It’s Sunday, cookbook review day, though strictly not a review as such as this week’s book, Niki Segnit @nikisegnit’s 10 year anniversary edition of her multi-award winning #TheFlavourThesaurus, needs no review as you have championed it (trade secret, a new edition after 10 years means that the publishers believe there’s still sales life in it, and money to be made, it’s not done in an altruistic manner) and rightly so. I remember when it came out an editor dismissing it – I hadn’t seen a copy – with, “it’s very lightweight, just full of googleable facts, it will be forgotten in no time”. How wrong they were, and foolishly so, as there are so many good reasons why this book above many others is still in print today, relevant and exciting.
Pros: #TheFlavourThersaurus is based on a brilliant idea that has proven even more valuable as the years go by: it’s a list of ingredients with suggestions on what other flavours you might combine them with to form something delicious and interesting. It’s fair to say it’s based around a European selection of ingredients and tastes, so there’s room for more books to bring in the rest of the world, but even if you’re extremely accomplished in the western kitchen there will still be surprises and ideas you’ll take from this book. I’ve opened randomly at page 83, “Cumin” and come across “Cumin + Apricot + Camembert”, well yes, I can taste that in my mind and already think about how the three would bake in a tart, or melt together into a baguette. Now a special word for the index, complied by Hilary Bird, it’s so close to perfect that in may indeed be perfect and I’m not being generous enough.
Cons: It’s a pretty marvellous book, hard to find fault with. You are entering Segnit’s taste, and that is the scope of the author’s whim. To me the flavours combine very well, but this may also reflect my age and middle class palate. For another generation our flavours might appear less surprising.
Overall: If you spend time and read #TheFlavourThersaurus from cover to cover you will, I promise, become a wiser and more imaginative cook. Definitely buy one copy for yourself and give one to a friend, they will thank you for this.
