Customer Reviews

The Elements of Taste

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What a great time to be buying cookbooks! While we have for a long while had access to recipe collections and representations of the cuisine of various nationalities and popular restaurants, recently there has been a growing library of culinary tomes that give us the skills for producing creations of our own minds. Titles such as Sauces by James Peterson, the 1-2-3 series by Roxanne Gold, Culinary Artistry, Great Wine Made Simple, and now this book provide us with the information about tastes and combinations of flavors and textures to deconstruct, reconstruct, and just plain construct familiar and novel dishes.

The Elements of Taste provides a brief introduction to the authors' theory of flavor. They broadly group flavors into four categories based on the purpose they serve in a dish. Thus, Tastes That Push represent the well-known seasonings that we use to balance sauces, for example: Salty, Sweet, and Picante. Tastes That Pull represent those taste elements that highlight underlying flavors. The authors include here Tangy, Vinted, Floral/Herbal, Spiced Aromatic, Funky (pungents or musky flavors), and Bulby (what have commonly been called Aromatics such as onions and garlic). Taste Platforms represent the textures upon which dishes are built. These include Garden Platforms, Starchy ones, Oceanic ones, and Meaty ones (what the Japanese call umami). Finally, the fourth category is Tastes That Punctuate, basically bitters that stop tastes and cleanse the palate.

This model is very useful one. The authors seem not to have done their research in examining precursors to this model, and make little reference to other cuisines than the one they constructed for this book. They neglect to include several important items, especially in the Platforms section (breads, pastries, soy products, seitan, and mushrooms as a basis for other flavors, for example). There are similar, usually less complex models, already in the literature. Kunz and Kaminsky's model is more extensive than most, however. Surprisingly, they give little space in the book to theory. The majority of pages is devoted to recipes that demonstrate their combining philosophy. The authors do not describe how they took the elements of taste and mixed them to concoct these dishes. (A reader must refer to Culinary Artistry for such guidelines.) They do, however, provide tasting notes after each recipe that dissect the elements used in the dish.

The recipes are very complex, involving multiple steps and sub-recipes. Even a cook enjoying kitchen challenges would be hard pressed to prepare a full meal using this book alone-- one would run out of burners and pans before the dishes were complete. For example, the Honey Glazed Celeriac involves making the glaze, which is a reduction of wine and acids with sauteed aromatics sieved and kept warm, plus Celeriac slices baked and then broiled, plus a garnish of sauteed zucchini with chives, plus Ginger Curry Sauce, a mayonnaise of reduced wine and aromatics whisked with other ingredients.

The writing is an interesting, not entirely successful juxtaposition of aw-shucks, down-home attitude, sophisticated epicurean philosophy, and fancy foods. The recipes are heavy on the Meaty and Oceanic food platforms, making this definitely a carnivore's cookbook. Produce usually stands as garnish and accompaniment to the flesh. In the end, the most special part of the book represent a few precious pages and is underdeveloped. Perhaps a follow-up volume will expound on this interesting culinary model.

Not only is it full of WONDERFUL recipes, it is also full of a lot of taste commentary and other information that will help you to design your own wonderful recipes. If you like to cook, or like to eat, this is the book for you!!!!

This is an especially great book for meat-eaters, who have over 70 amazing recipes to choose from. It's not so great for vegetarians (25 recipes), pretty poor for vegans (9 or 10 recipes), and downright bad for "no-honey" vegans (5 recipes). Still, the book is about more than just recipes: it is about taste, and the factors of taste.

Please note that the recipe count above does NOT include items in the chef's larder: a section filled with 43 recipes for things used to make other things, such as ginger confit, bourbon mustard brine, floral herbal aioli, tomato fennel broth, almond milk broth, bulby citrus butter topping, orange spice mix, cranberry glaze, and crispy rice flake breading.

All in all, an excellent book. One of the things I dig about it most is that it considers TEXTURE as a part of taste, and this is apparent in the recipes. The very first recipe in the book, PAN ROASTED SALMON WITH AROMATIC SALTED HERBS, had me convinced. The thing that really says something about this particular recipe is that both my father and I like it. My father adores salmon; I can't stand the stuff, but I like this. Seriously: try the recipe even if you don't like salmon, and especially if you do; it's easier than it looks and tastier than it sounds. Either way, I believe you will be pleasantly suprised.

Each recipe includes a section on taste, called "taste notes". These help you to hone in on the different tastes in the mix, and why they taste the way they do together.

