What Einstein Told His Cook Read Free

strayed, all the while being a fountain of encouragement. Whatever this book may have turned out to be, it is infinitely better than it would have been without Maria’s sharp instincts, knowledge, and judgment, and without the trust, respect, and friendship that have grown between us.
    Authors don’t write books; they write manuscripts—mere words on paper until converted into books by corps of patient, diligent professionals in a publishing house. I am grateful to all those at W. W. Norton who exercised their talents to transform my text into the handsome volume you now hold in your hand. My special thanks go to Norton’s director of manufacturing Andrew Marasia, art director Debra Morton Hoyt, managing editor Nancy Palmquist, freelance artist Alan Witschonke, and designer Barbara Bachman.
    In spite of the convictions held by my daughter and son-in-law, Leslie Wolke and Ziv Yoles, I don’t know everything. Writing a book like this inevitably required consultations with food scientists and food industry representatives too numerous to mention. I thank them all for their willingness to share their expertise.
    Probably every contemporary writer of nonfiction owes a huge debt to that omniscient but disembodied and ethereal entity called the Internet, which puts all the world’s information (along with much misinformation) literally at our fingertips—the flick of a finger on a mouse. I trust that the Internet, wherever it is, will appreciate my heartfelt expression of gratitude.
    Finally, if it were not for the fabulous readers of my newspaper column, this book could not have been written. Their e-mail and snail-mail questions and feedback have continually reassured me that I might indeed be providing a useful service. No author could desire a better audience.

What Einstein Told His Cook

Chapter One
     

Sweet Talk
     
    O F OUR FIVE CLASSICALLY recognized senses—touch, hearing, vision, smell, and taste—only the last two are purely chemical in nature, that is, they can detect actual chemical molecules. Through our remarkable senses of smell and taste, we experience different olfactory and gustatory sensations from contact with the molecules of different chemical compounds.
    (You’ll be seeing the word molecule frequently throughout this book. Don’t panic. All you need to know is that a molecule is, in the words of a first-grader of my acquaintance, “one of those eentsy-weentsy things that stuff is made of.” That definition, plus the corollary that different stuff is different because it’s made of different kinds of molecules, will stand you in good stead.)
    The sense of smell can detect only gaseous molecules floating around in the air. The sense of taste can detect only molecules dissolved in water, whether in the food’s own liquid or in saliva. (You can’t smell or taste a rock.) As is the case with many other animal species, it is smell that attracts us to food and taste that helps us find edible—and appetizing—foods.
    What we call flavor is a combination of odors that our nose detects and tastes that our taste buds detect, with additional contributions from temperature, pungency (the “sting” of spices), and texture (the structure and feel of the food in the mouth). The olfactory receptors in our noses can differentiate among thousands of different odors and contribute an estimated 80 percent of flavor. If this figure appears high, remember that the mouth and nose are connected, so that gaseous molecules released in the mouth by chewing can travel upward into the nasal cavity. Moreover, swallowing creates a partial vacuum in the nasal cavity and draws air up from the mouth into the nose.
    Compared with our sense of smell, our sense of taste is relatively dull. Our taste buds are distributed mostly over the tongue, but are also found on the hard palate (the front, bony part of the roof of the mouth) and the soft palate, a flap of soft tissue ending in the uvula, “that little thing hanging