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    The Flavour Thesaurus
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    The Flavour Thesaurus
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    The Flavour Thesaurus
    Ebook679 pages8 hours

    The Flavour Thesaurus

    By Niki Segnit

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    'The books I value most are those I return to again and again. Such has been the case with The Flavour Thesaurus' – Nigel Slater

    'Every time I return to it, which is often, it makes me tingle with happy greed' – Bee Wilson

    'A bible for anyone who cooks by grabbing ingredients from the fridge' – Independent

    Ever wondered why one flavour works with another? Or lacked inspiration for what to do with a bundle of beetroot?

    The Flavour Thesaurus was the first book to examine what goes with what, pair by pair and is divided into flavour themes including Meaty, Cheesy, Woodland and Floral Fruity. Within these sections it follows the form of Roget's Thesaurus, listing 99 popular ingredients alphabetically, and for each one suggests unique flavour pairings that range from the classic to the bizarre.

    You will find traditional pairings: pork & apple, lamb & apricot, cucumber & dill; contemporary favourites like chocolate & chilli and goat's cheese & beetroot, and interesting but unlikely-sounding pairings like black pudding & chocolate, lemon & beef, blueberry & mushroom, and watermelon & oyster. There are nearly a thousand entries in all, with 200 recipes and suggestions embedded throughout the text.

    The Flavour Thesaurus is a highly useful, and covetable, reference book for cooking - it will keep you up at night reading.

    Observer Book of the Year

    Best Food Book – André Simon Food & Drinks Awards

    Best First Book – Guild of Food Writers Awards
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 21, 2010
    ISBN9781408811153
    Unavailable
    The Flavour Thesaurus
    Author

    Niki Segnit

    Niki Segnit's first book, The Flavour Thesaurus, won the André Simon Award for best food book and the Guild of Food Writers Award for best debut. It has been translated into fifteen languages. Her second book, Lateral Cooking, has been called 'a staggering achievement' by Nigella Lawson, the 'book of the decade' by Elizabeth Luard and 'astonishing and addictive' by Brian Eno. It has been translated into nine languages. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for The Flavour Thesaurus

    4/5

    21 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a great "cookbook" - although it is less of a cookbook and more of a series of musings on flavour pairings, A real inspiration for the kitchen (and cocktails!)
    • 4/5
      This is so much better than it should be. I thought it would be like a dictionary, a reference book, but it is an absolutely delightful read. As well as lots of information & suggestions, it is scattered with simple recipes, anecdotes & opinion. I loved it and will dip back in regularly.
    • 4/5
      Segnit took 99 flavours, and investigated how they pair together. The result tends towards free association, with a lot of name and place dropping. She knows a lot about food. Fascinating stuff. Some of the recipes are spelled out, others are more suggested, but they are all good starting points for a competent cookI would have had several different flavours on my list. In several cases I wanted to add tidbits, and some good pairings are missing. But this is her book, so she gets to do the picking and choosing.What is missing is a good recipe index. For example, there are several good ideas for ice creams, but no way to find them.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. It is part cookbook, part food history, part a glimpse into the head of the author. I had it checked out (from my library) but by page 25 I knew I needed to own it. If you like food read this book!

