Book Review: Cooked by Michael Pollan (Part 3)
Book: Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
Genre: Nonfiction
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Publication date: 2013
Pages: 468
Source: Library
Summary: Cooked by Michael Pollan looks at the transformation of ingredients into food by the four elemental forces — fire for barbecue, water for braises, air for bread, and earth for fermented products like sauerkraut and cheese.
While covering these topics, he looks at deeper issues that surround cooking, including the basic question “why cook?” Here’s one answer from the introduction:
Cooking has the power to transform more than plants and animals: It transforms us, too, from mere consumers into producers. Not completely, not all the time, but I have found that even to shift the ratio between these two identities a few degrees toward the side of production yields deep and unexpected satisfactions. Cooked is an invitation to alter, however slightly, the ratio between production and consumption in your life. The regular exercise of these simple skills for producing some of the necessities of life increases self-reliance and freedom while reducing our dependence on distant corporations. Not just our money but our power flows toward them whenever we cannot supply an of our everyday needs and desires ourselves. And it begins to flow back toward us, and our community, as soon as we decide to take some responsibility for feeding ourselves. p. 23
Thoughts: Since Cooked has four parts, I’ve written my review that way. Here are the first two parts:
- Book Review: Cooked by Michael Pollan (Part 1), about barbecue with interesting observations about race in America.
- Book Review: Cooked by Michael Pollan (Part 2), about braising with interesting observations about gender and cooking.
Part 3 is about bread, a food that once had such a close association with hearth and home that, even today, the smell of freshly baked bread brings a rush of emotions that may or may not have any real memory of home baking attached to it. At the same time, bread is so industrialized that it has its own saying: The greatest thing since sliced bread. (I just learned from Wikipedia that sliced bread was invented in my home state of Missouri in 1928: Sliced bread).
Pollan did his explorations of bread baking using a sourdough starter and, initially, white flour. Whole wheat, while healthier, makes baking more challenging and not just for home bakers. Commercial bakers cover up bitter tastes with extra sweeteners, according to Pollan. For my way of eating, commercial loaves have way too much sodium and whole wheat breads, for reasons I still don’t know, have more than white breads.
Although I’ve used sourdough starter in the past, my current exploration of bread is around grinding my own flour as I wrote about last fall: Book Review: Flour Power by Marleeta F. Basey. I bought a grain mill. Although Pollan didn’t grind his own flour, he visited a baker who did:
The bread was a revelation. I felt as though I was tasting wheat for the very first time. The flavor held nothing back; it was rich, nutty, completely obliging in its sweetness. p. 276
Yep. It’s that good.
Pollan explains how making a good loaf of whole wheat bread is complicated even more by our white flour civilization. Even the wheat is all bred for “a giant super-white endosperm and a hard coat of bran.” (p. 278)
This makes me think, though, that there must be farmers growing heirloom wheat that I could run through my mill to make an even more superior flour. Pollan’s descriptions of bread-baking make me want to replace my yeast with sourdough starter and bake the loaves in the oven instead of my bread machine. But, first, I want to experiment more with my grain mill — I have some non-wheat grains to try that I bought when Whole Foods had a sale on their bulk foods. And, I want to investigate other sources for wheat berries. That sounds like a good fall and winter project to document in Weekend Cooking posts.
Do you bake bread? What experiments have you tried that produced good results in your kitchen?
Look for more cooking posts at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
Good morning Joy! I use an attachment to my Kitchenaide mixer for grinding my wheat. I run it through a couple times to get it as fine as I can. Yes, wheat bread is challenging. I also purchased Gluten to add. But I don’t always use it. It is healthier for us if we don’t. I haven’t baked bread for a year now. Grandma living with us now consumes a lot of time. I am going to get back into it by the end of October (life should be slowing down). Living on a small farm in Missouri we try to produce as much as we can. We butcher a steer every year and about 25 Cornish cross chickens (really very large). We garden to get some nice fresh produce and we eat it until it no longer puts on. My kids some times get tired of Okra or Zucchini but by mid winter they are wishing we had some again. It feels really good to provide foods to your family that you have raised on your own. This sounds like a great book. I will have to find it and add it to my library.
Good morning! I hope you’re able to get back to bread baking soon. Your chickens sound great!
This section of Cooked inspired me to try and become more comfortable with bread baking in general. I’ll focus on yeast breads for a fall/winter project… my husband can’t wait for me to get started!
Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!
I don’t eat much bread Joy – and the thought of baking it gives me the heebie jeebies … sigh. Good luck with the milling.
Wow – you are going all out with Cooked! Micael Pollan really inspired you although I suspect you were heading that way anyhow. I have the audiobook on my deak but haven’t gotten to it yet. I look forward to the second half.
In the olden days I made all our bread using a grinder and locally grown wheat. It was so satisfying – both the making and the eating. I made about half of it with sourdough. It’s my favorite flavor but it can be very temperamental. There is some interesting literature on the subject, if you are interested. There’s an expert in Idaho (I think his name is Ed Wood. He’s written a number of books.) who has collected different strains of starter from all over the world. Some are quite ancient. As soon as the weather cools off I’m dragging out my bread pans.
Thanks, Margot! Ancient starter sounds like a fun way to get going with that again.
I only make bread in my machine. But I sometimes make bread like things in the oven, like scones and foccaccia. Of course that does taste better, but my oven is rather small, so a whole bread might not even fit, haha.
I frequently make my own bread – normally a whole wheat bread with lots of seeds – it’s such a deeply satisfying thing to do. I’ve often thought about trying my own sourdough starter, but I don’t really eat enough bread to keep a sourdough starter going – one loaf of bread lasts me about a week. I’m really impressed that you are grinding your own flour – that’s awesome.
I love to make bread! I’ve recently made pita and chapatis but I’ve been thinking it’s time to make a nice big boule of bread. I love that you grind your own flour! That’s something I’e never considered. I guess it’s time to check our your Flour Power review and possible the book. Your reviews are always so informing and interested to read. Thank you for that!
I often take advantage of my bread machine for kneading and rising, but I rarely bake in it. I prefer to bake on a stone in the oven. I have experimented with sourdough in the past, but the whole feeding it thing gets tiresome after a while. On the other hand, now you’ve got me interested in getting another starter going.
I’m not much of a bread maker, and if feels like it’s not worth it now that my breadmaker has given up the ghost. Maybe one of these fall days I’ll find some inspiration and change my mind!
This book really does sound fascinating. I need to read it. I appreciate good bread, but haven’t ever really been a bread maker. My husband goes through periods where he is inspired to make bread at home, I always applaud his efforts.