further-adventures-in-search-of-perfection

by blumenthal-heston

unusual book

Genres: Cooking, Cookbooks, Food, Food Writing

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exercise in attempting to produce the ultimate version of a particular dish/recipe.
There's no doubt that Heston really gets down to the basics, Sourcing the ingredients to the roots and then trying various ways of cooking the dish.
He has an experimental,kitchen, his laboratory, not kitchen, was in Bray, but I now understand it, that he has a unit in Slough.
Having recently met the father of a girl who worked in the kitchens as work experience at 14, and who is now part of his main non catering staff, everything you read is true.
This father, and her mother, we're often asked to taste test a new recipe, or a full degustation menu.
As a rather down to earth chap he rather poo poohed the idea of little dishes with a small glass of an accompanying wine.
At the end of the repast, which would have cost £100+ per person, he realised why people were prepared to pay Heston's prices.

[Gina Bégin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out great- I had skimmed his first "Perfection" book and loved the beautiful photography which carried over into this book as well. The last two chapters (dishes) were much shorter than the others and I think they were the ones that I was actually most interested in; however, I feel they were the right length by the end of the book because after reading so many explanations about food science and techniques (we're talking molecules, here!) it ALMOST became tedious to read. I did learn a lot, though, and was able to use one of the ideas about keeping the "grain" of the hamburger meat the same way when making a burger (which was enjoyed by all). Heston is very thorough in his research and the book- in its entirety- was very detailed and interesting.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book as eight major recipes. Each chapter is blumenthals search for the best version of a given recipe including fish pie or chicken tikka masala. Then he describes how to cook that item in the best (and usually most complex) way possible. Most recipes include very unusual ingredients like kelp or oyster juice or malt extract.

[Aileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

ngeee! that is impossible for me to follow yr peking duck recipe Monsieur! the rest of the recipe are awesome

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting. A discussion on the development of 8 dishes and the quest to create the perfect version of each.