Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

In "Cooked" Michael Pollan takes a look at the major processes that go into food preparation which he breaks into four categories - fire, water, air and earth. As with other books by Pollan there is a deep message in the writing and an underlying goal of the author to revitalize the reader's interest in our historic food culture and the approachability of it at the individual level in modern society. The book sets the stage in the introduction asking the question of why to cook. He notes that the amount of time spent in the kitchen by people has declined dramatically in the last 50 years and how the argument of division of labour and time optimization might hold partially true- being totally removed from preparing what we consume to survive is much much more complicated than such simple economic logic. The book sets the stage by discussing the BBQ. It is a perfect opening to reinforce the author's introductory criticims of modern food preparation as the social atmosphere defined by BBQs will always be an obvious reminder of the deeply social aspects of certain kinds of food preparation. The author researches heavily and takes the reader with him through his journey of finding the authentic BBQ. In reading the chapter i have a much larger where to eat next list... But the author combines food journalism of BBQ today with a historical account of the roast in our history and discusses some fairly deep concepts about what makes us human. The author introduces the idea that what makes us human is actually the ability to cook as by cooking we reduce the time and energy spent in digestion and allows for people to have evolved much larger brains that require economy of eating time. Not a central thesis of the book by any means, just an illustration that the philosophy of the author and examples all weave together to bring purpose to the writing. The author then goes into water and boiling food. This is less adventurous and seems slightly more introspective. Cooking food by boiling it is a more recent human invention as its dependent on a vessel to boil the water in after one has discovered fire. It is also a more domestic form of food preparation and as a result has more gender role connotations. The atmosphere of the campfire is different from the atmosphere of the person preparing a stew. Nonetheless the author discusses how all cultures boil food in various forms to both cook and improve flavour and at its core is a fairly common practice. The chemistry of what happens is discussed and the lessons learnt in terms of process. The author details how for himself the slow process of the food preparation filtered through to the family time enjoyed while talking and slowly eating the slow cooked meal. The author then moves into air and discusses baking. Baking is a form of food preparation that was subcontracted out of the kitchen hundreds of years ago (compared to roasting and boiling for example). The author gives himself the project of learning how to bake and starts in his home state of California. It is really interesting and it makes me feel like i am bread deprived. The science of breadmaking is really interesting and the industrial process of making the flour has the effect of reducing the nutritional content. The process of recombining nutrients to the bland white breads in modern supermarkets is discussed and shown to be predominantly a failure in terms of achieving nutritional goals. The author starts with a successful baking of a white flour sourdough and eventually works with original wholeweat cultures. I read this chapter and want to try the bread as well as all the bakeries that went into shaping this chapter... The author finally moves into Earth which is really his description for allowing nature and microbiology to take its course on food. In particular fermentation is detailed in two forms. The first is through pickling and the author tries to make sauerkraut, kimchi, and various other pickled foods. This seems the most straightforward to attempt at home as its a very slow process but the nuances are discussed and as with all forms of food preparation the author discusses there is an art to it given the science has its limits given the multitude of processes that are occuring. The author then discusses the art of cheesemaking and discusses the health aspects of the cheesemaking process. The author ends with a discussion of alcohol production and he attempts making beer. Given the beer kits involved are slightly more ready made than kits for other forms of food preparation, the first try for beer seems to turn out quite successfully on a a relative basis. The role of alcohol in social settings, its health contents and issues as well as its historic role througout civilization and consumption in the animal world is all discussed in a lively manner. I have always like Pollan's books. They are entertaining and have humor. Despite the lightheartedness of the writing the deeper message is one that should be considered. Cooking doesnt have to be a chore and the spillover effects of moving from processed food to home cooked are countless. For him with cooking - home atmosphere is better, nutrition is better, value for money is better and his experiences are better all the while his social fabric gets stronger. Obviously the message isnt for everyone to prepare all aspects of their food intake but to shift the balance away from always buying prepared and trying to minimize time cooking is a questionable goal. Despite not being active in the kitchen I feel more invigorated to try after reading this. I learnt quite a bit as well as enjoyed the read.

