The science of cooking

I'm just writing a brief post to recommend Alton Brown's cooking books, I'm Just Here for the Food and I'm Just Here for More Food. Brown also has a show called "Good Eats" on the Food Network, which, like his books, tries to teach you how cooking actually works. He does include recipes, but it's his ability to explain the science and history behind ingredients and techniques that sets him apart.

A brief excerpt from ...More Food, which is about baking (p. 31):

What Starch Does in Baked Goods

In its raw state, starch is stored in tight little botanical hand grenades that are relatively impenetrable and non-soluble in water-- that is until the water gets up to 140 degrees F. Then they begin to gelatinize, that is, the granules begin to soften and soak up water. This water is held along the length of the starches themselves, especially the long, straight amylose. Eventually many of the starches simply burst, spilling their payload like so many overinflated confetti-filled balloons. This process is called gelatinization.

In baked goods, starch serves three purposes:

Starch contributes mass by combining with water and other ingredients. You could think of starch as the concrete of the food world. Like concrete, starch needs to set or dry, which is what the cooling step is all about.

Starch traps and holds water. This includes water that's squeezed out of proteins during coagulation....

Starch provides yeast food. The problem is, those starch granules don't generally break open until they reach 140 degrees F, at which point any yeast present are dead as doornails. Luckily, up to 30 percent of the starch granules in wheat flour are broken during milling, making their energy available to the tiny fungi.

He talks about fats, proteins, carbohydrates, eggs, various types of flour, butter, milk, chocolate, and so on. And then he gets into the basic mixing and baking methods behind all baked goods. I recommend both his books (the first is about general cooking: grilling, sauteing, stewing, roasting, etc), as well as his TV show. He's funny and zany, and you wind up learning quite a bit. An interested kid could spin off into acids and bases, the structure of molecules and bonds, the history of food, nutrition, or, of course, cooking itself!