
Cooked
A Natural History of Transformation
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Narrated by:
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Michael Pollan
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By:
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Michael Pollan
About this listen
Michael Pollan, the best-selling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and How to Change Your Mind, explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen in Cooked.
Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that focuses on the four kinds of "transformations" that occur in cooking. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and starring Michael Pollan, Cooked teases out the links between science, culture and the flavors we love.
In Cooked, Pollan discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements - fire, water, air, and earth - to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer.
Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The listener learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us.
The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.
©2013 Michael Pollan (P)2013 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Pollan narrates his book in a conversational style filled with conviction and eagerness that drive the listener to join his evolutionary quest." (AudioFile)
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Story
With this updated edition of his earlier book, A Place of My Own, listeners can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollan’s realization of a room of his own—a small, wooden hut, his “shelter for daydreams” — built with his admittedly unhandy hands. Inspired by both Thoreau and Mr. Blandings, A Place of My Own not only works to convey the history and meaning of all human building, it also marks the connections between our bodies, our minds, and the natural world.
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Pollan is the master of hipster porn
- By Darwin8u on 02-28-15
By: Michael Pollan
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How to Change Your Mind
- What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: Michael Pollan
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction, and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third.
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A delightful trip
- By Paul E. Williams on 05-19-18
By: Michael Pollan
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The Omnivore's Dilemma
- Young Readers Edition
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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“What’s for dinner"? seemed like a simple question - until journalist and supermarket detective Michael Pollan delved behind the scenes. From fast food and big organic to small farms and old-fashioned hunting and gathering, this young listeners’ adaptation of Pollan’s famous food-chain exploration encourages kids to consider the personal and global health implications of their food choices. The Omnivore’s Dilemma serves up a bold message to the generation that needs it most: It’s time to take charge of our national eating habits - and it starts with you.
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So glad I finally read this book!
- By CourtneyWNY on 02-21-17
By: Michael Pollan
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Caffeine
- How Caffeine Created the Modern World
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: Michael Pollan
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
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Michael Pollan, known for his best-selling nonfiction audio, including The Omnivores Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, conceived and wrote Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World as an Audible Original. In this controversial and exciting listen, Pollan explores caffeine’s power as the most-used drug in the world - and the only one we give to children (in soda pop) as a treat.
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Leaves much to be desired
- By Melody H on 02-02-20
By: Michael Pollan
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Culinary Reactions
- The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking
- By: Simon Quellen Field
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.
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Culinary Reactions - The Chemical Formulas to Cook
- By Vicente Gard on 06-06-19
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Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
- Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
- By: Samin Nosrat
- Narrated by: Samin Nosrat
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A visionary new master class in cooking that distills decades of professional experience into just four simple elements, from the woman declared "America's next great cooking teacher" by Alice Waters.
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EXCELLENT, BUT...
- By KJNuri on 01-23-18
By: Samin Nosrat
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KitchenWise
- Essential Food Science for Home Cooks
- By: Shirley O. Corriher
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Want to cook fluffier scrambled eggs and more flavorful sauces, keep your greens brilliantly green, and make everything taste more delicious? KitchenWise combines beloved cooking expert Shirley Corriher’s down-to-earth advice with scientific expertise to address everyday cooking issues. Whether you are a beginning cook or a professional chef, Shirley’s guidance will save you time, and let you know exactly what to do behind the stove.
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Sourdough Culture
- A History of Bread Making from Ancient to Modern Bakers
- By: Eric Pallant
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Sourdough bread fueled the labor that built the Egyptian pyramids. The Roman Empire distributed free sourdough loaves to its citizens to maintain political stability. More recently, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, sourdough bread baking became a global phenomenon as people contended with being confined to their homes and sought distractions from their fear, uncertainty, and grief. In Sourdough Culture, environmental science professor Eric Pallant shows how throughout history, sourdough bread baking has always been about survival.
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What an awesome book!
- By Peter on 06-06-22
By: Eric Pallant
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Food: A Cultural Culinary History
- By: Ken Albala, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Ken Albala
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
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Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."
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One of my top 3 favorite courses!
- By Jessica on 12-28-13
By: Ken Albala, and others
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Medium Raw
- A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 10 years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores those changes, tracking Bourdain's strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood. Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen.
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Surprisingly tender.
- By Sparkly on 10-09-12
By: Anthony Bourdain
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The Food Lab
- Better Home Cooking Through Science
- By: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 21 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don't work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new - but simple - techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.
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Props to the narrator, and amazing book
- By Carla Nowicki on 08-22-20
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Masala Lab
- The Science of Indian Cooking
- By: Krish Ashok
- Narrated by: Ashish Bhandari
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Masala Lab by Krish Ashok is a science nerd's exploration of Indian cooking with the ultimate aim of making the listener a better cook and turning the kitchen into a joyful, creative playground for culinary experimentation. Just like memorizing an equation might have helped you pass an exam but not become a chemist, following a recipe without knowing its rationale can be a sub-optimal way of learning how to cook.
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Learned a lot!
- By Sharon S. Dorondo on 12-21-22
By: Krish Ashok
If you could sum up Cooked in three words, what would they be?
Only Michael Pollan can take the idea of how we cook our food and make that most basic of activities relate to who we are and how we came to be human.What did you like best about this story?
I was intrigued by the idea that we are the only animals who cook our food...and that may be what, in fact, what allowed our brains to get enough energy-dense meals fast enough to allow our energy-hog brains to develop. Fire also took us from solitary hunter/gatherers to social beings. The last chapter, about fermentation, was absolutely fascinating. What we have done to damage the microflora we need in our co-evolution with the microbial world is the information we need to make better decisions as a society.Have you listened to any of Michael Pollan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I've never heard Michael Pollan read before, and, of course, he is the perfect voice for his words. He is a charming and engaging reader. (In a tiny comment, he do wish he say genu-in rather then genu-wine.)Any additional comments?
I am an unabashed fan of this writer whose brilliance and intriguing topics touch all of us in such fundamental ways!Pollan does it again! Brilliant and compelling
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Anyone who is interested in learning a little more about the basic fundamentals of cookig will enjoy this book.A good "read"
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I would not listen to this in one marathon evening or even weekend, but it is worth the time to change your understanding and appreciation of cooking.
Earth, air, fire, water - how they change food
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How cooking is culturally developed and ultilized.
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Another Great Pollan Book
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This is an amazing book
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Great Author
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Great book.
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What did you love best about Cooked?
I loved the description of slow roasting pork and the love of the process of fermentation in pickles, beer and baking. This book inspired me to make some mead, for which I am very grateful, thank you, Michael.I generally love Michael's work and enjoyed this book as I expected I would but I am already a food and brewing aficionado so I already know how to brew, bake, ferment and roast, but not to the same extremes. I do not like finicky, faddish cooking so I was relieved to see how Michael focused on the real aspects of real, good, life-giving food.
For anyone who is wanting to go on a gastronomical journey throughout their lives with understanding and intention, this is probably an excellent place to start.
contagious passion
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This book totally change my mind about cooking. I am curious and interested and excited to learn how to cook. I’ve signed up for classes, try new recipes, and made it a family event so that my kids will see my positive attitude towards cooking as well. I think it needs to be everyone’s hobby if we ever want to be healthy as a society. So I thought I would start in my very own kitchen and with my family. And I am having the time of my life. Thanks Michael for a book that kept me entertained and engaged long enough to change my heart.
This book changed me and that amazing:)
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