The Flavor Bible: Guide to Culinary Creativity

I love that this isn't a recipe book that tells me what to do moment by moment. Instead, it's a reference book that helps me to add flavor to my own dishes, flavor that differs from my own tried and trues. I love to cook and have been doing so for more years than I care to admit to. I don't always want a recipe to tell me what to do. Sometimes I just want to make something of my own creation. This book really helps with that. I've only had it a few days but it's already been quite useful. It lists flavors that different "experts" (doesn't say who the experts are unless I've missed it) use for particular ingredients. And it lists them in different type according to how many experts recommend that particular flavor combination. Bold type, all capitals, with an asterisk is use for the tried and true flavor combos. Small type, regular print (not bold) is for the least recommended but still mentioned by one or more. Those are the extremes, there are others in between. For instance, there are two pages on Asparagus, covering both regular and white. It begins with the season it's generally available (spring), the weight of the flavor (light-medium), the volume of the flavor (moderate) and the techniques (blanch, boil, deep-fry, pan roast, stir fry). Then it offers a list of the nuts, herbs and spices, other vegetables, cheeses, eggs, sauces, oils, salts, creams, stocks, etc. that work well with Asparagus. It then gives you Flavor Affinities, which are groups of flavorings that work well together such as asparagus + ham + morel mushrooms + Parmesan Cheese. It then offers some dishes from chefs in which Asparagus is featured such as Ricotta Gnocchi with Asparagus, Morels and Pine nuts from Dan Barber, Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Pocantico Hills, NY). Last, it gives a recommendation on how to make asparagus soup from Daniel Humm of NYs Eleven Madison Park: You need a lot of asparagus flavor. You need acidity. You need sweetness that will come from the asparagus. You need the right amount of salt. You need just the right amount of spice, so that it doesn't actually taste spicy. We use a lot of cayenne, but you would never know it is there; it is just an accent. You need fresh lime juice to finish. Then he discusses the balance of flavors in soup and how to manage that with this soup (sweat the asparagus). Instead of a recipe, you get a how to on making your own soup your way. The whole book has tips from chefs just like that. I'm going to love this part on "Chocolate/Cocoa-in general" Stuff that works well with chocolate! Experimenting time!! I hope I've given you an idea of what this excellent book can do for you.

Bought as a gift for a friend who loves cooking. He was happy to have it! I have the same one but vegetarian version and I think it's a must have for anyone serious about food. It helps you go beyond recipes and generate ideas of how to use ingredients sitting on your shelf or new items you're not as familiar with.

I started learning to cook by following recipes that were either handed down to me or that I got out of a cookbook or magazine. When comparing this method to professional chefs who pull together wonderful, creative dishes with seemingly effortless ease it seems amateurish and simplistic, however it is a necessary phase. By following recipes I learned crucial techniques as well as what a well prepared meal should look and taste like. The next phase started when I tried to create my own recipes by first substituting one ingredient for another and later by going off the reservation completely by trying food combinations that I had never encountered in my recipes. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it led to disaster. Enter The Flavor Bible. A few reviewers have criticized this book for being a mere collection of lists of ingredients. Far from that, I see it as the Rosetta Stone for serious home cooks and professional chefs alike. As I have learned to use fresh, locally grown foods more I am often searching for a way to combine them. Trying to find a recipe that allows me to take advantage of a bumper crop of artichokes, sweet onions and garden grown thyme can be challenging. By using The Flavor Bible I look up artichokes and I can see what ingredients compliment it and I can put together a great tasting dish. However, this is only one element of the book. Beside listing ingredients and pairing them with other flavors the book also lists cuisines that make use of the ingredient in question. You may also look up a specific cuisine (Indian, Thai, Tex-Mex, Moroccan, etc.) and find commonly used ingredients, Flavor Affinities and often, a paragraph or two from a professional chef. Something else that I liked was that you could look up seasons (summer, winter, etc.) and find what foods are best served when it is hot or cold outside. The photographs (by Barry Salzman) are top notch and very inspirational. There are not very many of them but I don't think that there needs to be since this is not a cookbook you don't need to see what a particular dish is supposed to look like when completed. If you are still a little rusty on technique and are unsure about relative proportions you may not be ready for this book. If however you have graduated from only using the recipes of others and would like to explore unique and wonderful flavor combinations, I couldn't recommend this book any higher.

I recently added this book to my cookbook collection, which numbers more than 1,000 volumes (probably more like 1200 but I'm still cataloging). It has immediately become one of my favorites (and definitely my #1 favorite in English). If you are a serious cook, love to read cookbooks like novels, and view recipes as suggestions rather than as requiring strict adherence to precise measurements, then this is the book for you! (Did I say I LOVE this book?) I make all of the desserts for my husband's restaurant. If I snag some particularly luscious fruit and want to make it into a dessert, this is the book I reach for first. I don't WANT to be told how to make a fruit sorbet. I already know how. But I love having a list of suggested flavors and products that go with what I already have. It's like having an uber-creative friend at your side saying "hey, why not try THIS?" And if you are not an experienced cook, this book provides invaluable guidance that a recipe book never could. It is wholly different from every food book I have ever read. The book is clever, useful, and obviously the product of prodigious research. To the authors, I send my humble gratitude. You have made my life immeasurably easier, and my dishes far more interesting than ever before. This book is a must-read if you love to eat or love to cook. I have already bought six copies and have given two as gifts. It's THAT good.

It is about food, not recipies.