On Food and Cooking
by Harold McGee
A classic of cooking and technical writing, McGee is the definitive English-language kitchen reference. Vast, systematic, thorough, and written with clarity and humor, McGee explains the source of ingredients common and rare, their customary handling in the cuisines of various cultures, and explores the essential chemistry and biology that underpins cooking.
If you need to know whether your stock should be boiling (it shouldn't) or whether you should refrigerate that extra fresh basil (don't), you can look it up in McGee. Every spice you've ever heard of, and many you haven't, is described, botanized, its properties and history and uses succinctly discussed.
A remarkable achievement.