I read Michael Pollan's masterwork Cooked with great interest. This book takes a simple thing – food and how we prepare it – and delves deep into the underlying science and history of this subject. The book first discusses using fire and water for cooking. It covers topics such as the Maillard reaction, which gives food flavor, and the way a stewpot acts as a second stomach, in a sense, predigesting foods and opening up their nutritional value. I found the final section of the book, on fermentation, the most interesting. Fermentation ("cold fire") uses microorganisms to digest foods partially and to create flavors. The book highlights several key fermented foods – in particular, bread, wine, and cheese – and discusses various aspects of the fermentation process. First, considering bread, fermentation allows us to readily use grasses for food and reclaim much more solar energy. The book suggests that ~90 percent of the energy in food is lost at each step of the food pyramid; thus, being able to eat grass directly is a major triumph of the agricultural revolution. Of course, nowadays, we have taken this fantastic process even further and essentially industrialized grass in the form of white bread -- taking out much of the original nutrients, including fiber, and then putting different nutrients back in. Another exciting aspect of baking bread is what Pollan describes as an emergent phenomenon. Most other forms of cooking, for instance, heating by fire or warming in a pot, involve a simple extrapolation of the preparation conditions. Baking bread is different. It is a "system property," where one combines various ingredients and makes something completely different than the original constituents. Pollan also describes how gluten acts almost like an elastic to create cavities in bread that can fill with gas and facilitate rising. The next fermented food Pollan discusses is wine. To make it clear how easy it is to achieve fermentation, he shares humorous stories from his childhood of fermenting grape juice and having the vessel burst. He also brings up a philosophical question of whether we have domesticated Saccharomyces cerevisiae or whether it has domesticated us: alcohol itself, which is the product of many fermentations, is toxic to most organisms, yet we have evolved enzymes and pathways in our liver to break it down. Pollan also talks about how one can understand the different flavors of wine in terms of the various microorganisms available. Humans, in a sense, have co-evolved with wine and can benefit from having a glass a day based on a variety of health indicators. The final section on fermentation talks about cheese. Cheese represents the product of rotting or decay in its extreme. Pollan describes cheese fermentation as a multistep process where, initially, microorganisms aerobically colonize the center of a bit of milk, digesting it partially and raising its pH, but eventually, the increasing acidity fouls the microbes' nest. Then, there is effectively an ecological succession where other species of bacteria replace the initial microbes; this continues to raise the pH. What I found most interesting is that a secondary fermentation then occurs from the outside of the cheese, where yeasts – which are aerobic – send in their hyphae and partially neutralize the increasing pH. The competition between these different fermentations gives rise to new chemistries, flavors, and compounds. Cheese is also unusual in that it represents the nexus for competition between two current groups of people: the fermentos, those who believe in the importance of microorganisms for health and for giving food its flavors, and the Pasteurians, those who want to purge all foods of microbes. Their differences are evident when choosing a vessel for making cheese: should it be made out of old rotten, moldy wood or modern stainless steel? The overall discussion of fermented foods points to the legacy of the agricultural revolution and the great importance of microbes in day-to-day life. Altogether, I highly recommend this book. I find myself revisiting many of the book's points when I enjoy various meals and purchase things at the grocery store.

