---
product_id: 291157342
title: "Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking"
price: "₨573943"
currency: LKR
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reviews_count: 12
url: https://www.desertcart.lk/products/291157342-modernist-cuisine-the-art-and-science-of-cooking
store_origin: LK
region: Sri Lanka
---

# Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking

**Price:** ₨573943
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## Description

Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking [Myhrvold, Nathan, Young, Chris, Bilet, Maxime] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking

Review: Well worth it! - Love these books. So much valuable information. A great starter set that covers so many aspects of cooking. Love the illustrations too.
Review: What is in it for a home cook? - It’s expensive, but the real cost is the time it takes to read the books, plural. That’s right. It’s not one book; it’s five huge books. It took me three months of reading 1 to 2 hours every day to go through the almost 2000 pages in the first four volumes. There are about another 300 pages of recipes in volume 5. It’s not worth it if you are just looking for a cookbook. Calling Modernist Cuisine a cookbook is as wrong as calling Cruyff a footballer. They don’t just redefine the role; they redefine the game. Whether you will enjoy these books comes down to why you cook. Think of every meal as a project over which you can have total artistic, technical, and operational control. And the wife approves. Now, how often can a middle age man say that? To be in control, you need to know what you are doing. Here is a small subset of the science I learned from the book about how cows become steaks (I have a longer review on medium. Search for "book review: modernist cuisine" there): It all starts on the ranch. The animals’ diet affects the quality of the meat. Feeding an animal a high-calorie diet accelerates the typically slow replacement of mature, stiff collagen with new, weak collagen. Making such a change to the animal’s diet just before slaughter thus produces more tender meat. That’s why so many cooks swear by corn-fed beef. Even if you have a perfect specimen, a lot can still go wrong with the slaughtering. Dead muscle goes through a complicated biochemical process to become meat. After death, no oxygen is delivered to the muscle tissue because there is no blood flow. The cells burn through their energy reserve like anaerobic exercise burns energy. In turn, the pH of the muscle tissue drops, the same way you feel sore after intense exercise. If the cows are left in cold rain right before slaughter, the animals use up their energy reserve in the muscle. After slaughtering, not enough lactic acid is produced to drop the pH value. This causes too much water to be retained, and the meat appears darker. It’s a quality defect known as Dark Firm Dry (DFD). On the other hand, if the animal experiences acute stress before slaughter, a different kind of defect ensues. The surge of adrenaline accelerates the consumption of energy reserve in the muscle. The pH value drops rapidly before the temperature of the muscle has the opportunity to drop. The low pH and high temperature combination causes the muscle protein to denature and exude water. This is known as Pale soft exudative (PSE). Quality beef can be easily ruined if not stored and cooked correctly. To freeze it properly, you need to understand the science of water. To cook a steak right, you should know the science of heat transfer. It’s all in the books. Can you cook a nice meal without taking science classes? Yes, with a few rules and a lot of practice. But why would you trade knowledge and enlightenment for repetitive, menial labor? One last thing: Modernist Cuisine at Home is not a good low-cost alternative. More than half of the single volume is recipes, so it necessarily has to cut a lot of the scientific content. The recipes are still hard to make at home. Two much better alternatives are Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, and Science and Cooking: Physics meets food, from home made to haute cuisine, based on the popular Harvard lectures.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #647,521 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #768 in Cooking Encyclopedias #813 in Cooking, Food & Wine Reference (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars (99) |
| Dimensions  | 10.31 x 14.5 x 17.5 inches |
| Edition  | 7th |
| ISBN-10  | 1734386142 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-1734386141 |
| Item Weight  | 48.2 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 2400 pages |
| Publication date  | September 21, 2021 |
| Publisher  | The Cooking Lab |

