The Jain Path: Ancient Wisdom for the West Review

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(More customer reviews)Jainism is an ancient faith full of profound wisdom. However, it is little known and understood in the West. Aidan Rankin has done an insightful translation of the faith and its core values, comparing them with western philosophy and science lucidly and with painstaking detail. It is a very accessible book, ideal for those interested in understanding Indian wisdom and its modern-day relevance, but trained and raised in the West. It is a genuine search for truth and wisdom which is inclusive of the spiritual realm. It recognises the openness, humility and authenticity of Jainism and is a great window for the liberal seeker of wisdom.

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Jainism is one of the world's oldest religions, and perhaps the most demanding, rational and radical of all of them, attaching a great importance to individual responsibility. Today we are questioning our own inherited values and also rediscovering ancient traditions. We are looking for continuity and balance-a return to the centre. Understanding of Jain principles can point us towards the elusive paradigm shift, giving spiritual and intellectual strength to a new global ethic of compassion and interdependence.

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Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History) Review

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(More customer reviews)You know those "precious metals cleaning plates" sold at ridiculous prices in airline catalogs? Well, Hervé This tells you how to cobble together your own from foil and salt (p. 192). I tried it with a couple of sterling silver pieces--and it worked wonderfully!
In the first couple of chapters of this new translation from the 1993 original in French (Secrets de la Casserole), This introduces some basics of cooking and discusses the sensations of eating, debunking the 90-year-old four-tastes theory. Afterward, this book can be dipped into at any point. It has chapters on basic ingredients (milk, eggs, etc.), on cooking methods (steaming, braising, etc.), on souffles, pastries, and breads--everywhere (not surprisingly) emphasizing French cooking. The second-to-last chapter on kitchen utensils is also essential reading, and the last chapter highlights kitchen mysteries yet unsolved.
For someone with some scientific background, this book occasionally comes across as patronizing. I liked, though, his explanation of evaporational cooling: to summarize, the water molecules that escape (i.e., evaporate) from the surface of the liquid must have a lot of energy--more energy than the typical molecules left behind--leaving behind liquid that has a lower temperature.
There are a couple of minor scientific mistakes: limonene, and not the mirror image, is in fact the relevant molecule in lemons (p. 28); and the record-holding temperature that the physicist Nicholas Kurti achieved was a millionth of a degree above, not below, absolute zero (p. 95). The translation from French may also be faulty on page 30, where he says that "we see a smoke, not vapor" above a soup--"fog" or "mist" probably being intended rather than "smoke."
Overall, this book is fun to read and full of interesting information. It is a good introduction for anyone interested in cooking or how things work. But for those with a deeper interest, Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (which This frequently echoes) is a better choice and a more thorough reference.

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