This preface is very short, not least because an introductory chapter incorporating much of the material of a conventional preface has been included and covers most of the important points in somewhat greater detail than we have scope for here. The reader should consult this as a guide to the structure of this volume, and the purpose it serves. Nevertheless, some general comments are pertinent. At a practical level, some understanding of the properties of food biopolymers is presumably historical, perhaps dating back to the invention of fire, when stone age man first discovered that heating...