## Images

![Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/412nRzPMM-L.jpg)
![Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/413NJ5Ji5rL.jpg)
![Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/4164VsgWRsL.jpg)
![Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking - Image 4](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41E2706WOYL.jpg)
![Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking - Image 5](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41pKgfXxIOL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Well worth it!
*by L***Y on September 8, 2025*

Love these books. So much valuable information. A great starter set that covers so many aspects of cooking. Love the illustrations too.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ What is in it for a home cook?
*by C***M on March 5, 2023*

It’s expensive, but the real cost is the time it takes to read the books, plural. That’s right. It’s not one book; it’s five huge books. It took me three months of reading 1 to 2 hours every day to go through the almost 2000 pages in the first four volumes. There are about another 300 pages of recipes in volume 5. It’s not worth it if you are just looking for a cookbook. Calling Modernist Cuisine a cookbook is as wrong as calling Cruyff a footballer. They don’t just redefine the role; they redefine the game. Whether you will enjoy these books comes down to why you cook. Think of every meal as a project over which you can have total artistic, technical, and operational control. And the wife approves. Now, how often can a middle age man say that? To be in control, you need to know what you are doing. Here is a small subset of the science I learned from the book about how cows become steaks (I have a longer review on medium. Search for "book review: modernist cuisine" there): It all starts on the ranch. The animals’ diet affects the quality of the meat. Feeding an animal a high-calorie diet accelerates the typically slow replacement of mature, stiff collagen with new, weak collagen. Making such a change to the animal’s diet just before slaughter thus produces more tender meat. That’s why so many cooks swear by corn-fed beef. Even if you have a perfect specimen, a lot can still go wrong with the slaughtering. Dead muscle goes through a complicated biochemical process to become meat. After death, no oxygen is delivered to the muscle tissue because there is no blood flow. The cells burn through their energy reserve like anaerobic exercise burns energy. In turn, the pH of the muscle tissue drops, the same way you feel sore after intense exercise. If the cows are left in cold rain right before slaughter, the animals use up their energy reserve in the muscle. After slaughtering, not enough lactic acid is produced to drop the pH value. This causes too much water to be retained, and the meat appears darker. It’s a quality defect known as Dark Firm Dry (DFD). On the other hand, if the animal experiences acute stress before slaughter, a different kind of defect ensues. The surge of adrenaline accelerates the consumption of energy reserve in the muscle. The pH value drops rapidly before the temperature of the muscle has the opportunity to drop. The low pH and high temperature combination causes the muscle protein to denature and exude water. This is known as Pale soft exudative (PSE). Quality beef can be easily ruined if not stored and cooked correctly. To freeze it properly, you need to understand the science of water. To cook a steak right, you should know the science of heat transfer. It’s all in the books. Can you cook a nice meal without taking science classes? Yes, with a few rules and a lot of practice. But why would you trade knowledge and enlightenment for repetitive, menial labor? One last thing: Modernist Cuisine at Home is not a good low-cost alternative. More than half of the single volume is recipes, so it necessarily has to cut a lot of the scientific content. The recipes are still hard to make at home. Two much better alternatives are Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, and Science and Cooking: Physics meets food, from home made to haute cuisine, based on the popular Harvard lectures.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 🧑‍🍳 Modernist Cuisine 🥘 (The Art of Cooking)🍯 🍡 🍳 🍱 🍔 🌮.
*by G***S on January 23, 2026*

Picked the books up at the post office. There are 5 books and a spiritual bound recipe book that is so beautiful with the series. The books are very high quality, and the information is outstanding! , I opened and thumbed through the series; what I read so far, great read, clearly written, and really kept my attention to all the information inside! The detail of each book explaining about the topic is next to none! IF YOU ARE GOING TO CULINARY COLLEGE IT IS WORTH THE MONEY! Thank you for such a beautiful, purchase!

## Frequently Bought Together

- Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking
- Modernist Bread
- Modernist Pizza

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*Product available on Desertcart Sri Lanka*
*Store origin: LK*
*Last updated: 2026-02-02*