      I say I have finished this book because I have read every page but I think It will be awhile before I am ready to put it on the cookbook shelf. In a spare moment I pick it up and look through it or wonder if this flavor and that will go together and I check this book.
    • 5/5
      A very well written, innovative and extremely useful book. Very highly recommended for anyone who's interested in food.
    • 5/5
      Excellent source of ideas and inspiration. If you have one or two ingredients but no inspiration about what to do with them, you will probably find something here.Probably most useful if you already have a pretty good idea about basic cooking techniques, but I think beginning cooks can use it too.
    • 5/5
      A very useful reference, particularly for inspiring fresh combinations. Something like carrots and cumin is widely recognised but strawberry and tomato? That was a revelation!
    • 5/5
      I cannot even begin to express my passion for this book. I saw it a friend's house and was instantly overcome with covetousness. I got a copy for myself ASAP and read it straight through, like a novel. In fact, I was sorrier when this book ended than most of the new novels I'd read in the past five years. Many of the entries are like flash fiction, stories in miniature. Plus the sheer brilliant, arbitrary concept behind it. Why those flavors and not others? They reflect a British-with-global-outlook point of view. And why not? The wheel reminded me of premodern attempts to organize the world that look quaint to us now. Actually, this book gave me new respect for those ancient ways of organizing information--humans do work in intuitive ways that do not follow the strict lines of science. I was immensely gratified to find flavor combinations that I had already discovered though, on some level, thought I was odd for liking so much (e.g. carrot + juniper), and then found other combinations that I'd never thought of before that turned out to be sensational (asparagus + truffle, blackcurrant + almond, rhubarb + lamb, Sauternes + roquefort). One word of caution: I've found the proportions in the cake recipes to be unreliable. I'd suggest using the flavor combination but making a cake according to a recipe you already use.
    • 5/5
      This is a book that I've been dipping into at regular intervals for the last 18 months or so, and I am very sorry to have come to the end.The idea is simple: take a hundred different foods or flavour categories (such as 'chocolate', 'cumin', 'blue cheese') and describe how they work together, and why - with examples from cuisines ranging from French and Italian to Thai, Filipino, New England-ish and Curacao-an.The execution is brilliant, not least because of Segnit's ability to come up with unexpected but vivid and funny metaphors: overripe blackberries "dissolve in your grasp like a teenager's handshake", pairing asparagus and peanut is "as incongruous as playing darts in a ballgown".But more than this, Segnit is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, prepared to try all sorts of combinations, and - like any proper foodie should be - not at all snobbish about the food as long as it tastes good. As well as mentioning great meals she's had in internationally famous restaurants, she credits a pasty she ate in a French motorway cafe and even "one of my husband's signature dishes... simply empty a packet of salted peanuts into a bag of salt and vinegar crisps, clench the bag shut and shake. Mysteriously more delicious than it should be. Good with lager".She's also good at explaining why things work together. "Lamb and apricot both have an affinity with sweet spices, and while their sharpness cuts through the lamb's fattiness, the intense sweetness of the dried apricots throws that lamb, spices and almonds, all very sweet themselves, into a far more savoury light, making the meat taste meatier".Some of the entries include recipes, others include recommended brands or varietals of fruit or veg. My copy is now bristling with post-it notes and folded down pages. But I think that this is a book that could be enjoyed by someone without any intention of actually cooking, simply for the pleasure of the writing.
    • 4/5
      I originally borrowed this from the library, but found myself consulting it so often that I just had to buy it!
    • 5/5
      Love this little tome - chock full of interesting and even surprising flavor pairings. Endless reading for anyone who likes to read cookbooks or about cooking. Great gift idea for the gourmet, gourmand, and home cook in your life.
    • 5/5
      One of the most useful, carefully put together and completely enjoyable guides to the kitchen. UK version is somehow frighteningly better than the US edition.
    • 5/5
      One of the best food writing books I've read. I hadn't expected to want to read it cover to cover, but the descriptions of flavour combinations are so inspiring, the writing so amusing and there's so much interesting information that I didn't want to put it down when I started to browse.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book ! Full of neat facts & inspiring recipes.
    • 5/5
      This is a book about food, and has recipes in it, but it’s not a cookbook as one usually thinks of it. The author set out to classify all the possible flavor elements, describe them, and list the foods that contained them. She lists flavors such as roasted, meaty, mustardy, green & grassy, spicy, woodland, fresh fruity, citrusy, floral fruity, marine, and sulfurous- there are a huge number of possible flavors. Some I already knew; a few surprised me- I would have never guessed ginger root went under ‘citrusy’! The recipes are right in the thesaurus, put down as one would tell a friend how to create the dish rather than as a list of ingredients & quantities followed by instructions. The book includes an extensive bibliography, recipe index, ingredient index, and a regular index, so you can find anything easily. I wouldn’t recommend reading it straight through like I did (I was getting a bit restless by the ‘T’s, but what can I say, it was a library book) but rather to keep around for inspiration when faced with an ingredient and no ideas. It’s a fun read, though- it’s like listening to a friend describe what she’s eaten in places and how those things were made.
    • 5/5
      Excellent wit and recipes from a well-travelled British perspective. Excellent Croût Baron alternative and a handy flavour index in addition to the book index.