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    The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavor
    The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavor
    The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavor
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavor

    Written by Jenny Linford

    Narrated by Karen Cass

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From hours in the oven to years in the barrel, this illuminating book examines the relationship between the cook and the clock, and the underappreciated impact that time has on our favorite dishes

    Two minutes into boiling an egg, the white isn’t set and the yolk is totally raw. After five minutes however, the white is fully set and the yolk slightly runny―a perfectly spoonable, soft-boiled egg. Boil for another three minutes for a set and tender yolk, or an additional five minutes for a fully set yolk. But be careful: once you boil the egg past ten minutes, you’ll have a crumbly yolk and dry, overly firm white. When it comes to boiled eggs, you may think you’re only dealing with one ingredient, but there is another less obvious, but still critical ingredient involved that should not be overlooked: time.

    The Missing Ingredient is the first book to consider the intrinsic yet often forgotten role of time in creating the flavors and textures we love. Through a series of encounters with ingredients, producers, cooks, artisans, and chefs, acclaimed author of The Chef’s Library Jenny Linford shows how, time and again, time itself is the invisible ingredient in our most cherished recipes. Playfully structured through different periods of time, the book examines the fast and slow, from the seconds it takes for sugar to caramelize to the centuries it takes for food heritage to be passed down from our ancestors. From the brevity of blanching and the days required in the crucial process of fermentation, to the months of slow ripening that make a great cheddar and the years needed for certain wines to reach their peak, Linford dissects each segment of time needed to cook―and enjoy―simple and intricate cuisine alike. Including vignettes from the immediacy of taste (seconds), the exactitude of pasta (minutes), and smoking and barbecuing meats (hours), to maturing cheese (weeks), infusing vanilla extract (months), and perfecting parmigiana and port (years), The Missing Ingredient is an enlightening and essential volume for foodies, bakers, home cooks, chefs, and anyone who appreciates a perfectly-executed dish.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMar 26, 2019
    ISBN9781721365906
    Author

    Jenny Linford

    Jenny Linford is a food writer and a member of the Guild of Food Writers whose recipes and food articles have appeared in many outlets, including the Financial Times, Time Out, and Square Meal. She is the author of numerous books including The Chef's Library and Garlic, and editor of 1001 Restaurants You Must Experience Before You Die.

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    Reviews for The Missing Ingredient

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    • 4/5
      An interesting angle on an old subject. She's talking about food in general, and looking at it in terms of the time involved in turning ingredients into food - it starts with seconds, discussing things like timing for eggs and seafood and caramels. Few foods actually cook in seconds, but (for instance) the difference between golden-brown caramel and burnt black caramel is a matter of seconds in the timing of removing it from the heat. She progresses through minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries - rapidly moving from cooking food to creating it (aging cheese, for instance) to preserving it (making true balsamic vinegar, or aging fine wine) and ending with more of concepts of cooking, and preserving a way of life. Part of this is maintaining traditional breeds of animals (and plants, though she focuses more on animals) in order to create unique foods from them - from a much leaner variety of pig, to cows that give rich milk but not as much as modern dairy breeds. There are no recipes as such in here, but there's detailed descriptions of how to make various foods (the aforementioned caramel, for instance) - you'll still need a recipe for amounts, but if you have one the information here might make it easier to get it right. I found it reasonably interesting - not fascinating, but definitely worth reading.