The Art of Flavor

Two masters of composition--a chef and a perfumer--present a revolutionary new approach to creating delicious, original food. In a world awash in cooking shows, food blogs, and recipes, the art of flavor has been surprisingly neglected. The multibillion-dollar flavor industry practices its dark arts by manipulating synthetic ingredients, and home cooks are taught to wield the same blunt instruments: salt, acid, sugar, heat. But foods in their natural state are infinitely more nuanced than the laboratory can replicate--and offer far greater possibilities for deliciousness. Chef Daniel Patterson and natural perfumer Mandy Aftel are experts at orchestrating ingredients, and here they teach listeners how to make the most of nature's palette via mind-opening and palate-expanding tools and principles: the four basic rules for creating flavor; a flavor "compass" that points the way to transformative combinations of aromatic ingredients; learning to deploy cooking methods for maximum effect; and mastering the seven "dials" that let you fine-tune a dish. With more than sixty recipes that demonstrate each concept and put it into practice, The Art of Flavor is food for the imagination that will help cooks at any level to become flavor virtuosos in their own right.