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This came out at the end of my career as a serious professional cook and I have mixed experience with it. It's kind of an escoffier guide culinaire type deal fo

This came out at the end of my career as a serious professional cook and I have mixed experience with it. It's kind of an escoffier guide culinaire type deal for the 2000s. It documents & standardizes, or at least presents emerging conventions for, a huge range of techniques that were in use in certain kinds of restaurants in the preceding two decades. In terms of food like that you sit down and eat with other people, it was narrowly focused and dated almost immediately. But some of the techniques and "moves" became genuinely mainstream and it's fairly reliable as a reference to them. And some of the others didn't, but could have and are useful, and unless you were cooking at one of a couple dozen restaurants from 2002-2008 you're unlikely to find another detailed guide to how to do them. That said, for a lot of the detailed technical stuff, they generally chose to authoritatively select one specific approach to a technique, eliding details that can definitely be a big deal at this level of precision. Sometimes the "recipe" is really more of a demo, silently depending on details like a neutral pH, making it prone to failure if modified but too basic to be usable in its presented state. Also some of the techniques simply don't work as written. Specifically the ones that are presented as novel simplifications for complex molecular gastronomy operations are really hit or miss. I suspect these are just really bad cases of the previous point, where there is a hidden variable they didn't document, that didn't come up in testing. But there is a replication crisis in cookbooks too, this is not out of the norm though it is frustrating. It also raises the annoying question that's been in my head for 15 years now: wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means?

dluan 2y ago
i hated the era of foam, gel, and sous vide everything. as a home cook, i want the randomness that comes with hand technique, but if im paying for a 2/3 star meal i still also want the randomness and authenticity that comes with hand technique, not to be bored out of my mind or trying to show me some impressive lab grade "consistency". in another 20 years, we'll look back on this like we did mayonnaise and meat aspics from the 1950s.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were never that common either. This trend had a short peak and the training, staffing, equipment, r&d costs were all sky high. The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking.
  - mcphage 2y ago
    > The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. I'm not sure what the backlash was (I'm nowhere near that scene), but as a tactic, it could be that the reason for the disproportionate backlash was to prevent this style of cooking from becoming more widespread, rather than in reaction to its presence.
  - scarby2 2y ago
    > Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really useful. However it has fallen off slightly, i didn't think anyone is cooking eggs sous vide anymore.
    - alwa 2y ago
      Except, of course, for Starbucks! [0] And imitation salmon eggs still use that calcium/alginate technique the modernist cooks called "spherification"... [1] [0] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single [1] https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-how-to-easily-identify-artificial-salmon-roe/ https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-ho...
- kjs3 2y ago
  I'm with you: Meat aspics and horrifying fruit jello concoctions endemic to the South was exactly what I thought of the first time I went to a Modernist restaurant. Mayonnaise on the other hand...that didn't exactly fall out of fashion. And, as a home cook, I find a sous vide very convenient. For example, I can do a little prep in the morning, drop some meat in, come home, do a quick sear and drop in on the plate. It's another kind of slow cooker. It only becomes a 'consistency' fetish if you let it.
- rat87 2y ago
  hey some of us like meat aspics nothing wrong with some Kholodets/P'tcha with some horseradish
skyyler 2y ago
>wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means? He covers this in the first 5 pages or so, doesn't he?
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  I know what you're talking about and it's been a while but I remember it being kind of a headscratcher. He says some stuff about innovation and then mentions bauhaus but (in my memory at least) failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way. And also failed to convince me that he knew anything about modernism except the name and a vague association with mid-20th-century aesthetics.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    >failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way I had a completely different reaction to it, but then, I wasn't a member of the modernist movement. I just like food that tastes good.
aerostable_slug 2y ago
> wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means? I always thought he would have said "smart" if he thought he could get away with it. Or maybe "bright", in that particularly smug edge.org sense of the word. "Clever" might be another, but I don't think it captures the gestalt.
turnsout 2y ago
This comment is gold, and helps me contextualize a “book” which has always intrigued me. What are your takes on the later additions, Modernist Bread and Modernist Pizza? I have the Bread tome, and some of the base recipes have worked out.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  I have no experience with the pizza one at all. I liked the information in the bread books a lot, about the history of wheat cultivation and the enzyme processes during fermentation and baking. I only ever did one recipe out of it (brioche) and it wasn't better or worse than the more traditional recipe I normally use. Seems fine if you like their recipe format, though there are a lot of great bread books out there.
  - turnsout 2y ago
    Thanks! Yeah, so far the main value I'm getting out of it is learning the "why" behind some of the recipes in other books. It's helping me narrow down which variables I should tweak to achieve certain outcomes. But all of that info could probably be condensed to a normal 200 page book without all the glossy photos.
tptacek 2y ago
My uneducated guess is that Myhrvold was just trying to avoid, with "modernist", all the freight that came with "molecular gastronomy", a term that made literally no sense and invokes for many in the industry the specter of Herve This.
dataviz1000 2y ago
> career as a serious professional cook Interesting. I was a chef for 17 years, 11 in restaurants and 6 as a private yacht chef. How did you end up on Hacker News? For me, I found joy in opening new restaurants which is engineering and followed that path to software.
scolex 2y ago
Have you some recommendations for contemporary cookbooks or some that are just dated?
mattmaroon 2y ago
I’m curious what did you find to not work as written? I’ve had no problems making any recipes out of it, but I’ve also not done so exhaustively. The Modernist Cuisine At Home book was pretty practical for muggles and would probably be where I’d recommend people start if they’re just looking to make some stuff for sure though, the full series is more something you read.
bavent 2y ago
I worked at the lab. “Modernist” was chosen from what I remember because he didn’t like “molecular gastronomy”, which is what everyone was calling texture manipulations and laboratory techniques applied to food at the time, and to differentiate it from “classical” cooking - the Escoffier through Marco Pierre White era basically. We cooked a lot of dishes from the book for special events, but it was often the same lot of dishes over and over. Writing the recipes was an absolute pain in the ass (I was a cook, I was not used to documenting things in a lab manual), and I absolutely believe lots of hidden variables got lost - again, while there were lab-trained chefs there - Chris I believe had a background in biology or something - us grunts were line cooks beforehand.

