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For the most current From the Author and Newsletters, please see the Professional Cooking, 6th Edition.
March 2004 Some years ago, as I was about to begin work on the fourth edition of Professional Cooking, I received a letter from an instructor who was having difficulty with the formula for Sugar Cookies in the third edition. A quick glance revealed the problem. Although the quantity of milk was correct in the metric and percentage columns (125 g and 10%, respectively), the U.S. measure was drastically wrong. During typesetting, the correct quantity (4 oz) was dropped and the salt quantity (2 tsp) from two lines above was inserted. No wonder the formula didn't work using U.S. measures! I bring up this story as a way of emphasizing how valuable I find the input and feedback I get from instructors and other users of my books. Although I write and proofread with great care, and there are several additional editors and proofreaders that scan both the manuscript and the typeset pages word by word, it is perhaps inevitable that in books of this size and complexity, a few errors find their way into the printed book undetected. Sometimes I am unaware of such an error until an attentive reader calls my attention to it. Reader and instructor feedback is important for even more important reasons. My desire has always been to make Professional Cooking and Professional Baking as useful, flexible, and accurate as possible. What instructors tell me about how they use the books in their classes and how they feel the books could be modified to better fit their needs plays a central role in my plans for a new edition. The changes in the new fourth edition of Professional Baking provide several examples. The addition of two new chapters, on baking equipment and artisan breads, is the direct result of requests by instructors who asked for this material. Handcrafted sourdough breads and other handmade yeast products have enjoyed an explosion of popularity and availability, and understanding these products is now seen as a necessary skill for beginning bakers. Even today's fashion for low-carbohydrate foods, which has depressed bakery sales to some extent, is not likely to lessen the long-term importance of this subject matter. Although the third edition contains basic information on sourdoughs and includes some formulas, suggestions from instructors stimulated me to research sours and flour specifications in greater depth and to develop additional procedures and formulas. Additional new material added as a response to reader feedback includes an expanded and rewritten chapter on plating restaurant-style desserts. The rise of the restaurant pastry chef in contemporary food service is an exciting phenomenon. Further guidance on plating styles promises to be useful and welcome. In addition to adding important new material, I reviewed existing material in detail; again with reference to letters and emails I have received since the third edition published. Basic principles of baking and cooking don't change - gluten still forms in the same way it did twenty years ago, and the same chemical changes still take place during the mixing and baking processes - but tastes and preferences do evolve. The chapter on quick breads is a case in point. Twenty years ago, muffins weren't as common or as popular as they are now, and they were usually smaller and fairly lean. Today's muffins, by contrast, are larger and higher in fat (even in our diet-conscious society!), and I received many requests to revisit these formulas. As a result, I retested, modified, and retested again, with the objective of modernizing the formulas while at the same time preserving their basic structure and their function as examples of the fundamental mixing methods. Although I resisted making them as high in fat as some of the richer cake-like muffins sold today, I think that you will be pleased with the results. Extensive recipe testing is an essential part of the preparation of every new edition. Whenever a reader reports difficulty with a specific recipe or formula or questions the accuracy of an ingredient quantity, I retest that recipe. In some cases, a successful retest leads me to conclude that the issue may be one of regional preferences or other differences of taste (this is also useful for me to know!). But I have found several errors in this way, such as the typesetting error in the cookie formula that I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter. As I begin preparing the manuscript for the sixth edition of Professional Cooking, I would like to take this opportunity to invite your input. Please write to me with your suggestions, criticisms, and comments. If you have difficulty with a particular recipe, let me know, and please provide as much specific detail as you can. Look for an email link to me on my various Wiley web sites (which can be accessed at www.wiley.com/go/gisslen), or simply write to me at gisslen@wiley.com. And my sincere thanks to everyone who has corresponded with me over the years and lent their judgment and expertise to this ongoing project. Sincerely, Wayne Gisslen, gisslen@wiley.com I welcome your comments. You can email me at gisslen@wiley.com. |
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