Looking for a couple ingredient driven reference books

[awakened chef]

I know this sounds corny and kind of borderline poser, but i am reading Life, on the LIne and Chef Grant Achatz talked about acouple cookbooks he likes to reference ingredients from while brainstorming an idea. I would love to know what books are in his "go to" repetoire. thanks.

[Blether]

I bet he uses Cook's Thesaurus.

[Paul Bacino]

Possibly " Spices of the World "-- pretty interesting , by McCormick and Company!!

[mkayahara]

I would strongly recommend The Flavor Bible for that role.

[awakened chef]

thank you for your replies

[Jon Tseng]

Dornenburg and Page's Culinary Artistry has always been my go-to in that respect... I had a look at the Flavour Bible when it came out but didn't think it added much to the earlier work.

Perhaps look at The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit as another entry in that genre?

Gray Kunz also wrote a book a few years back called The Elements of Taste which also tried to systemise an approach to flavour combinations, although I'm not sure they quite succeed (IMHO their categories were a little too broad).

All the best

J

[rgruby]

Dornenburg and Page's Culinary Artistry has always been my go-to in that respect... I had a look at the Flavour Bible when it came out but didn't think it added much to the earlier work.

Perhaps look at The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit as another entry in that genre?

Gray Kunz also wrote a book a few years back called The Elements of Taste which also tried to systemise an approach to flavour combinations, although I'm not sure they quite succeed (IMHO their categories were a little too broad).

All the best

J

There's a few more books that I'm aware of that delve into the whys of flavor pairing a bit. Taste by Sybil Kapoor, Taste + Flavor by Tom Kime (I think the Kime book has different titles depending where it was published) and Flavor by Rocco Dispirito.

Something like Starting with ingredients by Aliza Green might also be something worth checking out.

I have two or three books that are organized by month or season, rather than mains, apps etc. That could be another way to get some ideas about what is in season and goes together.

Cheers,

Geoff