The concept is interesting, but I have to say that the recipes could have used a bit more testing and/or proofreading. Almost everyone I've tried has been delicious (5 good to 1 bad), almost all have needed some tweaking in quantities.
The strawberry soup with champagne ice is fantastic, but makes more than twice as much ice as is needed.
The Italian Sausage with Lager Sauce and Apple Bouillon is delicious, but the Lager Sauce has the same consistency as the Bouillon (next time I'll be drastically reducing the amount of lager in the sauce).
One recipe description talks about how the flavor of the almonds interact with the other ingredients but there are no almonds in the recipe!
None of these problems are insurmountable, and I love the complexity of flavor that he layers into the dishes, but a little more testing would have removed a fair amount of frustration.

But it was really worth the price just for that strawberry soup...

i have been frustrated when trying to learn more about, i have to say it, the elements of taste. what makes a dish taste good? what ingredients compliment each other, which do not? i am a novice cook but i have reached the point where i want to be able to understand why i am cooking something the way the recipe calls. or why i am using certain ingredients. i am shocked at the lack of books out there about this topic. if you want to learn to appreciate and develop your taste buds, this is a prefect starting point.

the book discusses the many elements of taste. it then delves into recipes specific to those aspects of taste. and then, the best part, it sums up what you should look for when eating the dish (salty taste at first, giving way to sweetness from the aroma of caramelized onions, the texture, etc. etc., then the finish).

this book explains taste, allows you to create a dish, then explains what the dish does to your mouth. i am very satisfied with the book and believe this is an excellent launching pad for me to learn to create my own dishes.

i would also recommend "culinary artistry". it is more textbook-like, however, it has a HUGE appendix telling you what foods compliment one another.

I was excited to first see this book, because there is so little in the way of serious yet readable analysis of taste and flavor experiences.

Unfortunately, this turned out - against my expectations - to be long on recipes and short on analysis. Mostly, it's a book of recipes with an interesting organizational twist.

Kunz's classification of taste is just that, a classification, and little more. I don't feel that he has unearthed any new principles or theories that help chefs create new dishes, because it offers only superficial "rules" about what flavor combinations do or do not work. Beyond being a clever filing system, it offers little more than a language for discussing food, and not a very good one at that.

If you want a book of interesting recipes, this is a reasonable source. However, my kitchen is full of such books, and I don't find recipes very useful. If you want new food ideas, check out Charlie Trotter's series, which is more imaginative, has fabulous photographs, and is filled with detailed and evocative writing that is probably more valuable than what you'll find here.

I've read the reviews to date and beg to differ: this "home cook" likes the book; it is not just for "foodies". This book is like "adult education"--the teacher may not be perfect but there is much to learn and to think about and to react to in "Elements of Taste." The authors teach some basic principles for balancing flavors, for adding texture and an undaunting amount of complexity, using some very interesting sample dishes to illustrate their points.

Readers who just like fine dining can use the book's approach to step up their appreciation of good restaurant food. Home cooks like me, who may be ready to improvise on "set" recipes can find a way to think about adding flavor to a dish when "something seems to be missing." If you have ever thought that you liked the basic ingredients in a dish but..."I want to do it my way," this book can extend your ability to change recipes to suit your liking. Just the idea of thinking about and looking for layers of flavors is an important step forward for many of us and this book makes a very useful beginning for that.

Cooks who don't like to think about ingredients might do better to look elsewhere since they are not really looking for inspiration or extension of technique. If you are ready to reach out a bit; just want to produce a "different" dish for your family or for a holiday or for a dining group of friends, many of these recipes will do very well. The book represents good value, giving more than its price would indicate.

There have not been many books that have thoughtfully approached the subject of creating flavors. Dornenburg and Page's Culinary Artistry (published in 1996) is an extraordinary book on this topic, but The Elements of Taste by Kunz and Kaminsky is a welcome and thought-provoking addition to the few available books in this genre. One can only hope there will be more to come!

Magnificent book about cooking. Instead of fancy recipes nobody can cook, it discusses the different flavours we can distinguish. Similar to component tasting in wine, Kunz and Kaminsky introduce a system to classify food in a mouthwatering fashion.

The thousands of typographical errors in the electronic version of this book render it virtually unintelligible. Do not waste your money on this.

I am a huge fan of Gray Kunz and was worried at first that many of these recipes would take days to prepare - but not at all. The first recipe I tried was the oven-crisped chicken with maple vinegar sauce and it is by far my favorite chicken dish i've even tasted or made (followed closely by Cook's Illustrated's fried chicken). I also love to read cookbooks and, if you do as well, you will see that Kunz actually has quite a sense of humor. The title of this book is perfect given that his recipes have so many flavor profiles and textures. I am also a sucker for showing pictures of the finished dish next to the recipe (a la Barefoot Contessa) and he has provided beautiful pictures. He also gives recipes for sauces and glazes that you can use in your own recipes. I highly recommend this book - you won't be disappointed!