I think I've read every one of Pollan's books. I loved some, especially Omnivore's Dilemma, while others were just good (In Defense of Food). With Cooked, there were parts I loved, while other parts I was ready to skim over. In the end, I enjoyed the book immensely, but not as much as some of this others. Like many of his other books, Pollan divides Cooked into thematic sections (Here: Fire [Grilling], Water [Cooking in water], Air [baking], and Earth[fermenting/pickling]) but they seemed a little forced, as Pollan himself seems to acknowledge. You need fire for three of the four, and yeast plays a pretty big role in both beer and bread. I get what he was trying to do, but it felt like it didn't quite work to enhance the themes of the book rather than merely provide breaking points. His introduction sets the stage for the entire book. He identifies a dilemma in modern culture: we spend less time cooking than ever but more time watching and idolizing others who cook. Pollan explains that contemplating this dilemma triggered something in him to write this book, and I think he makes an important overarching observation: although cooking may not be the most efficient use of time, it is an alchemic process that transforms both raw foods and people. Without cooking, humans would not be what we are today. The modern trend to remove cooking from everyday life, therefore, is likely to have huge consequences on who we are. As Pollan notes, our fascination with cooking reflects the deep-seated position it holds in our lives. The book contains long sections with meditations on what cooking is and what it means to culture, both ancient and modern, and for the most part I enjoyed them. For example, although it is somewhat tangential to cooking, Pollan discusses the role that microbiotics play in our gut and the effect on our health. Tying this topic into modern cooking, he raises some very interesting questions about the effect of a "no-microbe" policy on our health. As Pollan excels at pointing out repeatedly, the food we eat today is at the long end of the combined evolution of man and food: we eat what we eat and cook food the way we do because it is necessary to our survival. Removing certain types of food (e.g., whole grain bread, fermented vegetables) without thinking of the consequences is fraught with peril. The meditations are interspersed with stories about masters of cooking and Pollan's own personal experiences. In each section, Pollan seeks out the masters in each particular field to teach him about cooking. As with his other books, Pollan always finds the philosophers within a certain field that combine their expertise with an ability to discuss their field in a way that opens your eyes. Who knew that bread baking would be so complex and more of an art form than simple mixing? Pollan is a masterful storyteller, combining an ability to explain complex issues with a sharp sense of humor and self-deprecation. With Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan changed how I think about the world. For me, Cooked was different in that rather than changing how I see the world of food, he reinforced ideas I already have and gave voice to some subconscious thoughts I had about the importance of cooking my own food. Although I have always enjoyed cooking, Pollan helps highlight WHY cooking is so enjoyable and so worthwhile. I especially enjoyed his section on brewing beer and have been inspired to try to brew my own batch. As he notes in his afterword, many of these endeavors seem at first glance to be an incredible waste of time and totally inefficient. As Pollan explains, however, there is a "satisfaction that comes from temporarily breaking free of one's accustomed role as the producer of one thing -- whatever it is we sell into the market for a living -- and the passive consumer of everything else." Over the course of the book, Pollan successfully proves that cooking is special and shouldn't be given up so easily, and there are benefits to slowing down and becoming immersed in something so basic as the food we eat. So while I can't claim that Cooked is as eye-opening as some of Pollan's other works, I enjoyed it immensely.

This book hit such a sweet spot in the venn diagram of foodie, science, and history. The 4 main section were fire (think grilling and BBQ), water (braised and soups), air (bread), and fermentation. Each section improved my cooking because of my new understanding. I can read a recipe and understand better what will work vs not, and know how to adjust as needed before I begin. It has me so excited to try some new things, like fermentation, that I never thought I'd be interested in before.

It was very interesting to read "Cooked" shortly after writing my own cookbook, The Wholesome Breakfast Cookbook . For just when it is thought that mealtime can't get simpler than microwaving your dinner in the oven or picking up a bagel and coffee for breakfast, Pollan comes along and shows you how such an apparently simple decision can have profound consequences. He brings in religion, gender, sociology, environmentalism, politics, etc. and shows you how complicated such a seemingly mundane decision really is. But maybe that is why our food decisions can have such far reaching effects, because they are decisions that every one of us has to make every day of our lives. After the introduction, "Cooked" is divided into four parts representing grilling over fire, stove top cooking, baking, and fermentation. When I first started reading, I did not expect to be much interested in the earth/fermentation section, but it actually proved to be one of the most interesting and thought-provoking sections of Pollan's book. The whole concept of how our bodies need live-culture foods to be healthy is very interesting. One weakness of the book is that I am not sure how practical his ideas are. I am a person who regularly cooks for my family, but I also have the time as I don't work outside the home. As Pollan repeatedly states a lot of time and patience are required to cook at home. And I completely agree with him. As he says, cooking is not actually that difficult after you have practiced for a while, but it is a very time-consuming process. Pollan is all for the whole family working on the cooking but I am not sure this will really be attainable by many. Yes, there are some men who enjoy cooking, but in general they like the more dramatic cooking as Pollan discusses in the fire section of the book. While I have personally known a couple where the husband and wife, both of whom worked, cooked in a beautifully synchronized manner and served absolutely delicious food; it takes a very strong commitment. They spent hours cooking each evening together and also a lot of preparation time on the weekends. It is great if it works for you, but I don't see it as that practical for many. However this in no way detracts from the value of the book. It is a wonderful work as to be expected of Pollan. It is entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking. If you already cook, this book will affirm you in this choice and show you many benefits to your decision that you might now have been aware of as well as encourage you to branch out a bit more. If you are not cooking much, it is hoped that this book will inspire you to give it a try. As Pollan shows, the choice to cook or not cook has a much greater influence on our lives than most of us think.

