I know I would have enjoyed this book(s) if I had ever gotten them. 1 look books never sent me anything: not my books, not an answer to my e-mails(plural), but of course they billed my credit card the day I sent the order. That was 24 Nov. and it is now Dec.27, 2008. My review: I truely liked the book when I took it out of my local library. It was very interesting and had a lot of great ideas in pairing spices and herbs with various foods It wasn't a cookbook but rather a jumping off spot for cooking.

This heavy, almost 400-page tome is a great idea for someone who is already a good cook, but who would like to become a gourmet. It's divided into three sections: Learning the Language of Food, Communicating Via the Language of Food, and The Charts, which focuses on the matchmaking of flavors. It's quite detailed. Why there's ten pages on cheese! It's a culinary reference book for the chef at heart.

I gave this book to my mother as a gift. She reports that she just loves it. It does not have any recipes, but all the flavor suggestions are great. They tried bacon and herbs on salmon as directed and loved the flavor.

GET THIS BOOK! I LOVE THIS BOOK! This is the best book I have seen yet! As a personal chef wanna-be, a food network junkie and a lover of food, this will help me to make food taste GREAT! I never know what goes with what and this helps! This goes by alphabetical order so this is an excellent reference book for the most popular room in your house: the kitchen! I can't wait to start using it!

Flavor Bible delivers creative inspiration to spark up old combinations. This book is well layed out with easy access to information to enable the cook to utilize what is in your kitchen and to inspire creativity. Allows you to create new flavor combinations with reasonable expectations that the dish won't completely flop or ingredients be wasted.
Excellent resource.

I bought this book as a gift for someone that cooks. With its detail on mixing ingredients for different flavors I feel that it will be a great gift.

I absolutely love this book! I first discovered it when it was cited as a reference for a cookbook and am glad I did. While I am not a trained chef, I am an avid home cook that enjoys writing my own recipes, experimenting with foods, and as of late, entering recipe contests. This book helps me be more daring in my flavor combinations and has inspired new recipes.

The first section of the book is a great introduction to flavor. It talks about what is perceived by the mouth, what is perceived by the nose, and my personal favorite, what is perceived by the heart, mind, and spirit. It has great passages from chefs from all over the country talking about things like balancing flavor.

The second section expands on this further by talking about things like seasonality, taste, weight, volume, function, region, and flavor affinities. This helps set up the flavor matching chart since many of these dimensions are used to describe key aspects of each ingredient.

The final section, and bulk of the book, is comprised of matchmaking charts. Simply look up a listing alphabetically and you will be presented with a list of ingredients that pair well with it as well as 'flavor affinities' that include the featured ingredient with more than two additional ingredients. This book gives you the ability to look up cheeses, chile peppers, cuisines, fishes, flavorings, fruits, herbs, ingredients, meats, oils, peppers, salts, spices, tastes, vegetables, vinegars and more! Overall these charts are very extensive and include a variety of ingredients from around the world. If you are interested in an ingredient there is a good chance you will find it in here. Also in this section you will find different tips and comments from Chefs that relate to the ingredients as well as examples of dishes (without recipes) that incorporate the ingredient. These can be great in bringing the combinations to life and jump starting ideas.

It is also worth noting that this is really a reference book. There are no recipes in this book. However, this does not bother me at all as I have tons of cookbooks and come to this book when I want to create something on my own.

This is quite a fantastic reference book that I cannot say enough about! I believe it is something that an avid cook who likes to experiment and create their own recipes would find not only helpful, but enjoyable to have in the kitchen.

Wow! Here we have a book that doesn't hand you a rigid collection of recipes or the author's philosophy on how your food should be prepared and served.
It is however, a simple and fun to use reference guide for any person that wants to get more in tune with how to season their dishes. I've only had it a week and I've turned to it 5 times already...Unlike the 8" thick Thai cookbook that is sitting on my shelf. That one makes me tremble when I dare to open it, because I know the recipes will have so many ingredients I don't have or can't get easily.
In "The Flavor Bible" you will find a list every seasoning that will compliment whatever you are preparing. So for a guy like me, it's a great help to go down their list and add new flavors to what I'm already preparing. That way, I am incorporating some newness into my recipes.

