On Food and Cooking is a classic reference book for chefs, home cooks, and gourmands. If you've been curious how about how cheese gets its flavor or why eggs can take on so many different cooked forms this is for you.

The bible. This book has an unbelievable depth of information on all things food. It reads like a textbook, but I have learned so much from just perusing its pages.

The BIBLE for anyone who wants to learn all the chemistry, biology, and physics behind cooking and baking. It's like learning how to fish - once you know how and why things cook and bake, you won't have to rely on following recipes to the letter anymore.

Let Your Meat Rest

Even though a dish may have been removed from a heat source, there is residual heat that continues the cooking process. Harold McGee, in his masterful "On Food and Cooking" calls this 'afterheating." He tells us “The extent of afterheating depends on the meat’s weight, shape and center temperature and the cooking temperature, and can range from a negligible few degrees in a thin cut to 20ºF/10ºC in a large roast.”

While it is "food science" McGee doesn't write like a scientist. When you want to know the ""why' of cooking, look to this book. (via DancingSpoon.com)

As a scientist and a person who likes food, I love McGee's book. He explains how things happen in cooking. How bread is formed and why some bread has smaller bubbles and some bread is chewy. Why that cut of meat you just cooked in the crockpot is tough and dry and how to fix that. How mayonnaise is made. His writing is accessible and you can really tell how his curiosity drives him to figure things out.

On Food and Cooking by harold mcgee is my bible. it's a little heavy (literally and figuratively), but i like to read a few pages every night before i drift off to la la land and dream about the chemical bond struture of a caramelized parsnip. or something.