The Science of Spice: Understand Flavor Connections and Revolutionize Your Cooking

I absolutely love this book! It’s so informative, it is beautiful with the pictures, drawings and layouts! I love that it explains why certain spices go together and the pages have little spice blends and recipes throughout! I am not new to cooking, but I am still very amateur. I have become more open to new spices and flavors and this book has helped to get that confidence! It’s a nice book to add to my collection as a reference!

Very comprehensive, has tons of information and spice mix recipes

I wanted this book for FOREVER and finally got my hands on it on Black Friday. Wow, it exceeded my expectations! It goes into so much detail and is so informative and written so simply! The photos are amazing and are printed on high quality paper with good quality ink and my favourite part is that it’s a hardback!!! The cover is gorgeous but it does scratch quite easily. I just love this book so much, it’s elevated my cooking so much now that I understand which spices go with which and how to get the best flavours out of them. It even has recipes from all over the world in it too. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to improve their cooking and flavourings, for sure!

Very interesting and informative

Good for those who want to cook with spices effectively and try different flavor combos. It is unique in how it explains what works together. So if I want to make my chilli more earthy or smoky, I know which spices would add that to the ones I have in there now. Its very detailed in how tnis is explained. I have followed too many bland recipes, and want to be able to add flavor on my own. I've learned that you have to know about the spices you use, or you can screw up and waste a bunch of time. I'd rather experiment with some knowledge base to work from. The section on releasing the flavor for each spice is a big deal for me b/c if you don't do that right then not much else is gonna work for you. Its nice to have one book that I can quickly reference to remember what to do with the spices I'm cooking with at the time. Other books seem inconsistent on that info or they embed it in a paragraph that I have to read. I found that I knew some spices had to be sauteed in oil, but not which ones. I've already learned more about how to use bay leaf. Recipes often don't tell you to bruise leaves or keep them whole or dry roast some seeds before using them. This may sound extreme, but this has helped me work towards a good carrot cake recipe. All the recipes out there are so bland. I have to bake a lot of cakes to come up with the right combo of cinnamon, nutmeg, c!ove, allspice and maybe some mace. Even though I bake with them, this is helping me distinguish what the differences really are between the Allspice, nutmeg and mace and if I need them all. I still use other books b/c this doesn't have as much practical cooking tips and NO HERBS. I don't get that. I'm wondering if there's another book to follow cuz I often mix fresh herbs in with dried spices.

Super useful book to have as a home cook. Also works great as just a coffee table book

Fascinating look at spices and herbs and how they work together in a practical way.Highly recommend!

This would make a great gift - we’re getting extra copies! Beautiful photos. Interesting concept and well thought out. Great information on the spices as well as some recipes to try - but it’s more about the facts less about the recipes. A great find!