Two thumbs up to Karen and Andrew for creating another great book and helper in kitchen!

I have been searching for a book like this since the time I became interested in cooking.
I can now easily find the ingredients for fish, meat, veggies or anything...It's as if I have an "encycleopedia" of what flavors go together, at my disposal in the kitchen...It's AMAZING!

I like a cookbook with guides one to flavor combinations, rather than provides strict recipes. This one meets that criteria. It is not for a beginning cook, though, as I think it takes some experience to know what will work for you.

the book is great it only gets a 3 because there really isnt a matrix system. I suppose if the book was translated into a software tittle it would be much easier to use.

Bought this book w/o a whole lot of information about it. Can't believe it -- I now have the resource I've been looking for --

I'm a cook with some years of experience, a huge cookbook collection, a list of classes taught by renowned experts and cookbook writers, and still I yearned for a reference that gave me the info on what goes with what (w/o me researching my whole library or classnotes. I guess I need "permissions" and this book gave it to me.

Tonight I made redfish (snapper in the book) with a crust of almonds, chives, parsley and dill (methodology learned in all those classes). Served w a favorite zuchinni recipe that included the "go-to" ingredients for snapper, and roasted potatoes with light sprinkling of rosemary and salt (again, a "go-to" herb for the main dish).

It wasn't overkill (my worry) -- it just plain worked and I did it w/o a single recipe. Cut my cooking time in half and raised my personal culinary "thermometer" by a ton of degrees.

If you cook, know methodology and are looking for a silent but knowledgeable help in the kitchen, buy this book. It's a gem!!!

I am enamored with The Flavor Bible! Just thought I better come clean.

I have a passion for intuitive cooking, and I prepare foods according to season with a huge focus on using local and fresh ingredients. While I value the thought process that goes into creating a recipe and often am inspired by them, I treasure using my own creativity coupled with the at the moment flavor of the fresh components to bring a dish to the table.

This book is a dream come true for me. It is bending my mind and pushing my palate and skills to a whole new level. Kudos to the authors for creating this gem!

I am enamored with The Flavor Bible! Just thought I better come clean.

I have a passion for intuitive cooking. I am not a big fan of recipes because they limit my creativity and do not take the inherent flavor variation of the fresh components of the dish into consideration.

This book is a dream come true for me. It is bending my mind and pushing my palate and skills to a whole new level.

I recently added this book to my cookbook collection, which numbers more than 1,000 volumes (probably more like 1200 but I'm still cataloging). It has immediately become one of my favorites (and definitely my #1 favorite in English). If you are a serious cook, love to read cookbooks like novels, and view recipes as suggestions rather than as requiring strict adherence to precise measurements, then this is the book for you! (Did I say I LOVE this book?)

I make all of the desserts for my husband's restaurant. If I snag some particularly luscious fruit and want to make it into a dessert, this is the book I reach for first. I don't WANT to be told how to make a fruit sorbet. I already know how. But I love having a list of suggested flavors and products that go with what I already have. It's like having an uber-creative friend at your side saying "hey, why not try THIS?"

And if you are not an experienced cook, this book provides invaluable guidance that a recipe book never could. It is wholly different from every food book I have ever read.

The book is clever, useful, and obviously the product of prodigious research. To the authors, I send my humble gratitude. You have made my life immeasurably easier, and my dishes far more interesting than ever before.

This book is a must-read if you love to eat or love to cook. I have already bought six copies and have given two as gifts. It's THAT good.

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs This is a book for real cooks who want to explore new tastes. It's for people who love to play around in the kitchen, who go to their local farmer's market and find fresh romaine lettuce or chanterelle mushrooms and want to create something different. It's for individualists who don't want to be bound by someone else's recipe, but want to make an original dish of their own, guided by the world's great chefs.

Prolific culinary author duo Page and Dornenburg are at it again! Supplying truly remarkable, creative,useful tools for the chef who desires max delicisiosio for their guests.

