Flavour Thesaurus [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

This book has had stunning reviews in the British national newspapers, and I decided to buy it as a present for my husband, the chef in our household. On the tube home, I had a quick flick through it out of curiosity...and I haven't been able to part with it since.

The concept of `The Flavour Thesaurus' is utterly, utterly genius. Segnit has taken 99 basic flavours (mint, coriander, basil, strawberry etc) and researched 980 pairings of them. The result is part recipe-book, part food memoir, part flavour compendium. (The English Language geek in me feels compelled to point out that `thesaurus' is a misnomer - even similar flavours are NOT synonyms, jeez, though the book retains Roget's format).

Some of these pairings are familiar, such as Bacon & Egg, whilst others (Avocado & Mango, anyone?) are not. Now and then, Segnit provides a recipe; many of these sound incredible, and despite being the most amateur of cooks, I reckon even I could manage many of them. Under Melon & Rose, for example, she merely tells you to drown a cantaloupe melon in rosewater syrup, so that it tastes like "a fruity take on gulab jamun". Can you even read that sentence without wanting to dash to the supermarket for the ingredients?

Segnit also peppers the book with restaurant and dish recommendations - not in an insufferable shiny London lifestyle way, but in an enthusiastic, unpretentious, eating-out-with-your-mates "you really have to try this" way. If only she had supplied phone numbers so we could immediately make reservations.

The real revelation, though, is Segnit's language. Put simply, it's superb. Modern cookery writing seems to fall into three distinct camps: venomous snob, obsessed with tablecloths and ambience rather than the food itself; faux-geezer dahn the faux-pub; and flirty girl breathlessly enthusing over cake. With `The Flavour Thesaurus', Segnit may well have ended the careers of many of these over-hyped morons.

For a start, her prose is endlessly entertaining. Breezy erudition sits alongside hilarious similes. She is a whizz with description: when she tells you that cloves on their own taste the same as sucking on a rusty nail, you half suspect she conducted a comparative taste test just to be sure. She incorporates references so wide-ranging that both Sybil Kapoor and Velma from Scooby Doo rate a mention. Then there are her unmissable riffs: p 148 instructs us on that "essentially unitary quantity, fishandchips", and insists they must be served in "newsless newspaper" (never polystyrene boxes) and always eaten at a bus stop or "on the wall outside the petrol station". Read about Instinctos and you will be snorting with laughter (and visiting Pizza Hut at the first excuse). I have now read `The Flavour Thesaurus' from cover to cover, and still I have not finished.

I must temper my enthusiasm with a few tiny criticisms just to prove this is a genuine review. At nigh on £20 full price in the UK, it's expensive for a book without illustrations or photographs (though note Amazon has since discounted it). It assumes a certain level of prior culinary knowledge, which was sometimes frustrating to a novice like me, though it won't bother those with lots of cookbooks and greater competence in the kitchen. The integration of the recipes into the text - Elizabeth David and Simon Hopkinson style - can be irksome until you've got busy with post-it notes. The index needs further sub-division: `crab', for example, offers 11 entries in the index, but the recipe for crab cakes is easily missed under Butternut Squash & Bacon.

But these are such minor complaints given the enormous appeal of this book. My husband hovers over it constantly, anxious for his promised present. My brother and my best friend have already asked to borrow it. `The Flavour Thesaurus' is truly a classic in the making, and no foodie's bookshelf is going to be complete without it.

EDITED TO ADD, the husband (Latin geek) points out that 'thesaurus' means treasury. Well, whatever language you're using, this book is ACE.

I was keen to get my hands on this book as I was fed up with the idea that the hobby cook's role is one of 'follower of recipes'. The primary stated aim of the book was what you might imagine - to examine pairings of certain flavours. An admirable aim tackling a poorly represented segment of the market, and although I feel Ms. Segnit has made a fair start in this area, I'm not convinced she has achieved what she set out to do.

