The authors of The Perfect Meal examine all of the elements that contribute to the diners experience of a meal (primarily at a restaurant) and investigate how each of the diners senses contributes to their overall multisensory experience. The principal focus of the book is not on flavor perception, but on all of the non-food and beverage factors that have been shown to influence the diners overall experience. Examples are: the colour of the plate (visual) the shape of the glass (visual/tactile) the names used to describe the dishes (cognitive) the background music playing inside the restaurant (aural) Novel approaches to understanding the diners experience in the restaurant setting are explored from the perspectives of decision neuroscience, marketing, design, and psychology. 2015 Popular Science Prose Award Winner.
The authors of The Perfect Meal examine all of the elements that contribute to the diners experience of a meal (primarily at a restaurant) and investigate how each of the diners senses contributes to their overall multisensory experience. The principal focus of the book is not on flavor perception, but on all of the non-food and beverage factors that have been shown to influence the diners overall experience. Examples are: the colour of the plate (visual) the shape of the glass (visual/tactile) the names used to describe the dishes (cognitive) the background music playing inside the restaurant (aural) Novel approaches to understanding the diners experience in the restaurant setting are explored from the perspectives of decision neuroscience, marketing, design, and psychology. 2015 Popular Science Prose Award Winner.
John Baxter's The Perfect Meal is part grand tour of France, part history of French cuisine, taking readers on a journey to discover and savor some of the world's great cultural achievements before they disappear completely. Some of the most revered and complex elements of French cuisine are in danger of disappearing as old ways of agriculture, butchering, and cooking fade and are forgotten. In this charming culinary travel memoir, John Baxter follows up his bestselling The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by taking his readers on the hunt for some of the most delicious and bizarre endangered foods of France. The Perfect Meal: In Search of the Lost Tastes of France is the perfect read for foodies and Francophiles, cooks and gastronomists, and fans of food culture.
The science behind a good meal: all the sounds, sights, and tastes that make us like what we're eating—and want to eat more. Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence. Now he's stepping out of his lab to lift the lid on the entire eating experience—how the taste, the aroma, and our overall enjoyment of food are influenced by all of our senses, as well as by our mood and expectations. The pleasures of food lie mostly in the mind, not in the mouth. Get that straight and you can start to understand what really makes food enjoyable, stimulating, and, most important, memorable. Spence reveals in amusing detail the importance of all the “off the plate” elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the color of the plate, the background music, and much more. Whether we’re dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we’re tasting and influence what others experience. This is accessible science at its best, fascinating to anyone in possession of an appetite. Crammed with discoveries about our everyday sensory lives, Gastrophysics is a book guaranteed to make you look at your plate in a whole new way.
Chin, who writes the "Wild Edibles" column for the New York Times, goes looking for love, blackberries, and wild garlic in this wildly uneven, yet warmly exhilarating memoir. Trekking through Central Park and other urban beaten paths and backyards, Chin leads us on a journey of discovery as she searches for the tender shoots poking through cement cracks and hardy wild plants resisting winter's bite.--
The simple, science-based, “Paleo perfected” (Vogue) diet that promotes effortless weight loss and peak health—written by two Harvard scientists. In Perfect Health Diet, Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet explain in straightforward terms how anyone can regain health and lose weight by optimizing nutrition, detoxifying the diet, and supporting healthy immune function. They show how toxic, nutrient-poor diets sabotage health, and how on a healthy diet, diseases often spontaneously resolve. Perfect Health Diet makes weight loss effortless with a clear, balanced, and scientifically proven plan to change the way you eat—and feel—forever!
'It works extremely well. In large part because Bourdain is a very funny writer; sharp, honest and with a beguiling mix of belligerence and sensitivity' Sunday Telegraph 'Brilliantly written up in a raw, stylish gonzo prose, with pitch-black humour and a devilish turn of phrase' Evening Standard ____________________ Anthony Bourdain, life-long line cook and bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential, sets off to eat his way around the world. But being Anthony Bourdain, this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour. Bourdain heads out to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra, and travels deep into landmined Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia (Pailin). Other stops include dining with gangsters in Russia, a medieval pig slaughter and feast in northern Portugal, the Basque All Male Gastronomique Society in Saint Sebastian, rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, a pilgrimage to the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and a return to his roots in the tiny fishing village of La Teste, where he first ate an oyster as a child. Written with the inimitable machismo and humour that has made Tony Bourdain such a sensation, A Cook's Tour is an adventure story sure to give you indigestion.
Breakfast is an exploration of everything about breakfast and brunch. This celebration of the most popular meal of the day offers engaging stories, essential how-tos, and killer breakfast recipes. Discover exciting new ingredients and the secrets to making Entenmann's Cake Doughnuts and Taco Bell Crunchwraps at home, among many other dishes. Learn the origins of scrapple and how to brew barista-level drinks. Based on the popular website ExtraCrispy.com, this book--the perfect gift for anyone who loves all-day-breakfast--is packed with 100 photos, humorous illustrations, and amazing, craveable food.
A popular travel writer and his female weight-lifting partner, fashion maven, and gourmand embark on a madcap tour of all of the Michelin three-star restaurants in Europe--twenty-nine eateries in twenty-nine days--in a red Mustang.
The DASH Diet Action Plan is the user-friendly teaching guide to the DASH diet. Initially, many people find it difficult to follow the DASH diet. This book makes it simple to understand and put into practice. The book makes it easy to lose weight with the DASH diet, and it has realistic ways to add exercise. Although the book was not intended to be an aggressive weight loss book, people are writing to say that they have surprised themselves by finding it easy to lose weight following the plan! Many people find the DASH diet to be hard to implement and sustain in a hectic lifestyle. The average American gets 2 - 3 servings of fruits and vegetables combined each day, so following the DASH diet may seem daunting. The DASH Diet Action Plan book is designed to help you with more than just "what" is involved with the DASH diet, it also shows you "how." How to follow the DASH diet in restaurants, how to lose weight, how to make over your kitchen to make it easy to follow your plan, how to fit in exercise, how to reduce salt intake, how to add vegetables even if you "hate" vegetables. And the book helps you make your own personal plan with specific steps you will take to fit the DASH diet into your daily routine. Our readers say that this is the best DASH diet book! Your step-by-step plan will include: setting your goals for blood pressure and cholesterol, determining the calorie-level you need for maintenance or weight loss, developing meal plans, developing a realistic exercise plan, adjusting the DASH diet to accommodate other health problems, choosing the key DASH diet foods, reading food labels, and learning how to incorporate more vegetables in your diet, and setting up your kitchen to make it easy to stay on track. This book was written by a registered dietitian who is experienced in helping people make sustainable behavior changes, and make healthy eating part of their real lives. She knows that people need flexibility and options to choose different approaches, since not everyone has the time or the interest in cooking or making drastic changes in how they eat. The book incorporates tools that will help you plan the specific steps you will take to adopt the DASH diet. Research shows that people who make concrete plans are more likely to be successful with adopting new health behavior. This should improve your ability to lower your blood pressure (and cholesterol), without medication.