I must admit that Pollan ir preaching to the choir here. I'm a dedicated amateur cook, and almost everything we eat is mostly scratch-cooked. I love experimenting with different techniques and improving my game, and I'm particularly looking forward to using info from the "Air" chapter to improve my "artisan" bread's taste, texture, and nutrition. I've read reviews that say that it's all very well to read about cooking, but it's rather like watching food shows on TV: people do that while eating processed food or take-out, because they think it's inaccessible. What's sad is- it's really not, at least for most people. Home from-scratch cooking is cheaper than eating out if what you buy is of any decent quality, and while Pollan rhapsodizes about mono-tasking in doing this, personally I use timers so I can both cook the onions for a half hour AND catch up online, stirring them once every 5 min or so. They really can amuse themselves most of the time! Similarly with all the other cooking he does- one does NOT have to dedicate 5 hours to brewing beer; one simply has to be around for those 5 hours while the process goes on, and intervene periodically. As with barbecue, and braises, and breads, and cheese, and even more so with wild fermentation of veg. So: I don't think people don't cook because of the crazy amount of hands-on time; hell, I've made Beef Wellington from scratch, including the puff paste, taking no more than around 45 min/day... but PLANNING. There's such an emphasis on getting food on the table in 30 min! 20 min! 15 min! that "slow food"- which doesn't take all that much more time in task, but takes longer elapsed- is scanted. I mean, there's pretty much nothing that I can make in 30 min from start to finish that I'd want to eat. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich? but that depends on having decent bread, which I make... Anyway. I've done barbecue- at least semi-authentic; many, many braises and stews; a LOT of bread (we never buy bread, though I vary between stuff made in the bread machine and the more artisnal approaches which I am working to improve); and wild fermentation of excellent sauerkraut, kimchee, and various other veg, plus some cheesemaking (nothing aged yet; I don't have a "cave"), and both beer and wine. None are hard or especially complicated, though the cheese, beer, and wine can be a tad fussy, as can sourdoughs. Still: not actually inaccessible for anyone not living in a food desert, or working 3 jobs to try to make ends meet (and even then, if one can get decent veg and meat, a slow cooker will do wonders and needs no babysitting). I also very much appreciated that Pollan put this into a more modern context, rather than blaming women for stopping cooking. My own mother pretty much stopped from-scratch cooking when I was a kid (I'm now in my mid-50s), and relied more and more on stuff like hamburger helper, plus a few "shortcut" meals that were pretty awful. And she was not employed outside the home, so that wasn't the reason; I think it was simply the times, and the advertising. Pollan suggests that men and kids get into the kitchen; I support that! At one point I made a Family Rule: no one got to complain about dinner unless they were cooking 1 meal a week for the family. It worked great! and got my husband and kid into the kitchen. I digress. I really enjoyed this book, and look forward to exploring more about breads in particular. But right now there's a cabbage calling my name that needs to get shredded, salted, and start fermenting.

