In Part IV of Michael Pollan's Cooked, aesthetically but perhaps inappropriately titled "Earth," Pollan delivers an absolutely delightful mix of food, microbiology, and one accomplished nun.

With a title like "Earth," one would expect Part IV to be about potatoes or some other other tuber, but although Pollan does mention a few roots in his pickling chapters, the methods of food preparation discussed in "Earth" require being underground at all. Rather, Part IV discusses the many and varied miracles of fermentation: pickled veggies, cheese, and alcoholic beverages. This section of Cooked isn't about the earth, it's about the wonderful world of microorganisms--that's what I got out of it, anyway.

There are microorganisms everywhere: in our intestines, between our toes, in our yogurt, and they even help out in our bread, as Pollan discussed in Part III. In my day-to-day life, I usually only hear and think about the bad bits of microbiology. After all, an E. coli outbreak is a serious and newsworthy thing. It was refreshing to hear about bacteria and fungi in a not-so-harmful context.

The "Air" chapter of Cooked by Michael Pollan inspired me to complain about it to a friend. Then I sat down to read most of the chapter. As Pollan introduced me to all the intimate details of yeast, I found myself--frustratingly--enjoying the chapter. I enjoyed it because I could see myself baking bread from scratch someday, just for the fun of it, although not necessarily with a recipe as complex as the sourdough recipe Pollan used.

I prefer a denser loaf of homemade bread over this airy sourdough stuff Pollan aims for.  When I bite into my bread I want to taste food, not air with a food-like taste. A thin slice of Irish brown bread with orange marmalade or a plain slice of my mom's fruit-'n-spice recipe made with plain store-bought yeast and a bread machine...

Admittedly, the process of growing a starter is fascinating. I was first introduced to sourdough while playing at a friend's house in elementary school. Her mom called us over to take turns kneaded the dough and explained how much goes into making this type of bread--yeast starters, kneading, letting the dough rise, etc.