The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook by Niki Segnit.

My mum gifted this book to me as belated birthday present. Yay!

The book has a beautiful hard cover,  silver foil embossed title, pretty pink edged pages and is a surprisingly lightweight tome. If you are a print geek like me, it will make your eyes widen and your heart flutter.

The entries read like you’re reading a friend’s letters or notes on food. A knowledgeable friend for sure, but it’s a far cry from any thesaurus I’ve ever read (none, actually). It’s easy language to digest and not too different to reading entries from a foodie’s blog.

I didn’t think it would be a book I would read from start to finish, but more like a cooking companion or resource book to inspire. But here I am with a bookmark in the thesaurus, attempting to read it from front to back.

I can see this being particularly helpful when you have an overabundance of a certain ingredient. Using The Flavor Thesaurus, you can see what other ingredients it plays well with to get a bit of variation.

An online wiki type version of this would be amazing. Where readers can contribute their own pairings with photos. Drool!