Lisa Messinger's
Cookbooks of the Week

How to Read a French Fry: And Other Intriguing
Kitchen Science
By Russ Parsons (Houghton Mifflin)

Russ Parsons to the rescue. In his first book, Parsons, staff writer (and former editor) of the Los Angeles Times and longtime award-winning food journalist answers all of your burning questions: Why do onions make you cry? Why, from a scientific perspective, are strawberries and rhubarb a good combination? Why don't potatoes fried in fresh oil ever completely brown? Why can you stick your hand into a 500 F oven, but not into 212 F boiling water? Lucky for us, know-it-all Parsons explains everything in a clear, breezy style. To respond to the burning question regarding burning the hands, for instance, he writes, "Heat is energy, the movement of molecules. The hotter something is, the faster those molecules are moving. Something heats up—energy is transferred—when those speedy little molecules bump into it, setting its molecules in motion. Temperature measures how fast those molecules are moving. That is important, but equally—if not more—important is how many of those molecules there are in a certain space. Put most simply, the more molecules there are, the more quickly heat is transferred. This is called conduction. In a 500 F oven, the air molecules are moving very fast indeed, but relatively speaking, there aren't very many of them. Your hand will need to be hit by many seconds' worth before it will begin to heat up to a temperature that feels uncomfortable." And Parsons' answers won't leave you hungry since he also includes more than 100 recipes and countless cooking tips to illustrate his points.

For instance, when it comes to heat and why you can't stick your hand in without burning it, oil for frying is much like boiling water-there are many molecules in a small space. The following, an adaptation of a James Beard dish, in addition to involving the use of boiling water, is one of a number of recipes Parsons provides for deep-frying that also corresponds to his helpful tips such as: "Because of the intense heat involved, deep-frying is best used for small pieces of food. Big pieces take too long to cook through and will burn on the outside before they are done. Because the cooking goes so quickly, only very tender foods should be deep-fried."

RECIPE: PEACH FRITTERS