In some ways it is also however more more troubling because the kinds of changes that are being made do make it at least potentially. Possible that. That these plants or animals if accidentally released into the wild would compete with the original and original plants or animals and we'd end up with less diversity than we've got. And that's not a good thing. So that's the part that concerns me more is it's not so much safety issues or or philosophical issues it's it's environmental issues because we need to increase diversity not decrease division. I think I was running out of time. I really did. But.

OK I have one more question for you though before we think and that is who inspires you because you're an incredible inspiration to so many people from people like me to home cooks to friend Adriano over and Spain and here have had an amazing influence on the lives of both professional and non-fictional cooks who inspires you. Well a couple of people who are no longer with us. A man named Alan Davidson who I was who who. I mean it's true that the the science of food and cooking has become more acceptable as a subject these days but there was a time when the very idea of studying food seriously in any sort of way historically ethically or otherwise. That was thought to be crazy. Food Studies have no place in the academy

for hundreds and hundreds of years and Alan Davidson who's an Englishman not a diplomat. He was ambassador to Laos when when I was collapsed in the 70s. Who gave up his job as a diplomat because in the various places he'd been posted he got really interested in the seafood the different fish that people ate in those places and ended up founding a little publishing company that that operated out of his basement in London and pretty much single handedly he. He just showed how the study of food was was fascinating and important at the same time. And so he was and still is a model to me. I would also say a lot of that for me a lot of the younger generation has from Blumenthal David Chang who's here in town tonight.

David Arnold a guy at the French Connery Institute the people who are. George is driven to understand how how food works how cooking works and have ten times the energy I do and are. I mean every time I talk to them I learn from them so they they they keep me going. Well it's the past and the future I guess. Well thank you so much. And I know that the audience probably has lots of questions. Yes. You know I think ultimately it's what the players you get from the taste of them. That's what you do. Gives us the spirit. Well you know it depends on the use to which people put my work. So I hope so. I hope

so I mean that for me. That's why food is interesting in fact the next book I'm going to write is about flavor because to me that's that's the the wonder and the mystery of it all is the the pleasure that we get from from foods cooked and otherwise. So I hope so. OK. That way I can cook wrote the book. Yet And I've never I thought Bill wife felt it better actually does work. It's true. You better use your words I work late and I've been hauling around a couple of science and. You're out law and.

Order. So meat on the bone and why it's more more flavorful for more flavorful more succulent. I haven't seen any academic studies of that subject and. But I didn't. I would agree with you if from from my experience that's the case and and I've tried to understand it without actually doing quantitative experiments and it seems to me there are a couple of things going on. One of them being that bone as a material has a poorer heat conductor than than the meat itself is and so the meat around the bone especially of course when the bone is at the center of the meat is the part of the meat that's that's least cooked and therefore going to have the most juice left the most and therefore be the most succulent. But I'm sure there are also compositional

differences. The meat there tastes different even if it's cooked to the same degree. And so I'm sure that stuff comes out of the bone or as maybe they're already in the in the in the tissue that connects the the the meat to the bone that somehow influences flavor. And it's exactly that kind of question that you know. Professional food scientists are very unlikely to ask and so it's wonderful that you are pushing them to provide answers. Let me just give you a little story about not meat on the bone but tomatoes. So Justin Blumenthal is a chef in England he doesn't. He's got plenty to do besides what I'm about to describe to you but he was in the kitchen one day helping out with the preparation of tomatoes for some dish at his restaurant. And he was doing the usual French thing which was to be boiled

and peeled and cut them remove the seeds and then chop the flesh and just kind of popping things in his mouth and noticed that there seemed to be a lot more flavor around the seeds that he was going to be using for a stock or something like that than there was in the flesh that was going to be the highlight of this particular dish so he called a food scientist friend of his and asked him Is that true. And the food scientists looked at the literature and said we've never looked at that and has then said you should. I think there's a lot more flavor on the seeds. So they did the experiment. And the difference was not just a little bit it was like four fold. The quantity of umami substances and and organic acids in the jelly around the seeds compared to the flesh itself. So we ended up with Among his other credits a scientific paper because he was the guy who observed that to begin with. So I think there are a lot of observations like that the things the cooks

know that food scientists don't. And the more they start talking to each other the more interesting things we're going to find out about exactly that kind of thing. This. Is Yeah. You know it's a tough day. Nothing.

