Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor

A flavor scientist known for work in places such as Noma’s fermentation lab and for lectures at MIT, SXSW, and Tales of the Cocktail, Arielle Johnson has a crisply developed skill for explaining the complex elements which affect how humans perceive flavor. It’s impressively on display in this significant new book.

Flavorama is an accessible, thorough exposure to both overarching principles and the molecular nitty-gritty of how our sense of taste and smell interact, how building blocks of flavor can be combined, how flavor can be intensified and transmitted, and even how it can be created through cooking processes rather than through additional ingredients.

Johnson revels in details and examples, telling you to oil salad greens before salting them for more lively saltiness (salt dissolves poorly in oil). She points out that glutamate, which is responsible for our sensation of umami, is much more powerful in the presence of ribonucleotides, and helpfully provides a list of ribonucleoitide powerhouses.

Throughout Flavorama, Johnson provides simple recipes demonstrating the principles she elucidates, some of them seeming to defy cautious common sense. But that's why you’re paying attention to someone who knows so, so much.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.