The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs Hardcover – Big Book, September 16, 2008

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.

This is a really cool book. Whether you're a beginner to cooking or enjoy exploring cooking as a science or an art, it's a great reference for flavor profiles and some recipes to work with. There are some ideas that are intuitive and thus not necessarily innovative or surprising, but something about having them articulated helps build a foundation for crafting more complex (and delicious) recipes. Totally recommend!

Nice read. A lot of history with both old and new recipes. Like it. Read it at my very tiny in the pantry bar and mixed a few to try.

I first picked up a flavor Bible in a B&N bookstore many years ago. As someone who loves to tinker in the kitchen, its an extremely helpful tool when I'm putting together dishes or feel like my dish is "missing something". Not only has this book broadened the scope of ingredients I use, it's also informed the way I cooked and helped a largely self taught home cook about balance and composition. I bring up this book frequently in conversations about cooking and recently a friend asked to borrow it. So I did what any sensible person would do: I bought a loaner copy so I wouldn't have to part with mine for even a moment.

If you are looking for recipes in this book, you will not find any. This book is meant to express the importance of cooking and its effect it has on all of us. Food isn’t just sustenance. It’s a story. It has livelihoods, dreams, and emotions attached to it. This book is more than a reference for compatible flavors; it’s meant to stir creativity and empowerment in the kitchen.

When I first sank my teeth into reading this book I was very confused by the books organization and overall goal, just seemed overly complex for no reason. To the testament of the book I picked it up at 3am, I was a little sleep deprived so my brain was not functioning at full capacity. After reading Ch.1 I decided I absolutely hate the book to the point I decided to return it. In my 10+ years of purchasing things from Amazon I never returned anything. I just made the best out of my less than satisfied purchases. I hated this book so much that returning it seemed like the most vindictive way to get back at the authors for writing it and Amazon for selling it.A few days later I said let me go ahead in initiate this return process which I had no clue how to do. It had nothing to do with the getting a refund as I order so much I just did an account credit. I just didn't want the book in my home any longer. I am in the midst of developing a spice line so when I'm working and I reach for my other resources and I see the Flavor Bible it puts me in an immediate annoyed mood. Trust me on this guys I never had any product affect me to this degree. It was as if the book was giving off bad mojo. Quickly I learned of Amazon's brilliant and convenient return policy and retrieved my return code.I'm the type of person who does my due diligence on anything I spend my money on so I had to second guess why I purchased the book in the first place. I had reviewed and read samples of so many spice books before my purchase and Flavor Bible kept making the cut. It was not adding up. I decided with return code and book in hand about to head out to UPS, let me crack it open and give it another go. It's when I fell in love. It was as if everything in the book represented perfect harmony and balance. It immediately clicked for me that this is a spice dictionary and that's all it is, with examples of how to use and pair the spices just like a word dictionary. From that moment I was able to explore it and test it properly. Anything I thought of in that 5-minute span to want to get insight about I was able to find in the book due to it's alphabetical arrangement.So why 4-stars and not 5? Technically I wanted to give it 3 1/2 but we all know its not possible. The book is awkwardly arranged. Even when you find what you are looking for you have to take care to make sure what you are reading is not referring to something else across the page. The list format is pretty much annoying because it's like okay you have this list, no what? I'm a pretty creative mind and decent cook so the list suggestions is really all I need to get my wheels spinning. However for less experienced cooks and creative minds, its useless. Content arrangement on the pages does not naturally flow. My biggest pet peeve, NO INDEX. For a book of this size 380 pages, it's weird not to have an index. Only a dictionary is this vast with no index. Had it been called a "Dictionary," I would have understood from the beginning how to navigate it.I decided to keep the "Flavor Dictionary," thinking of it in this form will keep me from wanting to slap the authors for calling it a Bible, a bible has an index. I would recommend this book to those persons with some culinary background and very creative mind. Others, you will receive NO guidance on how to use the items mentioned in the book whatsoever.