The phase diagrams are great. This really raises the bar for cook books. If you can't show a diagram to explain why you chose that ratio of ingredients, why should I trust you to have made the optimal sauce?
(To be fair, McGee’s work does exactly what I did but with multiple orders of magnitude more effort: summarizing food science journal papers into single paragraphs.)
One thing that’s always struck me as fun about cooking as a science is that your reagents need to be live calibrated by look and feel. Want to use the right amount of cyder vinegar but it’s from a brand / manufacturer you don’t know? You’re going to have to live titrate it with your mouth!
Don’t even get me started on inconsistencies between egg manufacturers. Clara’s lecithin content seems to be at least 10% stronger than Number 4’s, and she is also more tolerant of being stroked.
You can look at the book "ratio" which presents a small number of standard recipes as proportions, with some hints for modification. I'd also recommend Lateral Cooking which describes recipes in terms of spectrums of ingredient variation or addition, usually starting with the simplest form. Finally there's a lot of interest in physics for coffee brewing, particularly pourover, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the rigour in that field and how much of it translates to better tasting cups.
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman, 2010, ISBN 978-1416571728 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ratio/Michael-Ruhlman... . There's also a mixed-drinks companion book from 2023, The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails with ISBN 978-1668003398: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Book-of-Cocktail-...
https://ruhlman.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruhlman
Lateral Cooking: One Dish Leads to Another by Niki Segnit, 2019, ISBN 978-1635572643 (978-1635572643 US ed.) https://www.nikisegnit.com/lateral-cooking . Seems to lean on Segnit's prevous book, 2010's The Flavour Thesaurus, ISBN 978-0747599777 (978-1608198740 2012 US ed.): https://www.nikisegnit.com/the-flavour-thesaurus .
Far as I can tell, Jonathan Gagné doesn't have a dedicated page on his website, it's hosted by Scott Rao. His blog does have a lot of interesting experimental work on the physics which led to the book. As I mentioned, I think this is an interesting academic piece which is at least supplemented by some genuine research. In practice, I feel like getting better pourover is 90% about finding beans that you like, buying a quality grinder and using them while fresh.
For confectionery, Chocolates and Confections (Greweling, Culinary Institute of America), 2013, ISBN 978-1-118-76467-1 is a fun book. It's quite pricey but you can pick up used copies now and again. It's a technical book and requires a lot of equipment that the average home cook doesn't have, but I would consider it fairly authoritative for looking up how chocolate things are made (and even discusses considerations for setting up a business). Most CIA books are pretty good on the practical side and they tend to be very exact with ingredients (almost always by weight).
https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/Chocolates+and+Confections%3A+Fo...
Cooking so advanced you need a fat wallet hehe
In cooking, the folklore knew that salting your egg mix before beating an omelette long before Chemistry could catch up and explain it. In the meantime all the cynics were making worse omelettes
A true Italian grandmother or a skilled home chef from Rome would never need a scientific recipe for Cacio and pepe, relying instead on instinct and years of experience.
The equivalent in amateur aviation? "Instinct and years of experience replace..."
> small temperature variations can completely compromise the recipe’s outcome