
Culinary Reactions
The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking
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Narrated by:
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Sean Pratt
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.
In Culinary Reactions, author Simon Quellen Field explores the chemistry behind the recipes you follow every day. How does altering the ratio of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, butter, and water affect how high bread rises? Why is whipped cream made with nitrous oxide rather than the more common carbon dioxide? And why does Hollandaise sauce fall for "clarified" butter? This easy-to-follow primer even includes recipes to demonstrate the concepts being discussed, including Whipped Creamsicle Topping (a foam), Cherry Dream Cheese (a protein gel), and Lemonade with Chameleon Eggs (an acid indicator). It even shows you how to extract DNA from a Halloween pumpkin. You'll never look at your graduated cylinders, Bunsen burners, and beakers the same way again.
©2012 Simon Quellen Field (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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Simple, yet interesting
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Students of chemistry will note an occasional oversimplifying of concepts, such as referring to pH as ‘percent hydrogen,’ instead of a logarithmic scale. However, most concepts are presented clearly and accurately.
There was one factual error that I am aware of. When discussing cis and trans fats, it indicates that the cis form (hydrogens on the same side of the double bond) is favored. In reality, the trans form (hydrogen atoms on opposite sides of the double bond) is favored due to a repulsion of the larger electron clouds surrounding the carbon groups.
The reason the molecule stays in the cis arrangement has to do with the nature of the double bond. Though carbon-carbon single bonds can freely rotate, double bonds lock the groups in place. This prevents the bond from rotating to the more favorable trans shape.
Fascinating, if a little dense
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BEST AUDIO
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his ability to explain the chemistry so coherently is greatly appreciated and amazing.
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This was a fun n listen
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Informative
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This book has a nice balance of presenting the science, real-world examples and even fun experiments to demonstrate the science. I recommend it if you are interested in this subject, but not if you’re looking for a cookbook .
Science of Food with a Few Fun Applixations
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This book is a repeating thrill with its knowledge
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Interesting facts
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Way too dense
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