COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS worldwide. In the marine records, this GASTRONOMY thin, iridium-enriched clay bed always occurs exactly at the level at which the microscopic foraminifera typical of Cretaceous oceans disappear almost A visual feast completely. Foraminifera are single-celled crea- tures with a calcite shell. Hundreds can Felice Frankel grapples with a 20-kilogram cookbook. be found fossilized within just one cubic centimetre of marine sedimentary rock. It would have required a cataclysmic t took me 40 minutes to unpack and Young also holds catastrophe to obliterate billions of them Modernist Cuisine. The 6-volume, 2,400- degrees in mathemat- across the world’s ocean. And we know page set of books by culinary experi- ics and biochemistry. for sure, on the basis of many mineralogi- Imenters Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young Photography is used cal and chemical studies, that the iridium and Maxime Bilet weighs more than 20 kilo­ to powerful effect. layer originates from a major meteorite grams and arrives wrapped in clean white Myhrvold is a serious impact. The precise coincidence of these paper and encased in a clear plastic box, photographer, and he two events is so compelling that it is dif- from which each of the five main volumes and Ryan Matthew ficult to understand how anyone can can be retrieved: History and Fundamen- Smith have created doubt a direct rela- tals; Techniques and Equipment; Animals technically remark- Modernist Cuisine: The Art and tionship between “For 2 million and Plants; Ingredients and Preparations; able, often breath­ Science of Cooking them. Neverthe- and Plated-Dish Recipes. The sixth volume, taking and informative years, shards NATHAN MYHRVOLD, less, on the whole, of a shattered Kitchen Manual, is a simpler spiral-bound photographs. Some CHRIS YOUNG AND Nield gives a cred- asteroid handbook intended for use in the kitchen, are purely decorative, MAXIME BILET ible account of this containing some 1,500 recipes referred to in such as their high- The Cooking Lab: major scientific bombarded the larger volumes. speed camera image 2011. 2,438 pp. discovery. Earth.” The care given to the packaging of this of a bullet passing $625, £395 The rest of collection foreshadows the precision that through six eggs. But the book deals with the recent find- went into its production. It is a masterwork the most innovative technique they have ing of more than 90 fossil meteorites filled with historical references and scientific developed is the cutaway. To show what was — all of which are a stony form called explanations of why, for example, thickening happening inside food as it cooked, the team L-chondrites, measuring 1–20 cm in liquids is important for taste, or why food literally cut pots, woks and pans in half and diameter — buried in a quarry of Ordo- browns during cooking. Nothing is left out, cooked recipes in them. The cross-sectional vician marine limestone in Sweden. The it seems. The pages are designed to form images are laid out and annotated with scien- meteorites that fell on that ancient sea a monumental narrative and visual story, tific information, such as labels for zones of floor can be linked by isotopic and geo- written and illustrated with passion and an conduction, condensation and convection. chemical analyses to the largest known obsession with getting it right. The authors’ Each image is a marvel. break-up in the asteroid belt in the past expertise blends science and cuisine: I haven’t yet tested the recipes. And I am few billion years. The L-chondrite par- Myhrvold is a former physicist, Microsoft not sure I will ever feel the urge to try the ent body, measuring more than 100 km scientist and now entrepreneur with a life- Edible Soap Bar with Honey Bubbles, for across, was hit 470 million years ago, long interest in cooking (see page instance, or to replace my own possibly by a comet from outer space 575); Bilet and Young trained fabulous pulled pork recipe that shattered it into billions of pieces. under innovative British chef (in which I cook an inexpen- For 2 million years afterwards, shards Heston Blumenthal; sive cut for three hours of it bombarded Earth. One or two of the meteorites may have been almost as large as the body that took out the dinosaurs. Yet strangely, this bombardment coin- cides with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, when bio- diversity on Earth rapidly increased from an all-time low to modern lev- els. Although researchers are still uncer- tain as to how this happened, Nield gives an insightful account of the ways these events can be related. On my night table there is a pile of books in which the bookmark never made it beyond page 60. From these, I’ve derived a personal definition of a good book: one where I can’t stop reading until the end. Incoming! is just such a book. ■

Birger Schmitz is professor of geology at the University of Lund, Sweden. R. M. SMITH/THE COOKING LAB e-mail: [email protected] A cutaway image from the Modernist Cuisine cookbook.

