Toward the end of the introduction McGee says: “Finally, a few words about the scientific approach to cooking and the organization of this book. Foods, like most everything else on earth, are mixtures of different chemical compounds, and the qualities that we aim to influence in the kitchen—taste, texture, color, nutritiousness—are all manifestations of chemical properties. So it is to the world of molecules and their reactions with each other that we must turn.”

There are three parts to this book. Part 1, Foods (about 80% of the total) has chapters on Milk and Dairy Products, including ice cream; Eggs; Meat; Fruits and Vegetables, Herbs and Spices; Grains, Legumes, and Nuts; Breads, Doughs, and Batters; Sauces; Sugars, Chocolate, and Confectionery; Wine, Beer, and Distilled Liquors (including drunkenness and hangovers); and Food Additives. Part 2, Food and the Body (about 10%), has chapters on Nutrition: American Fads, Intricate Facts; and Digestion and Sensation. Part 3, The Principles of Cooking: A Summary (the remaining 10%), has chapters on the Four Basic Food Molecules; Cooking Methods and Utensil Materials; and the Appendix: A Chemistry Primer: Atoms, Molecules, Energy. At the end are a 15-page Bibliography and an Index.

The book is clearly the result of a lifetime of interest in the subject. It contains interesting bits of history, along with appropriate and picturesque quotations from many ages and many places. All of this will fascinate the general reader, but there is in addition for the chemist a veritable treasure trove of insightful commentary on the science that underlies the biological, chemical, and physical changes that take place during the harvesting, preservation, and preparation of food. Explanations of chemical phenomena are simple, accurate, and complete; any or all of them could be used to great advantage in teaching chemistry. The author’s view extends from very close up examinations of phenomena such as exactly what happens when cream turns into butter, and the phenomenon of the tears, legs, or arches that appear on the inside of a glass of strong wine or spirits, to global observations such as “…egg albumen and baking soda are the only alkaline ingredients to be found in the kitchen”, that bread, cheese, yogurt, beer, and wine are all the result of controlled spoilage, and that “one very general definition of cooking might be the rearrangement of covalent bonds in food molecules”. A number of chemical structures and diagrams are presented, and figures include a cutaway view of a chicken to reveal the path taken by the ovum in its 25-hour trip during which it becomes an egg, photomicrographs that illustrate the preparation of mayonnaise, and flow diagrams that correspond to the making of wine, chocolate, sugar, and soy sauce. It is clear that the author is in complete command of the scientific principles that underlie the preparation of food.