Cooking is not just an activity that involves you sweating it out in the kitchen, but it is an art in itself. If done correctly and patiently, using the right ingredients and techniques, you don’t just whip up great dishes, but create memories that will linger on in the mind of those who are lucky enough to eat it. In Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan, published in 2013, the author explores the impact of four of the most powerful elements of nature – air, water, fire and earth – on the food that we eat. From baking to fermenting, he experiments with some of the best chefs in the world to discover how beautifully these four elements shape and cook the food that we so love to eat. The entire world pauses to read a culinary book that is written by the renowned journalist, Michael Pollan. It is no wonder that after penning down several critically acclaimed non-fiction books based on food and culinary science such as In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, his next piece of work, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, has taken the world by storm. It is difficult to find an author as passionate about food and the role it plays in the evolution of mankind as Pollan. So the book certainly deserves your attention if you love food. Readers have loved how the food systematically breaks down into the four sections of fire, air, earth and water giving ample explanation of how each of them shape and cook the food separately in their own unique way. It will take you on a journey starting from the basic techniques of cooking to how they have evolved over the centuries, and how this evolution has shaped our society and inter-personal relationships. The book also makes a point to remind its readers how the modern man is losing his touch with the real methods of cooking. Relying on processed food to take care of our nutritional requirements weakens us and the entire cycle of ecological inter dependence. In fact, the author claims that by adopting a healthier cooking practice, we can fight health issues successfully and go back to restoring our disturbed relationship with nature. In 2016 Pollan and Alex Gibney turned the book into a 4-part documentary series released exclusively on NetFlix which brought stunning visuals to Pollan’s story. This review was originally written for 27Press.com.

There's a war happening in America. Beachheads have been established in Berkeley. Park Slope streets run red with mistrust, neighbors eying one another and asking themselves `Are you one of THEM?' Partisans choose their banners: Gluten-Free for All Mankind, Viva the Vegans!, or We-Only-Eat-Kale-Grown-by-an-Authentic-Native-American-Named-Chief-Bloodhorse. COOKED is another manifesto (holy book?) in our twenty-first century food wars. Michael Pollan is a supremely talented food writer. Very few people in America can write a thirty page bread making scene with the kind of tension that Pollan brings to it. That isn't sarcasm. It's actually engaging. You want to see if he can successfully make bread at home. That's the best part of this book - Pollan makes the reader excited about cooking, and cooking as purely as one can with natural, unadulterated ingredients. After a long session with COOKED, you'll find yourself moseying over to Williams-Sonoma and imagining a more ambitious culinary life. Unfortunately, this is a 450 page book that could have been reduced to five mid-size articles in The New Yorker. The structure is broken down into sections corresponding to the Classical elements - Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Such a simple plan proves inadequate for the meandering, convoluted theses jammed into the pages. Expect long, ponderous forays into the chemistry of cheese, the chemistry of fermentation, the chemistry of bread. He does a serviceable job of elucidating his gustatory Weltanschauung: processed/store-bought food=bad and local/organic/home-cooked/pseudo-paleo consumption=good. It's impossible not to see his point and agree with it (at least partially). But here's the problem: when you talk about how and what people should eat, you're talking about class and money. Tell a family of six in Arkansas, helmed by overworked parents, that they need to drop the KFC and prepare some bouillabaisse, and you'll probably be the one who ends up in the cauldron. Cooking requires time, money, and serenity - all things that flow abundantly in our coastal enclaves, but are scarce in the rest of the world. We are a fat nation because we eat a lot of food - that it's processed and store-bought is not the main problem. Pollan sees his at-home cooking solution as a national panacea, yet he only obliquely touches on the fundamental issues fueling our ever-expanding middle. This book will speak to the Whole Foodies and the Organic Diehards. It's a beautiful vision, one that certainly influenced me personally, but it rings of the idealistic hobbyist not the true peacemaker who seeks a realistic end to a deadly, mounting scourge.

I started reading Cooked because I was watching the show in Netflix. (Same name if you are interested, and wonderfully made.) But I thought I was missing something, after all a book is often better than a show. Its a book with an interesting proposition, which relooks the way we connect with food, which forms the basic part of our existence. Its a critique of industrialization of food production. The disconnect between nature, agriculture and culture which is reflected in the way food in plated in front of us. Wonderful read.

A great book, and interesting journey through different methods of cooking. I love cooking so I was bound to enjoy this book, I now wish I had more time and mouths to feed to justify all the cooking I’d like to do

I first watched the series on Netflix and it first got me into the scientific side of cooking (I had been a passionate and pretty good homecook before). Interesting and informative while easy to read. Also comprehensible for someone who is non-native. Only thing is that the book itself (binding, paper etc) is pretty low quality so if you care about that, go for the hardcover.

