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.

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...

This is a comprehensive book....the name bible is fitting everything that you need to know is contained in these pages. I will find myself making many, many, many recipes using this book. I'm happy with my purchase.

As a fanatic foodie, this and The Flavor Bible are my go to books for trying to come up with new recipes. I absolutely love it, and reference it practically daily.

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.