This continues their trajectory in the earlier "Culinary Artistry" of not being prescriptive but rather equip/resource/inspire the chef who wants to approach max flavor and happiness in their gourmet outpourings. They have extended their approach to this from CA to this offering, which is some sixty pages less, but with some great additions. They axed the frequent representative recipes of the country's greatest chefs, and added some useful features. I checked and compared some of my favorite ingredients in the two books, e.g. in blackberries, they expanded it by over 35 ingredients, and omitted what I counted, 4. Additionally they intensified the imaginative pairings by looking at such as seasonality, taste, weight, volume, techniques, flavor affinitives. You'll find this great system on everything from nuts, herbs, cheeses, liquors/wines, Major cuisines, fruits, veggies, grains, pastas, etc.

This is truly the stuff that chefs who want to explore new combinations or expand old reliables will be inspired by. For instance, I truly enjoy using this also to write down my additional learned pairings, e.g. peach salsa with swordfish.

The continued chef comments on how they individually approach the idea of flavor combos is enlightening.

My only minor comment is that I would have wished that they refrained from use of "Bible." Some just would rather not see this applied to such contexts. Wonderful subtitle would have worked: Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, or maybe better: Essential Guide to Deliciousness?

Expanding chefs will want this fine resource, and will wear out its pages as we have CA and their offering on What to Drink with What You Eat. Keep 'em coming, Karen and Andrew.

The Flavor Bible, from the award winning authors of : What to drink with what you eat, reads like a novel (with beautiful photo's) and gives every cook the ability to become a chef! I often create in my kitchen, a pinch of this and a bit of that. Some of my dishes are great and some disasters. I begged a review copy of this book and I have had no more kitchen mistakes. This is, indeed, The Flavor Bible.
I just bought 40 copies for my son's teachers, my friends and family and all the young people I know who are setting up their first home. Entertaining is much more fun when you have the confidence to create. I have a thumbs up from my teen on the change in my nightly dinners. Thank you Flavor Bible! Thank you Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg

This book is the answer to most of your combination questions.I have created my own recipes from just looking up what I have on hand (anything from a meat to veggies and the book helps you combine just the right flavors.Have already given it as gifts!Love love this book,I spend time just dreaming up new dinners for my family.

Flavor is the basis for all food, without it, the world would seem less colorful, lifeless, and bland. Food isn't just about what you can taste in your mouth but also what you feel in your heart, what you can see with your eyes, and what you smell with your nose. That's what is presented in this book.

What Culinary Artistry showcased was that food can be art. That colors structure on a plate can evoke emotions the same as any other art work. And like any art work, is in the eye of the beholder.

What to Drink with What You Eat gave us the understanding that beverages (not just wine) can be paired and should be though of as a condiment when had with food. Would you put yellow mustard on a Porter House, it goes the same for pairing any red wine with a cut of beef.

The Flavor Bible talks about, well, flavor; but more then that, it talks about what flavor is and how we perceive it, receive it, balance it and emphasize it. All coming to the climax which is a very in depth list (3/4ths of the book) of ingredient detailing its profile (weak, strong), seasonality, and every herb, spice, fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, poultry and alcoholic related item and what would go exceptionally well with it.

What's that you say, Culinary Artistry already went over that? Well you would be correct but it didn't tell you when the ingredient was in season or what is flavor profile is, did it? What it also talks about is the break down of the different cuts of meat such as beef, lamb, pork, and poultry all broken up into their respected parts and given their own listings.

So, if it is so good, why did I give it only 4 stars? The list for the most part is just an update from Culinary Artistry; most flavors companions haven't change since the days of Escoffier. I would have like more detail in what flavors such as sweet, bitter, sour, salty, go well together and which once counteract the other. This isn't so much a book as it is a reference point and I'm okay with that.

Culinary Artistry was my best friend going through culinary school and now I have a great addition that I am sure I'll end up burning through as I did my other 2 copies of Culinary Artistry. If you are even the slightest bit interested in cooking or making good food taste better then you can't go wrong buying this book.