Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells

Harold McGee

ISBN 10: 1594203954 / ISBN 13: 9781594203954

Edité par Penguin Press October 2020, 2020

A propos de cet article

N° de réf. du vendeur 593869

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells
• Éditeur: Penguin Press October 2020
• Date de parution: 2020
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1594203954
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781594203954
• Reliure: Hardcover
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Science & Mathematics

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

The ultimate guide to the smells of the universe – the ambrosial to the malodorous, and everything in between – from the author of the acclaimed inary guides On Food and Cooking and Keys to Good Cooking

From Harold McGee, James Beard Award-winning author and leading expert on the science of food and cooking, comes an extensive exploration of the long-overlooked world of smell. In Nose Dive , McGee takes us on a sensory adventure, from the sulfurous nascent earth more than four billion years ago, to the fruit-filled Tian Shan mountain range north of the Himalayas, to the keyboard of your laptop, where trace notes of phenol and formaldehyde escape between the keys. We'll sniff the ordinary (wet pavement and cut grass) and the extraordinary (ambergris and truffles), the delightful (roses and vanilla) and the challenging (swamplands and durians). We'll smell one another. We'll smell ourselves.

Through it all, McGee familiarizes us with the actual bits of matter that we breathe in—the molees that trigger our perceptions, that prompt the citrusy smells of coriander and beer and the medicinal smells of daffodils and sea urchins. And like everything in the physical world, molees have histories. Many of the molees that we smell every day existed long before any creature was around to smell them—before there was even a planet for those creatures to live on. Beginning with the origins of those molees in interstellar space, McGee moves onward through the smells of our planet, the air and the oceans, the forest and the meadows and the city, all the way to the smells of incense, perfume, wine, and food.

Here is a story of the world, of every smell under our collective nose. A work of astounding scholarship and originality, Nose Dive distills the science behind the smells and translates it, as only McGee can, into an accessible and entertaining guide.