Flavor goes way beyond “tasty” or “not tasty.”
It’s sensation, it’s chemistry, it’s emotion, it’s art. And understanding how flavor works is the quickest way to become a better, more creative, and more confident cook.
Arielle Johnson is the kind of insatiable learner who explores flavor from every angle, as a scientist, at some of the world’s best restaurants, and in her home kitchen. In Flavorama, she shares what she’s learned with the rest of us, distilling chemistry, sensation, and craft into a few fundamental laws and patterns that are as simple to learn as they are powerful to use.
Complete with nearly a hundred recipes— including crash courses in herb sauces and underappreciated spices, ideas for boosting umami in cacio e pepe and fermenting pumpkin seed miso, a four-hundred-year-old algorithm for dressing a salad, and much more—Flavorama is an indispensable, irreverent guide to the won- derful world of flavor.
Unlock the flavor potential of your ingredients and develop the flexibility and intuition of a top chef, whether you’re a by-the-book baker, keeper of passed-down family recipes, or weekend experimenter, or you just want to get dinner on the table.
Arielle Johnson
is a flavor scientist who advises some of the top chefs, restaurants, and bars in the world. She received her Ph.D. from UC Davis; cofounded the fermentation lab at the restaurant Noma in Copenhagen; served as the science officer for Alton Brown’s beloved television show Good Eats; and was a director’s fellow at the MIT Media Lab. Named by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants as one of the people shaping the future of gastronomy, she has lectured on food and science at SXSW, Tales of the Cocktail, WIRED, and the Harvard Science and Cooking Lecture Series, and her writing on the subject has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Lucky Peach. She lives in New York City and currently serves as Science Director of Noma Projects and co-founder of Retronasal Industries.