Cooked

Pick it up: If you're curious about the unique alchemy of cooking and the way it has transformed us as a species, if you like reading about someone working at and acquiring a new skill, if you'd like to read a beautifully crafted memoir.

This is one of the best books about food and cooking that we've ever come across. Michael Pollan has written several books about food, but they've all been about different parts of the food system, and he was writing as a journalist. This book is a lot more personal. This is an account of him learning to cook.

He writes that while he'd known how to cook, all he had, was a small repertoire of dishes that were fairly easy to put together. When he decided to write this book, he decided that he wanted to learn to cook properly. He wanted to learn from the experts.

So he became an apprentice, first to a barbecue pit master from whom he learnt the art of cooking on a open fire, then to a restaurant cook, who taught him to make soups, stews and braises of all kinds. He learnt the art of baking bread, making cheese, and brewing beer. He approached each of the people who taught him these skills with an open curiosity and a desire not just to learn how to do these things, but to understand what goes into each of these processes and to figure out what makes all these people so passionate about what they do.

This book is part memoir, part science, part social and cultural history. It's a very personal account of the writer's experiences in the kitchen which he places in the larger cultural and historical context. He offers an overview of what cooking has meant to us as a species, how it has helped us evolve and transformed us and our societies. The result is a fascinating book about the act of cooking, and a celebration of the everyday pleasures of the table.