574 | NATURE | VOL 471 | 31 MARCH 2011 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT with leeks, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, sugar, wine and vinegar, among other ingredients) with the sous vide version in Q&A Nathan Myhrvold Modernist Cuisine. This technique — in which ingredients are vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag before being cooked at low temperature in a water bath or combi Steakhouse science oven — plays a major part in the set, and Nathan Myhrvold trained as a quantum cosmologist with Stephen Hawking and was chief the authors go to great lengths to argue technology officer of Microsoft before founding Intellectual Ventures, a US company that funds its value. I have tasted meats cooked this inventors and acquires patents. As he publishes a six-volume work on the science of cooking, way, and am unconvinced that it is essen- Myhrvold explains why chemistry techniques could soon be seen in every restaurant. tial to home cooking. But I am willing to give the pasta marinara a shot. It calls for tomato water, which I was happy to Why did you write a six-volume discover could be produced with a sim- scientific cookbook? ple wine filter (to separate the flavourful When I was two years old, I told my mother water from the pulp after first processing that I would be a scientist; when I was nine the tomatoes in a juicer) rather than with I insisted on cooking Thanksgiving dinner. the preferred piece of kitchen equipment In the mid-1990s, I took a leave of absence in Modernist Cuisine, the centrifuge. from Microsoft and went to culinary school The format of the recipes will also chal- in France, and got back into cooking with R. M. SMITH/THE COOKING LAB lenge most cooks. Because the authors a vengeance. The only way to learn about consider that “volume measurements are modern cooking techniques now is to work not sufficiently accurate”, all ingredients, at a cutting-edge restaurant. I saw an oppor- even liquids, are measured by weight in tunity to write a book that would cover mod- grams. One recipe, for example, calls for ern techniques and the science behind them 100 g of wine — good luck with that. The [see page 574]. I hired a team and we kept amounts of ingredients are also presented getting more ambitious. I think ours is the in the baker’s percentage system, in which only cookbook in the world to cover prion a picture that I took of a lion cub eating a the weight ratios of each are scaled to a science and quorum sensing in cells. We wildebeest. Some of the technical solutions reference ingredient. Having to weigh could have gone further. We decided not to that we cover in the cookbook have led us to liquids and work with percentages will include pastry and desserts. consider inventions to improve food safety mystify most non-professional cooks, in developing countries, where adequate and will probably vex scientists who want Can you see science-driven cooking sanitation is often lacking. to relax at the end of a long day in the lab. catching on? So who is the audience for Modernist Yes. Chocolate cake with a liquid centre was In 2000, you pledged US$1 million to Cuisine? In its present form, the volumes once a novelty, but is now in every shopping help Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen fund will be bought by those who can afford mall in the United States. Some of these tech- the Allen Telescope Array in California. their three-figure price tag and have niques are incredibly convenient and tasty. Why do you believe in the private funding time for slow, precise cooking — people We have a chapter on emulsions, with an of science? who are already familiar with the chefs indestructible vinaigrette, and a rapid souffle Venture capital has grown faster than govern- and cognoscenti mentioned in volume I: recipe. I think most steakhouses should use ment science funding. If you can show that Blumenthal, Ferran Adrià and Harold sous vide cooking [slow cooking in an air- you can make money rather than begging for McGee, among others. Purchasers will tight plastic bag immersed in a low-temper- a grant, people will compete to fund you. I’m also need space to store the bulky set, ature water bath]. You can get the steak done not suggesting this is a panacea. Outside the and a table on which to rest the book to perfectly without worrying about timing, life sciences, people don’t tend to fund things delve into its pages. The volumes are so and cheaper cuts are just as tender as a prime with a level of technical risk. We’ve created heavy and large that they are difficult to filet mignon. I think science-based cooking Intellectual Ventures to do just this. We hold open. will be in every US steakhouse within a few invest in existing patents, help institutions to Modernist Cuisine is too important to years. Once you explain the science, people develop new technologies, and fund inven- be offered only to an elite audience. The will find uses for the techniques. tors and scientists to come up with new ideas. stunning visual impact of the printed vol- If we could find a way to fund more science umes supports the publisher’s choice to You have many interests, including and innovation at venture-capital growth produce the initial work on paper. Still, I palaeontology and wildlife photography. rates, that would be a wonderful thing. hope the authors bring out the book in an How do your pursuits fit together? electronic form, so that a larger audience Each makes a good diversion from the What makes an invention successful? can explore its many layers of informa- other, and occasionally they filter back into The best way to stimulate invention is to get tion. Like a good meal, this remarkable my work at Intellectual Ventures. Wildlife the right set of smart people in a room talking effort needs to be shared. ■ photography is about travelling to a beauti- to each other. What separates successful from ful place and taking pictures. Palaeontology unsuccessful inventions is not the quality of Felice Frankel is a research scientist is about going into the the idea. To be successful, an invention needs at the Massachusetts Institute of NATURE.COM desert and walking to have a passionate advocate. It requires the Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts For a Q&A with around until you find initial flash of genius — then believing and 02139, USA. She is an author, science molecular chef and a bone sticking out of investing in it. ■ photographer and serious amateur cook. chemist Hervé This: the ground. Our chap- e-mail: [email protected] go.nature.com/wdrmrc ter on meat opens with INTERVIEW BY JASCHA HOFFMAN

31 MARCH 2011 | VOL 471 | NATURE | 575 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved