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Book Review: Cooked

Cooked by Michael Pollan

Even if you just read the introduction, you will never view cooking the same.

Enlightening, Pollan takes us on a journey of cooking and brings us the simple pleasure of learning how cooking really separates us from animals. Pollan describes in four elements - fire (grilling), water (cooking with liquid), air (bread baking) and earth (fermentation - like cheese) the pure transformation of food.

Perhaps after reading this book, you may agree that there are few professions that are truly life sustaining. Growing food and cooking food can be classified as such. This book brought to my senses that I engage in both activities, even if just a little bit, and that "slaving over a hot stove" is not demeaning work but life sustaining work. Do we really want to depend on corporations to process our food as Pollan states, "disrupting our essential link to the natural world?" Read this book and reclaim the pure joy of cooking.

- Patty Meinking, Acquisitions Assistant, University Libraries

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