Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat

From an award-winning journalist we expect a great book—and John McQuaid came through with one in Tasty. This is not exactly a book that most home cooks will enjoy reading in their spare time. The book is an extensive academic study ending with twenty-six pages of chapter-by-chapter notes. It’s an excellent work obviously based on what must have been years of research. McQuaid’s writing is superb and flows smoothly. He is full of stories to lighten the unillustrated text, such as why President Bush banned broccoli from Air Force One (the bitter taste was disagreeable to him), or the decades-old quest to produce the hottest chile ever. In fact, every chapter starts with a story that invariably draws you into the chapter’s material. The book is pure food science but written so that its text doesn’t feel like reading a textbook. The central focus is taste and its myriad implications on what we eat, how we perceive it, and how it shaped human history and evolution. Scientists now know a lot about taste, yet “the mystery at the heart of flavor has never truly been cracked.” Dedicated foodies and food scientists will love this volume.