The Vegetarian Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity with Vegetables, Fruits, Grains, Legumes, Nuts, Seeds, and More, Based on the Wisdom of Leading American Chefs

This is a great book. It is, however, not a recipe book and was not designed to be one. The author's goal is to provide information on individual ingredients, including both useful tips (e.g., the two different flavor profiles dulse can develop based on whether it is sauteed or simmered) and flavor pairings for each particular ingredient recommended by at least one consulted chef. This allows you to start with your ingredients of choice, select the pairings until you arrive at a combination that you've never tried before, and obtain a result that's very likely to be good or maybe even great (provided that you already have the general knowledge/skill/experience to determine which proportions and cooking techniques to use). From there, you can continue to refine your result and develop it further if you're dissatisfied with the first iteration.I think that I have fairly good experience and intuition when it comes to creating new recipes/flavor pairings, and I have successfully done so in the past and was complimented by different people who tried my inventions. I have also ruined many ingredients in the process and discovered some very subpar pairings. To a certain extent, this is inevitable and should be treated or even celebrated as a learning experience; but being able to hear the advice of experienced professionals is always a boon, and this book is, essentially, a book of advice from people who have experimented with flavor pairings for years.

Ever come home from the Farmers Market with a basket of vegetables, some of which you may never have tried and multiple herbs or opened up the refrigerator to find various seemingly unrelated vegetables and have no idea how to put together a meal? This book is liberating! Gone is the sinking feeling of being stuck because you don’t have every specific item listed in a recipe. With this book you can instead find ways to make magic out of the foods that you have and put an end to feeling recipe bound. You can open up a page for an ingredient and see all the other foods that it mixes well with and even find favored flavor pairings. Then you can cross reference the ingredient to others you have on hand as well. But note that this is NOT a recipe book but instead a resource for flavor combinations. This book is encyclopedic and comprehensive and has made my time in the kitchen not only easier but also much more enjoyable and opened up the world of cooking for me.

This is one of my favorite books - cookbook or other. The concept of a flavor bible is fantastic for those of us that follow recipes lightly and make lots of substitutes. So easy to create flavorful meals based on what is available in kitchen or garden. Have a bunch of kale? Kale reference shows the flavorings that go best with kale and are scaled by significance with bold and capital letters (like garlic, sea salt, green onions, dried cranberries, and lemon). So many top chef curated dish combinations listed too. Honestly, this has transformed my cooking to a whole new level - even though I'm a home cook with limited time and resources. This is a fantastic cooking reference, but the best part is the beginning part of the book where the author explains her journey of interest in vegetarian foods. If that's not encouragement enough, she highlights the professional interest in vegetarian cuisine by top chefs in the field. Personally, I adopted vegan diet last year for health reasons. Switching to a new way of eating and cooking while keeping great flavors was very difficult. Vegetarian Food Bible was a great guide in the wilderness of new foods. I no longer feel like a food weirdo after reading of so many highly regarded food professionals switching to plant based preferences. I was so mesmerized by this book when I first got it. After poring through it for months, I still am. 5 stars is not enough for the Vegetarian Flavor Bible. I highly recommend it.

The difference between a cook and a chef is that a cook knows how to follow a recipe, while a chef understands why. This book is not written for cooks. You will not find a single recipe within the pages of this tome. Instead, you will find hundreds of charts listing ingredients and flavors that pair well together, helping the chef to invent their own recipes. The book also discusses concepts such as taste (sweet, sour, bitter, salty), function (warming or cooling), volume (quiet, loud), and weight (heavy, light).This book is the follow up to The Flavor Bible. While the original covers all kinds of foods, including meat, this book focuses on vegetarian foods. It is important to note this book is NOT vegan, as it includes eggs, dairy products and honey. However, even though the book omits meat, it is not smaller than its predecessor, as it includes additional foods not found in the original.If you are a vegetarian, and love to create food, I'd highly recommend this book. If you are an omnivore, I'd recommend buying both! There is enough new material in this book to make it well worth purchasing in addition to the original.

I've always wondered how chefs knew how to put together flavor pairings. (ie Iron Chef and Chopped). As I move into a more plant based lifestyle, I was so happy to find this book. Now that I'm getting used to more home prep of our meals and the need for variety, I feel this resource will be invaluable.Apart from the way the book arrived. The binding came apart as soon as I opened it the first time. It is a huge book and I would think that better consideration should have been given to the binding used. Should have been more sturdy, especially when you consider how often it will be used as a resource.. In the process of having it replaced. Here's to hoping this will not repeat because I am looking forward to much use of this resource. Thus the reason for the 4-star vs 5-star review; because I feel that the information it contains far outweighs this initial lack of quality in the physical presentation of the book. I'll update my review if needed.I beg to differ with one comment here that there is no table of contents or index to the book. There is, just in a different format. There are only four 'chapters".....an Introduction, Vegetarianism Through the Ages, Creating a New Compassionate Cuisine and Flavor Matchmaking. The starting pages for each chapter are given and then if you look at the front panel of the book, it is slightly colored coded so that you can easily find chapters 1-3... As far as the index is concerned, the entire flavor matching section is an index......the alphabetical listings for the various topics are also at the front panel of the book. Just turn to the A, B, C etc to find the food item you are looking for. I prefer that to having to look at a rear index, find the page and turn to it. I think this is a nice feature.There is a very good video review of the book here in the reviews. Suggest you watch it.Overall, I feel I will enjoy using Vegetarian Flavor Bible. You get info on the origins of the foods seasons, flavor, nutritional profile, volume, what it is, calories, protein,(if applicable) cooking techniques, botanical relatives, and flavor affinities....and more....I look forward to getting my replacement copy so I can begin using it on a massive scale.Hope this review is helpful.

