Book Review #4

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Book Review

Cooking For Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food 

Written by Jeff Potter


    I had this book on my "To Read" list for a long time. Ever since it was mentioned by Ben Ebbrell on Sorted Food, in fact. I figured if it was something he enjoyed reading, I would as well. 

  After reading through its seven lengthy chapters, I can say that I am more neutral toward it than he was. As much as I appreciated the information and the pace of its delivery, there was also a lot of additional conversation from Mr. Potter that I felt was more padding than practical information. I also felt a lot of the extra information outside of the basic idea carried a lot of terminology or technobabble that was a bit beyond what I could comprehend on my reading. Perhaps this is because I am not the primary audience for this book, which I can completely understand. This audience was a bit more apparent to me when I saw the breaks in the text in the form of visuals such as graphs or pictures. This balance of primarily words with visuals left me with the feeling that this was for an audience in a different geek or nerd subculture that I wasn't really a part of, but wanted to take a peek at. 

In the end...

PROS
  • There are interviews in this book that lend more professional credit, which is awesome!
  • There are multiple types of visuals, most commonly graphs, to help with comprehension.
  • There are many recipes to try with notes and added suggestions on top of that. 

CONS
  • Feels wordy with the technobabble aimed more toward engineering-related geek subcultures.
  • The books is lengthy, despite what the idea of seven chapters provokes.
  • After a few pages of one topic, the books feels more like a ramble than a concise idea.

Would I recommend it?
  If you are interested in the more science- or engineering-related conversations relating to food consumption or cooking, this is definitely a solid recommend! If you are (like me) more curious but less familiar with this perspective, then I would recommend with a suggestion to take notes of the stuff you are not familiar with. In general, it is worth the read. 

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