Nothing astonishing is coming to my mind but there is a whole school of thought that holds that the reason certain foods go together is that you know flavor is a composite thing chemically. So a banana smells like a banana. And you think it's just banana. But in fact there are hundreds of different aroma compounds that all together produce that that perception. And so the idea is that different few foods that go together share some of those elements in common which means that there's a bridge between them which means that those those ingredients go well together and there's a whole website based in Belgium called food pairing food pairing dot com. That shows you these kind of relationships among foods that have to have things in common in exactly that way. That's that's not exactly what you're talking about you're talking about something where you take two things put them together

and you end up with something that's more than the sum of the parts. And I'm not I give you one. OK. But good only because I and I this isn't something new but if they were to say there were food scientists in the restaurant a couple a year or so ago Top told me about chocolate and blue cheese. And that's a combination that I think actually the guys in Belgium have been looking at. It's it's an amazing combination chalk and cheese. Did they. Yeah so did they say what they didn't tell me the secret that they were looking at that issue and then I think they were working with the guy in Belgium or the people and I'll be interested what they come up with because it was it was of a woman in my cell Percy who wrote a wonderful book about chocolate and she asked me to contribute a recipe. I never do recipes except in the New York Times but I've been to a

truckle ITA and Paris who did truffles filled with cheese which is base and cheese. And so the recipe I gave her was one based on blue cheese you know. You know chocolate truffle. Well maybe it's a guy from yeah but did it what I thought I liked it just fine but it didn't seem to me that it was what you were describing. Yeah that sort of synergistic thing. I thought it was really interesting but. Yeah I know. Another slight diversion but there is interesting Bill because wine and food pairing is a big deal. Also there's been recently some work in food science on that subject trying to begin to look at it and it's still like kindergarten level work. But so far what this this century scientists did UC Davis did was train people on describing the

characteristics of various cheeses. And then on various wines and then had them pear wines and cheeses and then have them describe the wine and the cheese half of the pair in these in these pairings and the results were were completely uniform and it was essentially if you're interested in the wine the cheese damages the flavor. And if you're interested in the cheese the wind is the flavor. So I don't know where that leaves us. I think third if that's what I want to write this book about flavor I think there's so much there to to really understand and appreciate that that hasn't quite been nailed down as it is. Have I. And I generated debate on any subjects

productive and productive argument. Yeah I mean I've I've been wrong plenty of times. Yeah and I'm always glad to every time I write an introduction to my to a book I say please let me know when you find a mistake or when this doesn't. Doesn't sound right to you. These are of course the most difficult questions you think of an example of this or that on the spur of the moment and of course I'm drawing a blank on this one which is why I keep talking and talking here to give myself time to to come up with one. Sorry. Here's a question. Thanks man. OK. Braising is a wonderful example of a technique that that is very

simple and yet little details can end up taking you absolutely the wrong path so that the texture of a piece of meat to the juiciness of a piece of meat essentially comes down to the temperature that you cook it to. And brazing and tough cuts of meat are. A bit of a compromise because you need to cook them hot enough and long enough to soften the connective tissue. But that also means that the fibers themselves generally get overcooked and so that's why it can end up being kind of dry and stringy. But you can get the connective tissue soft and minimize the drying out by keeping the cooking temperature as low as possible. And a lot of braising recipes will tell you to you know start the braes on the stove top and then put the lid on put it in a low

oven low being defined as 300 or 275 or 250 years something like that. And that recipe guarantees you a dry piece of meat because water boils at 212 degrees and in an oven with a closed pot at 250 you're going to hit the boil and the boiler's is way too hot to keep the moistness in the in the fibers. But if the very same recipe says to put it in say 250 degree oven and leave the lid off or leave the lid a jar you're OK. That little little detail makes all the difference because if the lid is open then the surface of the of the liquid is cooled by evaporation. The water's able to evaporate out into the oven so that the effective temperature of the meat field is no longer 250 or 212 the boiling point. It's more like a hundred eighty and that's about where you want it to be. So little details like that can

can make all the difference. You also get because the lid is open and evaporation is taking place you get concentration of liquid. The flavor of the liquid gets gets more intense. So. The problem with doing it on the stove top is that it's really hard to control the temperature because that at the bottom is very hot. Thanks to the the heating element and then everything above that is cooler so the bottom is getting overcooked the parts above are getting under cooked. The oven gives you much more even heat. You. Just. Carry. OK different styles of recipes and and approaches dress of peas. It is true that