I love the new version!! I'm a vegetarian, so I'm probably biased, but you can pack so much more info in when you leave out the meat things! It's definitely quite a bit thicker than the original even with excluding meat. That being said, I talked to one of my friends and did a bunch of comparison spot checks while she waiting for her copy, and even for a meat-eater foodie, she was suitably impressed with all the extra info. Extra foods, varieties of a given item, and spices listed that weren't in the original, and a lot more flavor suggestions in the existing entries. One of the sections I'm looking forward to trying out is the salad dressing flavor combo list. I would much rather have a combination quick reference chart for things like that than flip through a bunch of pages in a regular recipe book!It also includes color coding on things to indicate which food you should be emphasizing in your diet, and even more exciting, a color coded alphabetizing "tab" on the edges of the pages so you can quickly find the letter you're looking for. (It doesn't stick out or have a cut-out like dictionaries, but you can see the color blocks when the book is closed.)The only criticism I would have is that they left out the alcohol entries, but it still gives alcohol in the results, like finding tequila under limes. But I guess that's encouragement to buy the drink pairing book too...

My favorite new tool for preparing more healthful but delicious dishes!I purchased the kindle version so that I could have the index on my phone for researching ingredients on the go. I often shop at farmers' markets so it's almost always a surprise when I get there. This book allows me to quickly look up veggies and other items that look good that day, so I can easily pair with other flavors and also get a sense of how I might need to prepare them.I am not, by any means, a chef-- but I have gotten some rave reviews from family and friends on dishes I've prepared using this book as a guide.I also really love the history of vegetarianism in first part of the book. Plus there are so many tips on where to eat out at veggie-centric restaurants in different cities.HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Absolutely love this book. I love to cook but following recipes is not exactly my thing. I prefer to create my own dishes. With this book in my kitchen there are endless possibilities for creating new flavors. You just pick your main ingredient, look it up in the book and have a list of other veggies, fruits, spices, etc that will pair well with it.I read reviews before buying this book. A lot of ppl complain about the the lack of index. The whole book is alphabetically organized, there really is no need for an index.It truelly is a Flavor Bible :)

If you love composing your own recipes, this book is a huge inspiration on how to match ingredients and find new combinations. You will not find any traditional recipes in the book, but advices on how to match your ingredients.The intro is also a good read, but not the important part. Whenever the season for a vegetable starts, I scan the matching ingredients, gets inspiration and starts to plan recipies.

Questa enciclopedia dei sapori vegetariani è un must have per chi, come me, non sa cucinare ma vuole imparare ad abbinare bene i sapori. Sono vegana da poco più di un anno e voglio imparare a cucinare come si deve, perciò ho acquistato questo libro per trovare una fonte di ispirazione. Sono a dir poco soddisfatta! Oltre ai suggerimenti per accostare bene i sapori dei cibi, ci sono anche spiegazioni dettagliate dal punto di vista nutrizionale. Consigliatissimo anche per un regalo a un amico o un familiare vegetariano o vegano!

This book is essential for any vegetarian cook, or any omnivore who wants more information on creating veggie-friendly flavour combinations. My daughter and I, both keen vegetarian cooks, got this excellent book for Christmas, and we refer to it constantly. It does not have recipes, but instead is set up in encyclopedia format, with a huge variety of vegetarian ingredients given separate entries, with each entry listing information about that food, best flavour combinations and sometimes an interesting anecdote about its use and history. The book is intelligently laid out to allow the user to easily access the wealth of information within, and it is enhanced by beautiful photographs by the author's husband. This book has quickly earned its place on my "most valuable food books" shelf beside the iconic Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.

This is great if you want to get ideas about flavour combinations because it has thousands of them. I love having it to look at for ideas. It doesn't have recipes. It's a bit pricey though so make sure it's really worth it to you.

I've really only taken a star off because it took ages for the book to be delivered, and when it was delivered the book was damaged and I had to return it. However, the new one came within a few days and was in perfect condition.I think this is an amazing reference guide to mixing and matching ingredients. There aren't really any recipes in it, just ideas for them, so I would recommend this book to people who already know their way around the kitchen and like looking for inspiration.