Herve This (pronounced "Teess") is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike. Molecular Gastronomy, This's first work to appear in English, is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. He goes on to discuss the physiology of flavor and explores how the brain perceives tastes, how chewing affects food, and how the tongue reacts to various stimuli. Examining the molecular properties of bread, ham, foie gras, and champagne, the book analyzes what happens as they are baked, cured, cooked, and chilled. Looking to the future, Herve This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a souffle rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

埃尔韦‧蒂斯，法国当代物理化学家，人称分子厨艺之父。他毕业于巴黎高等物理化学工程学院（ESPCI），巴黎第七大学物理化学博士，现为法国国家食品暨农业研究院（INRA）院士、法兰西学院化学实验室“分子厨艺研究室”主持人、巴黎高等科学院（Académie des sciences de Paris）“科学暨文化食品基金会”科学主任、法文版科学人杂志《Pour la Science》顾问，同时也是法国国立烹饪学院、法国厨师协会、法国厨艺学会荣誉会员，曾获颁法国国家骑士勋章、国际美食学会奖（Prix de l’Académie Internationale des Gastronomie）等殊荣。

1988年，他和匈牙利物理学家、英国牛津大学教授尼可拉‧库堤（Nicholas Kurti, 1908-1998）共同提出“分子与物理美食”理论，自此致力推广该理论研究；1992年两人在意大利西西里成立“分子厨艺国际工作坊”，首开由专业厨师和科学家连手研究食物烹调法背后原理之先河；1998年库堤离世，之后蒂斯将理论名称简化成“分子厨艺”（Gastronomie Moléculaire）。

蒂斯乐于研究烹饪过程中的一切化学现象，擅长于以高明有趣的描述方法启发大众，每月固定在三星主厨皮耶‧加尼叶（Pierre Gagnaire）网站“艺术与科学”单元发表创新作品，在法国厨艺界的地位与加尼叶齐名。