the oldest ones basically give you a list of ingredients and and then just boil or Rose store or something. So they were they were really shorthand for cooks the earliest recipe books were were professional documents for other professionals. And I think these days you know maybe maybe we've kind of gone to an extreme in the other direction because you can't assume that anybody knows anything about cooking anymore. So you end up being absolutely specific about everything and recipes can go on for 10 pages 15 pages and it was supposed to be. I think those kinds of recipes rather than reassuring can kind of scare you off. You know if you're still paging through and you haven't come to the end of the procedure yet do you really want to do this. So I think it is tricky to define a kind of happy medium where you provide enough information to give the book a fighting chance

of getting the right result but not so much detail that it really becomes too much information overload. Yes. You look very nice. Curious. Yes. Yeah I have and try try to summarize that you know about a page and in this new book. And again it's as you know the different materials have different things to offer we still don't have the perfect panel that's completely unreactive and conducts heat perfectly evenly and cleans easily. You know all the things you would want for

Pan. We we may get there eventually they're not talking about nonstick surfaces that won't be nonstick due so much to the chemistry and tough line is not a great thing either to produce or to to have in the kitchen. But because of the structure so you can go in there apparently ways that it looks as though there are ways that you might be able to fabricate the metal itself to make it non stick rather than having to put a coating on. So and nonstick the news have really evolved over the last I'd say 10 years. The the alternative is to tough lined and they used to be there. There really weren't any and and now there are some that are getting you know reasonable based on silicone which is a much friendlier material value than having that pair in the lines already and you just wonder where that stuff went. Yes everything. Really. I mean. How did I know they'd they'd never

take that form because for whatever reasons neither side is that of nations. I mean I'm my feeling as I learn very early on that just because I read something in a scientific journal doesn't mean that it's at all relevant to what happens in the kitchen. And most cooks these days anyway are are willing to listen to what scientists have to say in fact are often easier to hear even if their own experiences is different. So it's really much more. I really really think that's what's going on. And then you talk about it you do an experiment and that's part of the fun these days is that I'll go into a kitchen have a conversation with a cook and often in the midst of preparing things for that day's service we do an experiment to settle the argument. And that's the great thing about science is that that's how you sell arguments do the experiments side by side comparison. How does it look. Well what's subjective is is your perception of things.

So essentially what the way I like to do things whenever possible because it's it really is the best ways to know if there's a question about two different techniques giving two different results just do them side by side and taste them side by side not do it this way one day and this way A week later and then and then you really are kind of banking on memories which can be fooled very easily. So doing them side by side and ideally doing them with someone else because the more and more subjects there are the better your statistics are. And then ideally of most of all do it blind so you don't know which is which. So you have kids. I would have them kind of switch plates around on me and whoever else I was having the tasting with.

So we didn't know which which version was which and that way you really do get a more objective picture of what's going on. I wish I were you. When I met her there was nothing very human. One. Minute. Oh my. You know. I want you to know. That maybe because turkeys were cleaner background. Yeah that's that gives me the willies. Yes every one knows that you like me. Who says I don't need news so I have no ratings

and no braised braised meats by and large or well cooked. Yeah yeah. By and large these days you never know. Effects are rare rare red red on the inside red and bloody with us. Yes we use a gas till it reaches the right temperature. Yes that might be. Right. Now but you know you write that between between the heat source and the food is the pan in the pan is what really comes in contact with it. Cooks have their preferences for heat sources for for all kinds of reasons and most professionals prefer gas because you can see the flame. You kind of know exactly where you are.

It's it's infinitely variable rather than you know one two or three on a scale a bit of it is also really inefficient. I mean less than half of the energy of the flame goes into the food. And it's it's a simple electric burner is much more efficient but it doesn't change temperatures quickly. So that's its disadvantage induction does change immediately and is the most efficient wants like 95 percent. Efficient in the transfer of energy into the pan itself. Yeah yeah. More and more I just came back from a week in Europe and most of the kitchens I look you know. Well how Thank you so much. I know that people are probably want your autograph in a book right. Is that was happening next. Yeah. So just remember that it's really important to support bookstores and

authors. Buy as many books as possible. In fact in fact. Thank you. Thank you. I just like to say I was hoping this would come up earlier and it didn't. But I wrote on food and cooking here in I lived in Somerville. I I wrote the book. I was a sort of itinerant among the libraries in town Boston public wherever I could get a seat at the Schlesinger library was a was a great resource because Julia Child had just given much of her collection to it so I was able to take advantage of that. And this was one of my bookstores and I wouldn't have been able to do what I did without libraries bookstores. The people who make them possible. So yeah I'm really glad to see all of you here. Thank you for coming.