印象に残る本との出会いは、それこそご縁であり、人生のある時点での心の状態や興味の有りように、鍵が鍵穴にぴったり入るような、そして心や思考の扉が開かれるような感覚を覚える瞬間を齎してくれる。 Ｃｏｏｋｅｄ はそのような瞬間を齎してくれた。 還暦を少し過ぎ、男ながら料理を週末にチャレンジしだして半年、ふと新聞の書評欄で目に入った。 日本語の本は高いので、原書のペーパーバックを読む事にした。 構成は、火の料理ＢＢＱ，水の料理煮込み料理というか、男の私には色々変身可能な野菜スープの基礎、空気としてパン、そして発酵のサワークラウト。 ＢＢＱは河原でフランクフルトを焼き、焼きそばを作る等と思っては大間違い。 厳選した豚一頭をじっくり火加減に注意しながら丸焼きにするものだと教えられる。 しかも、その行為こそ、人間が生命を犠牲にして生きることの現実を直視し、神への感謝を感じるべき時なのだとも。 料理をしながら、哲学的な思考をし、玉ねぎを刻みながら禅の修行にもなることを学び、最後は自分でキムチをつくろうか、蜂蜜酒を作ろうか等とワクワクさせてくれる。 英語はビジネス書に特化した単語能力では知らない単語が多く、これはkindle で読むべき原書かなとも思った。 いずれにせよ、厨房好きの男性にお薦めの一書。

This book has a basic message- cook more from raw products. I greatly enjoyed Pollan's earlier book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals , and got this one with the hope. They are indeed quite similar in that they espouse small-scale approaches to food. In the Omnivore's Dilemma he looked at the impact of our food choices relative to how they are made (e.g., factory farming of livestock). Here he looks at the impact of our decision to cook those foods versus to have someone else cook them for us. Which food companies are only too happy to do. It's a basic fact of economics that the more processing that is involved, the greater the cost. It's more expensive to buy a fully finished chair than it is to buy a kit from Ikea than it is to buy lumber and nails from a store. The same applies to food, explaining why there is so much pressure applied by big food companies to get us to buy their pre-made food. Cooking is a waste of precious time as we are told to buy pre-cooked, or pre-prepared foods that can give us what we want in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the effort. However, they come at a cost. That cost is not just financial as Pollan makes the case that cooking not only produces healthier foods, but that it's good for the soul as cooking can create communities or shared time. Both of these points are hard to dispute. By loosely tying cooking to the four elements Pollan tours the world of cooking. Fire is related to BBQ with an excellent section involving Carolina BBQ masters. My favorite section, perhaps because I love to do genuine BBQ (not just grilling) myself. Water is related to cooking with liquids, such as braising. Pollan works with a top chef to try and create a masterpiece from humble ingredients. Air involves baking, so naturally he turns to making bread. Earth is perhaps the least direct, where he uses the "magical" alchemy of fungi and bacteria to explore fermentation. As someone who enjoys many kinds of fermented products (especially the liquid ones!) this was also a fun chapter. In all, he examines how the cooking process can make nutrients more available to our bodies. He also examines the irony of how we watch more cooking TV than ever before (by a large margin) yet we cook ourselves less and less often. I do have some reservations about the book. First, it really is about inspiration rather than teaching how to cook. There's a recipe to go with each of the four elements, but this isn't a recipe book or even a good cook book (i.e., teaching how to cook). It's really a why you should cook book. I loved the message, and if you enjoy cooking, I think you will too. Second, I think for those who don't know how to cook, or really don't have the time, this book might not do as much as a good and effective cook book that teaches you how to cook. Yes, motivation is important, but so is how to actually do it. Particularly when the competition is easier, faster, and in some cases, cheaper (at least in the short run). Still, Pollan encourages folks to cook more than they did before, as it's probably not possible for everyone to cook every day (that's certainly true for me). Overall though, I still rather enjoyed this book. If you like cooking, or miss cooking, or are nostalgic about when you used to eat home-cooked foods, this book is an excellent read and a great reminder of some of the reasons why cooking is a wonderful creative process that can be so very rewarding. It can remind us why its sometimes better to spend time than it is to spend money on our food. Because when push comes to shove, it's pretty hard to beat well-prepared home cooking!