Cooked

I love the way that Michael Pollan has been able to take a broad, basic concept, like what we eat in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and do a deep dive into the history and social implications of it. In Cooked, the subject this time is cooking, how humans have transformed raw ingredients into meals, and how these processes have transformed the way we live. Pollan frames his investigation in the four elements, which he ties to a specific cooking process (such as fire with barbecue). I wasn't as blown away by this book as some of his previous ones, but I did enjoy it and learned a lot. The most fascinating tidbit to me is the way that the air inside bread contains flavor – and in fact, may contain the majority of flavor in a bread. That is mind-boggling!