Modernist Cuisine isn’t just a list of recipes for a budding cook to leaf through, but a vast resource about the history of food, cooking techniques and the science behind them. It’s one thing to know how to grill a steak, it’s another to understand how the types of charcoal, smoke, shape of the grill enclosure and its ventilation settings effect how the final flavor is produced. What makes Modernist Cuisine different is that it doesn’t just explain how to cook a dish, it explains how the process works. Finally, the photography in Modernist Cuisine is worthy of a coffee table book on its own. The production team behind the book prepared dishes and then sliced through them at various stages so readers can see how the process effects the food. A kitchen’s worth of pans, dishes and grills were sliced in half by the Modernist Cuisine team to allow the reader to see the science within. All six volumes and 2,438 pages of Modernist Cuisine will be available for roughly $500 at your favorite bookseller. The price may seem steep to the budding foodie, but consider the cost savings of ultimately finding the best meal in town is in your very own kitchen. Bon Appetit! [pre-order at amazon]