dluan 2y ago

i hated the era of foam, gel, and sous vide everything. as a home cook, i want the randomness that comes with hand technique, but if im paying for a 2/3 star meal i still also want the randomness and authenticity that comes with hand technique, not to be bored out of my mind or trying to show me some impressive lab grade "consistency". in another 20 years, we'll look back on this like we did mayonnaise and meat aspics from the 1950s.

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I mean the things you mentioned are deeply out of style in restaurant cooking right now. So we already do look back on this in a similar way. And they were never that common either. This trend had a short peak and the training, staffing, equipment, r&d costs were all sky high. The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking.
- mcphage 2y ago
  > The backlash was very disproportionate imo; it was never my kind of thing either but you weren't going to run into it unless you were specifically seeking it out. I'm not sure what the backlash was (I'm nowhere near that scene), but as a tactic, it could be that the reason for the disproportionate backlash was to prevent this style of cooking from becoming more widespread, rather than in reaction to its presence.
- scarby2 2y ago
  > Sous vide is still used quietly because it's a very practical technique with good results for certain protein preparations, and there are plenty of other useful bits of craft through the book. Similarly I guess mayo didn't exactly disappear from american cooking. I was reading the first part of your response and my mind was immediately going "but sous-vide is everywhere" It's one of those things that's just really useful. However it has fallen off slightly, i didn't think anyone is cooking eggs sous vide anymore.
  - alwa 2y ago
    Except, of course, for Starbucks! [0] And imitation salmon eggs still use that calcium/alginate technique the modernist cooks called "spherification"... [1] [0] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/2122116/single [1] https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-how-to-easily-identify-artificial-salmon-roe/ https://sushiuniversity.jp/sushiblog/today-you-will-learn-ho...
kjs3 2y ago
I'm with you: Meat aspics and horrifying fruit jello concoctions endemic to the South was exactly what I thought of the first time I went to a Modernist restaurant. Mayonnaise on the other hand...that didn't exactly fall out of fashion. And, as a home cook, I find a sous vide very convenient. For example, I can do a little prep in the morning, drop some meat in, come home, do a quick sear and drop in on the plate. It's another kind of slow cooker. It only becomes a 'consistency' fetish if you let it.
rat87 2y ago
hey some of us like meat aspics nothing wrong with some Kholodets/P'tcha with some horseradish

