Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook With Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings [Paperback]

Alice Arndt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560220325 | ISBN-13: 978-1560220329 | Publication Date: July 21, 1999 | Edition: 1

A unique work dealing in-depth with flavor and flavorings!

With the increasing popularity of regional and ethnic cuisines, cooks frequently encounter recipes calling for unfamiliar seasonings. Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook with Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings serves as a guide to identifying, locating, selecting, storing and using these exotic ingredients. Well-established flavorings are not neglected as Seasoning Savvy also brings new insights into cooking with these old favorites.

No other book supplies so much information about so many herbs and spices as Seasoning Savvy. This book discusses over 100 herbs, spices, flavorings, and blends in detail, describing their origins and how to select, store, and use them--and what the reader might substitute if a seasoning is unavailable. You will also discover the flavor role of foods such as almonds, citrus fruits, and coconuts. Not a cookbook, Seasoning Savvy is a powerful compliment for every recipe and will help you get the most out of the seasonings you use to flavor your food. Within Seasoning Savvy you will explore:

• how to select and use the right seasonings for a recipe and how to tell if a spice is fresh
  
• drying, freezing, toasting, chopping, measuring, and storing herbs and spices
  
• culinary practices in the use of flavorings from chocolate and vanilla to amchur and mastic
  
• flavor combinations, including both well-known and exotic blends, flavored oils and vinegars, compound butters and seasoned salts
  
• how to reduce the intensity of some seasonings such as garlic and chili peppers
  
• an examination of the nature of taste of flavor along with a history of spice usage in the US
  
• brewing teas and tisanes
  
• savvy culinary tips, such as polishing a copper a bowl with lemon juice and salt, or storing a lump of asafetida in the spice cupboard to discourage insects
  
  Seasoning Savvy's tips and techniques will help you bring out the flavor in your food and teach you how to use seasonings to achieve the tastes you like. With this vital book, you will transform your cooking from satisfactory to sensational!
  

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Seasoning Savvy is the reference book every cook needs--a comprehensive and clearly written compendium of everything worth knowing about ingredients for flavoring food. Packed into a mere 265 pages (18 of which are black-and-white photos), Alice Arndt, a food historian, teacher, and writer, presents 87 individual items, 36 seasoning blends, plus other flavorings, like vinegars, salt, and sugar.

Each entry--from Ajowan, an Indian spice with pungent, thyme-like flavor that is also known as bishop's weed, omam, or netch azmud (botanical name Trachyspermum ammi), to Woodruff, the herb that gives German May wine its grassy and vanilla notes, and from Advieh, an Iranian spice mix, to Quatre Épices, the variable combination used to spice French pâtés--is ample without being esoteric. These entries describe how an herb or spice looks and tastes (Winter Savory is like a peppery, pungent thyme while Summer Savory is milder) and how the item is used in its native tradition. Arndt then suggests other possibilities. Hence savory, or sariette, flavors French goat cheese but would be good in a three-bean salad, and it reduces the odor of cabbage during cooking. She also recommends substitutions, suggesting that oregano can replace cilantro, and vanilla extract might replace Kewra Water, a floral Indian flavoring, when necessary.

Because the taste of food is affected by more than the aromatic compounds added by spices and herbs, Arndt explains how heat, cold, and other variables influence our perceptions of flavor. In sum, she makes Seasoning Savvy a user-friendly reference book that cooks of all levels, from beginners to professionals, will value. --Dana Jacobi

Review

"Alice Arndt's passion for the flavors that spice up our lives is felt on every page of this indispensable reference work. . . . Arndt draws the reader into an exciting world of flavors. This book belongs on every library shelf, but should also be brought into the kitchen. . . . Provides a comprehensive list of seasonings and offers reassuring advice on their culinary uses so that even novice cooks can use flavorings like asafetida with aplomb. . . . IDENTIFIES THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT SPICE MIXTURES AND GIVES RECIPES TO FOR RECREATING THEM . . . A WONDERFUL BOOK." -- Darra Goldstein, PhD, Author, The Vegetarian Hearth, A Taste of Russia, The Georgian Feast, Williamstown, Massachusetts

"Well-written and wonderfully comprehensive exploration of the world of herbs, spices and aromatics-at once authorative and easy to use. There's inspiration and good advice for everyone from cooks and restaurant chefs to culinary historians and food scholars." -- Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Author of The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 1 edition (July 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560220325
• ISBN-13: 978-1560220329
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #179,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Cooking by Ingredient > Herbs, Spices & Condiments

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook with herbs, Spices and Other Fl, April 25, 2000

By 

Tami Robinson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook With Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings (Paperback)

A useful reference book for those who are fascinated with cooking with spices. While the table of contents may seem like many spices are not listed, the thorough index listings cross reference to the alternative names. Individual descriptions of herbs give all the names, list substitutions, characteristics and the types of food suggested for each herb or spice. Interesting suggestions will encourage a cook to try new food/spice combinations.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful guide for both novice and experienced cooks., June 5, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook With Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings (Paperback)

Seasoning Savvy is a wonderful guide to cooking with herbs and seasonings that goes beyond the usual recipe collection, discussing over 100 herbs, spices and flavorings from the history of their cultivation and use to how readers can make wise substitutions. No recipes in the usual sense; but plenty of lore on how to use herbs and spices wisely.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Make it Taste Good, September 7, 2008

By 

F. Parker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seasoning Savvy: How to Cook With Herbs, Spices, and Other Flavorings (Paperback)

Eat less. Make it taste great. Here is a good reference that helps you get the most taste.