I will start with an example, because I can see from the number of people who have found the non-5-star reviews helpful that there are either a lot of fans of this book (itself worth bearing in mind - mine is only one opinion) or a lot of friends of Segnit. This first example, a full entry (i.e. not a snippet of one), is one that I picked out at random:

'Pea & Oily Fish: According to New England tradition, gardeners make sure to plant their peas by Patriot's Day (19 April), in the hope that they'll be ready for the traditional Independence Day feast of poached salmon, fresh green peas and new potatoes. Strawberry shortcake is served for dessert.'

Now, this is vaguely interesting. It tells me about a culinary tradition in a part of the world I have never visited. What it doesn't tell me is why that combination might be good, how good it is, what kinds of oily fish might go better with peas, what it is about the flavour of peas that might complement, offset, balance, overpower, augment or improve the flavour of the fish, etc. The book is full of this kind of entry.

However, for the sake of balance I would also like to mention that the book does occasionally present some very interesting information on certain ingredients and flavours: their history, what separates them from similar ingredients, etc. And once in a while you will come across an entry that lives up to the book's stated aim by providing details as to how ingredients combine and complement one another (the Cabbage & Shellfish is one I found at random). The latter are just that little bit too thin on the ground for me to give the book any higher than three stars.

Too often the book strays back into the territory of the cookery book, detracting from the focus on the gap in the market Segnit said needed filled and that inspired her to write the book. Take this full entry as an example (again, at random):

'Chestnut & Pear: Hold back some of the chestnuts you bought for the stuffing at Christmas and serve them on Boxing Day in a salad of chopped pear, the best bits of dark turkey meat and some dark green leaves.'

I agree with the other reviewers who said that the book is cheaply produced, though personally I'm not overly bothered about this (...yet; I might change my mind once it starts falling to pieces in a few months time). A tiny niggle is that the name is ill-considered: a thesaurus provides synonyms, not word combinations, so a flavour thesaurus would in theory provide ingredient alternatives. Anyway, that's taking the review into the realm of pedantry. (EDIT: Have just seen that another reviewer noticed this point about the naming, though I should point out that her husband's comment regarding the etymology is irrelevant, as the meaning in modern-day English is what counts.)

So, to sum up, for me personally it's hit and miss. The scope of the book's aims as set out in the introduction are telling: Segnit has aimed to do too much. She wanted to examine flavour combinations (but had to restrict herself to 99 ingredients), present interesting information and anecdotes, keep it readable rather than purely a reference book and offer recipe ideas (i.e. not 200ml of this, 500g of that, but like the Chestnut & Pear example above). That's far too broad an aim, and to my mind she falls short on all accounts. The result is a book not suited to cover-to-cover reading and not suited to being a consistently reliable reference work (too often you'll look a pairing up and end up thinking 'that doesn't really tell me anything'). More focus would have improved the book considerably.

My view is of course coloured by what I was looking for in the book: an analysis (albeit not scientific) of flavour pairings, on the basis of which I would learn more about why certain ingredients might work together. If this is what you're looking for you might be a little disappointed. If you want a chatty, slightly meandering read for dipping into when on the toilet, in the car or (perhaps) strapped to the wings of a biplane, then this is a quite interesting book.

I stumbled across Segnit's book while looking for a gift for a foodie friend, and loved it so much I bought my own. This is a wonderful book, a guide to flavour pairings grouped in categories such as "sulphurous" - onion & beetroot, broccoli & lemon - and "spicy" - basil & coconut, parsnip & walnut.

For the most part, the author offers ideas rather than recipes and - thus - this is not a book for the beginner cook but for those of us who like to experiment but already have a level of skill in the kitchen.

Perhaps the best part, though, is not the pairings but the humour ! What a funny, intelligent person - and I've added her immediately to the list of people I'd like to invite to dinner !

A great gift, but also a great read - and a terrific addition to your cookbook collection.