Harold McGee explained

Harold McGee
Birth Name:	Harold James McGee
Birth Date:	3 October 1951^[1]
Nationality:	American
Thesis Title:	Keats and the Progress of Taste
Thesis Url:	http://search.proquest.com/docview/302889235/
Thesis Year:	1978
Doctoral Advisor:	Harold Bloom
Known For:	On Food and Cooking^[2]
Partners:	)-->
Children:	2

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.^{[4] [5] [6] [7]}

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,^{[2] [8]} 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.^{[9] [7]}

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 (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.^[2]

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]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Harold McGee. CooksInfo. August 22, 2015.
2. • , iBioMagazine
   • www.ibiology.org/career-exploration/science-of-cooking/
3. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (1984)
4. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4242671 Food Scientist Harold McGee: 'On Food'
5. http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3804.html Cooking with IEEE Spectrum: Harold McGee
6. McGee. Harold J.. Long. Sharon R.. Briggs. Winslow R.. Why whip egg whites in copper bowls?. Nature. 308. 5960. 1984. 667–668. 10.1038/308667a0. 1984Natur.308..667M. 4372579.
7. Web site: About Harold McGee . McGee . Harold . 2015 . December 28, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141228142626/http://www.curiouscook.com/site/about-harold-mcgee.html.
8. Cressey. Daniel. Q&A with Harold McGee: The molecular master chef. Nature. 458. 7239. 2009. 707. 10.1038/458707a. 19360069. free.
9. PhD . Harold James. McGee . Keats and the Progress of Taste. Yale University . 1978 . .
10. McGee. Harold. Food science: With pipette and ladle. Nature. 480. 7378. 2011. 452–453. 10.1038/480452a. 2011Natur.480..452M. free.
11. McGee. Harold. Chemistry: A festive ferment. Nature. 504. 7480. 2013. 372–374. 10.1038/504372a. 24352277. 2013Natur.504..372M. free.
12. McGee. Harold. Nature. 400. 6739. 1999. 17–18. 10.1038/21775. Taking stock of new flavours. 10403241. 1999Natur.400...17M. 31829606. free.
13. McGee. Harold. Nature. 392. 6677. 1998. 649–650. 10.1038/33528. 9565025. In victu veritas. 1998Natur.392..649M. 4383793.
14. McGee. Harold. Trials of the gluttons for punishment. Nature. 326. 6116. 1987. 907–908. 10.1038/326907a0. 1987Natur.326..907M. free.
15. Mcgee. Harold. Recipe for safer sauces. Nature. 347. 6295. 1990. 717. 10.1038/347717a0. 2234048. 1990Natur.347..717M. 4348407. free.
16. McGee. Harold. McInerney. Jack. Harrus. Alain. The Virtual Cook: Modeling Heat Transfer in the Kitchen. Physics Today. 52. 11. 1999. 30. 10.1063/1.882728. 1999PhT....52k..30M.
17. The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore (1990),
18. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (2004)
19. Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes (2010), a compendium of practical information on food and cooking.
20. Modern gastronomy A to Z : a scientific and gastronomic lexicon (2010)
21. http://arrow.dit.ie/oxfor/9/ Harold McGee interview
22. Nose dive: a field guide to the world's smells (2020)
23. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04l065d BBC Radio 4 Food Programme: A Life through Food with Harold McGee
24. Book: April 19, 2016 . The food lab: better home cooking through science .
25. Web site: A chemist in the kitchen (November 19, 2004).