It's possible Michael Pollan could, at some point, run out of ideas for books about food--each new book of his seems larger, more all-encompassing than the last, and Cooked is a logical extension to predecessors like The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules. Why, Pollan asks, does our country spend less and less time in the kitchen cooking, but more and more time watching television shows about cooking? Cooking is interesting and worthwhile, he argues; if taking more than 400 pages to make that argument seems like overkill, well, welcome to your first Michael Pollan book.
Pollan comes at the subject from four different, elemental angles, examining how we channel fire, water, air and earth into the recipes that create meals. Air and water, for example, come together in baking bread, which takes on a magical aura through his description. He visits a master barbecue cook and learns more than you thought possible about slow-roasting a pork shoulder. A chef trained at Chez Panisse reveals the secrets of braised beef bolognese sauce. We get to see behind the curtain of the amazing and alarming process behind sauerkraut. Pollan digs deep, and this wide-ranging study of the means and meanings we can find in cooking will delight readers. His enthusiasm is contagious, and if his goal is to draw more readers into the kitchen, Cooked will succeed. --Matthew Tiffany, counselor, writer for Condalmo