The Flavor Bible - Andrew Dornenburg & Karen Page

The Flavor Bible

By Andrew Dornenburg & Karen Page

  • Release Date: 2008-09-16
  • Genre: Cookbooks, Food & Wine
Score: 4
4
From 86 Ratings
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Description

Widely hailed as one of the most influential cookbooks of all time, this is the timeless classic guide to culinary creativity and flavor exploration, based on the wisdom of the world's most innovative chefs

Eight years in the making, The Flavor Bible is a landmark book that has inspired the greatest creations of innovative cooks and chefs by serving as an indispensable guide to creativity and flavor affinities in today's kitchen. 

Cuisine is undergoing a startling historic transformation: With the advent of the global availability of ingredients, dishes are no longer based on geography but on flavor. This radical shift calls for a new approach to cooking -- as well as a new genre of "cookbook" that serves not to document classic dishes via recipes, but to inspire the creation of new ones based on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations. 

The Flavor Bible is your guide to hundreds of ingredients along with the herbs, spices, and other seasonings that will allow you to coax the greatest possible flavor and pleasure from them. This astonishing reference distills the combined experience of dozens of America's most innovative culinarians, representing such celebrated and transformative restaurants as A Voce, Blue Hill, Café Atlántico, Chanterelle, Citronelle, Gramercy Tavern, the Herbfarm, Jardinière, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, the Modern, and the Trellis. You'll learn to: explore the roles played by the four basic tastes -- salty, sour, bitter, and sweet -- and how to bring them into harmony; work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients by discovering which flavors have the strongest affinities for one another; brighten flavors through the use of acids -- from vinegars to citrus juices to herbs and spices such as Makrut lime and sumac; deepen or intensify flavors through layering specific ingredients and techniques; and balance the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of cooking and serving an extraordinary meal. Seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from the country's most respected chefs and pastry chefs, The Flavor Bible is an essential book for every kitchen library. 

For more inspiration in the kitchen, look for The Vegetarian Flavor Bible andKitchen Creativity. 

Reviews

  • Great basic staple

    5
    By sforim
    For serious cooks and aficionados alike: definitely worth owning.

  • Worth Having but index needed

    3
    By PaulS.
    This book is definitely worth the purchase. However, the information could be formatted more logically. The text includes such information as regions of the world the herb is commonly used and other herbs it would complement. However, this information is given in one list for each entry. Also, there is no master list broken down by tag words/ categories. So, the reader is left to extract the information by hand.

  • Pages aren't in order but an awesome book

    3
    By Jesse Dean
    Please re-organize the pages! They are not in order which is a bummer because I love this book to get ideas! I own the hard copy but figured I would get this for quick referencing. Unfortunately it is a pain to find the correct pages.

  • Flavor Bible is a Must!

    5
    By Greg548
    I love this book. It is an essential tool in the kitchen especially for the adventurous cook looking to pair various types of foods to create a meal.

  • Essential Information for Creativity

    5
    By CoraYvette
    The Flavor bible is an essential reference for any cook who wants to leave recipes behind and create. This book will tell you what ingredients work well with almost any ingredient you are likely to have access to. Have halibut, Meyer lemons and saffron on hand! This book will guide you on if they will compliment each other or not. Just look it up! LOVE, LOVE LOVE this book.

  • Index / TOC

    4
    By Evadw
    There is an "index", but not in the traditional sense. The full list of flavor entries is in the front section called "A-Z Listings", accessible through the Table of Contents. All links are clickable to take you directly to the appropriate page. Just bookmark that page, and it's a quick route to any flavor section.

  • Index

    1
    By icu_busted
    Please update and add the index for easier browsing of ingredients.

  • No index

    1
    By Thelo-ouzo
    Where is the index, I cannot search anything in this book. I own the hard copy and that is much better. This book is useless without being able to search ingredients. Instead it displays all the word "hits" in this book. We need an index or give me my money back.

  • Great text, unusable format

    1
    By mmm1979
    Don't buy this, get the hardcover edition. The text is inspiring for any professional or aspiring chef. It even played a role in recent Bocuse D'Oro preparations. Unfortunately, however, they've left out the index. The book is intended to be used as an encyclopedia. You look up an ingredient in the index, flip to that ingredients page and find a list of friendly flavors. Without the index one can not find individual ingredients. When one uses the search function to look up "crab", as I recently did, one gets a list of the dozens of pages on which the word appears. There is no way to tell which one (and only one) of those dozens of pages is the one dedicated to crab. The omission of the index makes this unusable. Get the hard copy, carry it with you everywhere you shop or cook.

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