American author (born 1951)
Harold James McGee (born October 3, 1951) is an American author who writes about the
chemistry and history of
food science and
cooking . He is best known for his seminal book
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen , first published in 1984
[3] and revised in 2004.
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Harold McGee tastes
surstromming (Swedish fermented herring) at the
Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery (2010).
Early life
McGee was born on 3 October 1951 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Louise (Hanney) and Charles Gilbert McGee, and raised in Elmhurst, Illinois. He was educated at the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), initially studying
astronomy ,
[4]
[9] but graduating with a B.S. in
Literature in 1973. He went on to do a
Ph.D. on the
romantic poetry of
John Keats supervised by
Harold Bloom at
Yale University , graduating in 1978.
[1]
[8]
Career
Before becoming a food science writer, McGee was a literature and writing instructor at Yale. He has also written for
Nature ,
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
Health ,
The New York Times , the
World Book Encyclopedia , The Art of Eating ,
Food & Wine ,
Fine Cooking , and
Physics Today .
[16] He has lectured on kitchen chemistry at cooking schools, universities, the
Oxford Symposia on Food and Cookery , the
Denver Natural History Museum , and the
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory . For a brief time he wrote a regular column for the
New York Times , The Curious Cook , which examined, and often debunked, conventional kitchen wisdom.
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21] His latest book is
Nose dive: a field guide to the world's smells (2020).
[22]
With
Dave Arnold and
Nils Norén , McGee teaches a three-day class, The Harold McGee Lecture Series , at the
French Culinary Institute in New York City.
Awards and honors
McGee is a visiting scholar at
Harvard University .
[4]
His book
On Food and Cooking has won numerous awards and is used widely in
food science courses at many universities.
Influences
McGee's scientific approach to cooking has been embraced and popularized by chefs and authors such as
David Chang
[23] and
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt .
[24]
Personal life
McGee married his college girlfriend
Sharon Rugel Long on July 7, 1979; they divorced in 2004. They had two children, son John (born 1986) and daughter Florence (born 1988).
[25]
References
^
a
b McGee, Harold James (1978). Keats and the Progress of Taste (PhD thesis). Yale University.
ProQuest
302889235 .
^
"Harold McGee" . CooksInfo . Retrieved August 22, 2015 .
^
a
b
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (1984)
ISBN
0-684-18132-0
^
a
b
c
^
Food Scientist Harold McGee: 'On Food' , NPR December 2004
^
Cooking with IEEE Spectrum: Harold McGee
^ McGee, Harold J.; Long, Sharon R.; Briggs, Winslow R. (1984). "Why whip egg whites in copper bowls?". Nature . 308 (5960): 667–668.
Bibcode :
1984Natur.308..667M .
doi :
10.1038/308667a0 .
S2CID
4372579 .
^
a
b McGee, Harold (2015).
"About Harold McGee" . Archived from
the original on December 28, 2014.
^ Cressey, Daniel (2009).
"Q&A with Harold McGee: The molecular master chef" . Nature . 458 (7239): 707.
doi :
10.1038/458707a .
PMID
19360069 .
^ McGee, Harold (2011).
"Food science: With pipette and ladle" . Nature . 480 (7378): 452–453.
Bibcode :
2011Natur.480..452M .
doi :
10.1038/480452a .
^ McGee, Harold (2013).
"Chemistry: A festive ferment" . Nature . 504 (7480): 372–374.
Bibcode :
2013Natur.504..372M .
doi :
10.1038/504372a .
PMID
24352277 .
^ McGee, Harold (1999).
"Taking stock of new flavours" . Nature . 400 (6739): 17–18.
Bibcode :
1999Natur.400...17M .
doi :
10.1038/21775 .
PMID
10403241 .
S2CID
31829606 .
^ McGee, Harold (1998). "In victu veritas". Nature . 392 (6677): 649–650.
Bibcode :
1998Natur.392..649M .
doi :
10.1038/33528 .
PMID
9565025 .
S2CID
4383793 .
^ McGee, Harold (1987).
"Trials of the gluttons for punishment" . Nature . 326 (6116): 907–908.
Bibcode :
1987Natur.326..907M .
doi :
10.1038/326907a0 .
^ Mcgee, Harold (1990).
"Recipe for safer sauces" . Nature . 347 (6295): 717.
Bibcode :
1990Natur.347..717M .
doi :
10.1038/347717a0 .
PMID
2234048 .
S2CID
4348407 .
^ McGee, Harold; McInerney, Jack; Harrus, Alain (1999). "The Virtual Cook: Modeling Heat Transfer in the Kitchen". Physics Today . 52 (11): 30.
Bibcode :
1999PhT....52k..30M .
doi :
10.1063/1.882728 .
^ The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore (1990)
ISBN
0-86547-452-4 ,
^
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (2004)
ISBN
0-684-80001-2
^ Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes (2010)
ISBN
0-340-96320-4 , a compendium of practical information on food and cooking.
^ Modern gastronomy A to Z : a scientific and gastronomic lexicon (2010)
ISBN
978-1-4398-1245-7
^
Harold McGee interview by
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire (Oxford Oral History Project)
^ Nose dive: a field guide to the world's smells (2020)
ISBN
978-1-5942-0395-4
^
BBC Radio 4 Food Programme: A Life through Food with Harold McGee ,
BBC , October 13, 2014
^ The food lab: better home cooking through science . April 19, 2016.
^
"A chemist in the kitchen (November 19, 2004)" .
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