useful for the novice or for an experienced cook broadening their repertoire into new cuisines ( )

Reddit: The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg is an awesome reference. It’s a culinary reference that shows which flavors go with each other. I love using it to find interesting flavor combinations for my cocktails. I learned artichokes go great with lemon and mint which turned into an awesome Cynar Smash. I would’ve never thought about it without that. I usually take flavor combinations like that and then I’ll take an existing cocktail and modify the ingredients to create something new.

This is a go to reference for any cook, especially ones that like to play around with flavors. Covers most ingredients and what they pair with and what pairings should be avoided. ( )

Review from my food & menu planning blog;
http://twie.holeinthewoodsfarm.com/2017/07/flavor-bible-karen-page-andrew-dornen...

There are many cookbooks in my personal library, but only a few would I enshrine in the list of Cookbooks I’d Rather Not Live Without. My second review for this blog will also be one of those, The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg. Though, truth be told, it’s not really a cookbook, per se…



It will surprise no one who knows me well that most of my favorite cookbooks are as much food science/theory books as recipe collections. I like to improvise. I like to understand. A book that can help me do this will always rise to the top. The Flavor Bible is one of those books, but in a very different way than most. It is not chock full of recipes, nor even cooking techniques. Instead, it is to flavor inspiration what the card catalog was to libraries (before computer based catalogs made them obsolete, that is…).

The Flavor Bible is essentially a sequel to the authors’ earlier book, Culinary Artistry. I loved it, but lost it when we moved to the farm. Replacing it with this one was a great choice!

The heart of the book consists of an alphabetical listing of ingredients and flavors, from Achiote Seeds, Acidity and Afghan Cuisine to Yuzu Fruit, Zucchini, and Zucchini Blossoms. Each has a table of complementary flavors recommended by experts (mainly a large number of influential and creative American chefs). When a flavor combination is recommended by multiple experts, it’s bold. When lots of them recommend it, it’s in bold caps. If it is a flavor pairing made in heaven, it gets bold caps and an asterisk.

Most ingredients also get a listing of “Flavor Affinities.” These are outstanding groups of flavors, usually three (beets + goat cheese + walnuts), often more (Cherries + goat cheese + ice wine vinegar + black pepper + thyme). There are also suggestions on dishes and techniques from various chefs scattered about, as well as discussion of seasonality. For example, in addition to a huge number of ingredients, the entry for Autumn says the weather is typically cool, and suggests braising, glazing, and roasting as techniques. Sometimes you get helpful tips (add caraway seeds late in the cooking process, but Cardamom early). It also occasionally lists pairings to avoid (basil and tarragon, for example).

The Flavor Bible can really help improve your creativity in the kitchen, particularly if you produce a lot of your own food or shop farmers’ markets. Fresh, seasonal food always tastes best, and is most healthful. But much of our cooking guidance assumes everyone finds their sustenance in the supermarket, where seasons don’t exist (and nothing really tastes like anything). Cooking and eating seasonally can be a challenge at times, but The Flavor Bible inspires creativity, making seasonal and local cuisine a liberating experience!

It won’t give you a recipe for Oysters on the Half Shell, but it will tell you that Hyssop goes with chicken, tomatoes, and thyme, and that can lead you to some yummy experimentation. Hmmmm… Hyssop is plentiful right now… ( )

One night I was preparing dinner from a recipe and, tasting it, realized it needed something. I added an ingredient to a small portion of it – an ingredient I didn’t particularly like – and found it was the perfect flavor foil. This was a particularly favorable feat because I did not even consult my copy of The Flavor Bible but, instead, mentally retrieved its explanation of balancing flavors and considered how I could emphasize or ‘push’ the existing taste to a brighter level. My friend Anne can, amazingly, throw things together off the top of her head and it always tastes fantastic. After a particularly simple but yummy lunch with Anne, I decided I wanted to be able to cook like she -- something she said she’d learned from her mother. However, I wanted guidance to avoid making horrible concoctions and wasting food.

The Flavor Bible is a somewhat strange book to review and recommend. Aside from the first 2 chapters that are comprised of only 33 pages, you don’t read it straight through; the text is most useful in browsing fashion. The first two chapters explain the chef’s mindset. Chapter 1, Flavor = Taste + Mouthfeel + Aroma + ‘The X Factor’ : Learning to Recognize the Language of Food, deals with balancing flavors and understanding how various senses come into play to affect flavor. The first chapter also includes chefs’ personal strategies that not only give specific tips, but also show, in action, what they are considering and pursuing when creating new recipes. Chapter 2, Great Cooking = Maximizing Flavor + Pleasure by Tapping (Body + Heart + Mind + Spirit): Communicating via the Language of Food, discusses the importance of thinking about the occasion, weather, seasonality, weight (heavy or light), volume, and function. While the second chapter was not quite as practical as the first, it was interesting to learn that things I would have considered peripheral to a meal actually had an impact on – or could even aid in – planning, preparation, and the overall experience.

Chapter 3, pages 35 – 374, provide flavor-matching lists. For example, I can look up fennel and find a list of ingredients/flavors that go well with it. If something is listed in bold, it is a pairing frequently recommended by expert chefs; BOLD CAPS means it’s highly recommended; BOLD CAPS* (with an asterisk) means it’s stellar. That’s it. Lists of ingredients. Some entries include classic Flavor Affinities (e.g., fennel + lemon + mint + olive oil + olives + orange; plums + cinnamon + orange; plums + bay leaf + vanilla). Often there are Tips such as “Use to finish a dish” (fennel pollen) or “Gets firmer with longer cooking” (mushrooms -- Portobello). There might also be Techniques such as “Add early in cooking” (cloves), “Add at the end of the cooking process” (tarragon), or “Dry-heat cooking” (pork -- chops).

This is absolutely a time-intensive book, so if you are looking for quick meal ideas, this is definitely not it. If you enjoy spending a lot of time paging through cookbooks and would like to venture into creating some of your own recipes, this is a perfect resource. ( )