skyyler 2y ago

>wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means? He covers this in the first 5 pages or so, doesn't he?

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I know what you're talking about and it's been a while but I remember it being kind of a headscratcher. He says some stuff about innovation and then mentions bauhaus but (in my memory at least) failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way. And also failed to convince me that he knew anything about modernism except the name and a vague association with mid-20th-century aesthetics.
- skyyler 2y ago
  >failed to connect the book or his approach to cooking to the modernist movement in a compelling way I had a completely different reaction to it, but then, I wasn't a member of the modernist movement. I just like food that tastes good.

aerostable_slug 2y ago

> wtf does myhrvold think "modernist" means? I always thought he would have said "smart" if he thought he could get away with it. Or maybe "bright", in that particularly smug edge.org sense of the word. "Clever" might be another, but I don't think it captures the gestalt.

turnsout 2y ago

This comment is gold, and helps me contextualize a “book” which has always intrigued me. What are your takes on the later additions, Modernist Bread and Modernist Pizza? I have the Bread tome, and some of the base recipes have worked out.

giraffe_lady 2y ago
I have no experience with the pizza one at all. I liked the information in the bread books a lot, about the history of wheat cultivation and the enzyme processes during fermentation and baking. I only ever did one recipe out of it (brioche) and it wasn't better or worse than the more traditional recipe I normally use. Seems fine if you like their recipe format, though there are a lot of great bread books out there.
- turnsout 2y ago
  Thanks! Yeah, so far the main value I'm getting out of it is learning the "why" behind some of the recipes in other books. It's helping me narrow down which variables I should tweak to achieve certain outcomes. But all of that info could probably be condensed to a normal 200 page book without all the glossy photos.

tptacek 2y ago

My uneducated guess is that Myhrvold was just trying to avoid, with "modernist", all the freight that came with "molecular gastronomy", a term that made literally no sense and invokes for many in the industry the specter of Herve This.

dataviz1000 2y ago

> career as a serious professional cook Interesting. I was a chef for 17 years, 11 in restaurants and 6 as a private yacht chef. How did you end up on Hacker News? For me, I found joy in opening new restaurants which is engineering and followed that path to software.

scolex 2y ago

Have you some recommendations for contemporary cookbooks or some that are just dated?

mattmaroon 2y ago

I’m curious what did you find to not work as written? I’ve had no problems making any recipes out of it, but I’ve also not done so exhaustively. The Modernist Cuisine At Home book was pretty practical for muggles and would probably be where I’d recommend people start if they’re just looking to make some stuff for sure though, the full series is more something you read.

bavent 2y ago

I worked at the lab. “Modernist” was chosen from what I remember because he didn’t like “molecular gastronomy”, which is what everyone was calling texture manipulations and laboratory techniques applied to food at the time, and to differentiate it from “classical” cooking - the Escoffier through Marco Pierre White era basically. We cooked a lot of dishes from the book for special events, but it was often the same lot of dishes over and over. Writing the recipes was an absolute pain in the ass (I was a cook, I was not used to documenting things in a lab manual), and I absolutely believe lots of hidden variables got lost - again, while there were lab-trained chefs there - Chris I believe had a background in biology or something - us grunts were line cooks beforehand.