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Andrew Dornenburg

Karen Page

What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers Hardcover – Illustrated, September 1, 2006

by Karen Page (Author), Andrew Dornenburg (Author), Michael Sofronski (Contributor)

603 ratings

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Winner of the 2007 IACP Cookbook of the Year Award

Winner of the 2007 IACP Cookbook Award for Best Book on Wine, Beer or Spirits

Winner of the 2006 Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award

Winner of the 2006 Gourmand World Cookbook Award - U.S. for Best Book on Matching Food and Wine

Prepared by a James Beard Award-winning author team, "What to Drink with What You Eat" provides the most comprehensive guide to matching food and drink ever compiled--complete with practical advice from the best wine stewards and chefs in America. 70 full-color photos.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bulfinch
Publication date

September 1, 2006
Dimensions

7.9 x 1.4 x 10.3 inches
ISBN-10

0821257188
ISBN-13

978-0821257180
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dornenburg and Page, authors of Becoming a Chef and Culinary Artistry, demystify the challenge of food and beverage pairing in this exhaustive, accessible resource. Believing that the best matches create peak experiences, the authors consult with the world's most discriminating palates, who see food and drink as inseparable. With stories from such noted chefs as Daniel Boulud, Traci Des Jardins and Patrick O'Connell and a host of top sommeliers, this comprehensive collection provides a wealth of guidelines for pairings, not only by specific food, but by food type, time of day, characteristics, season and personal mood. From fast food to ethnic cuisine, they include unlikely entries such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (Pinot Noir, Gewürztraminer), oxtails (Barolo), moussaka (Retsina, Rioja), potato chips (beer, champagne) and saag paneer (Pinot Gris). While focusing primarily on wine, the authors include matches for a variety of other beverages, including tea, water, coffee, beer and spirits, and offer the pairings in reverse—what to serve if you've already selected your beverage. This encyclopedic collection is highly recommended for those who give serious thought to the flavor of each dish. 70 full-color photographs. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

2007 IACP Cookbook of the Year Award
2007 IACP Cookbook Award - Best Book on Wine, Beer or Spirits
2006 Georges Duboeuf "Wine Book of the Year" Award
2006 Gourmand World Cookbook Award --Book Awards

Andrew and Karen killed it with this book...I am pretty darn impressed...It rocks, it really does...A killer, killer book. (Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV)

From the Back Cover

Entertainment Weekly bestseller
Los Angeles Times bestseller
International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) "Cookbook of the Year" Award
Georges Duboeuf "Wine Book of the Year" Award
Gourmand World Cookbook Award

Daniel Boulud, chef-restaurateur: "What to Drink with What You Eat is a unique recipe, combining the authors' creativity, expertise, scholarship, and great love of all good food and drink. The respect and admiration that food professionals have for them gives them access to a wonderful depth of knowledge and experience that they bring to life in their work. Karen and Andrew might just be the ultimate culinary-literary pairing!"

Jose Andres, chef-restaurateur: "In compiling the wisdom of wine and beverage experts, Karen and Andrew have done an amazing service for all lovers of good food."
Bill Daley, wine columnist, Chicago Tribune: "One of the winning vintages in this year's crop of wine books."
Linda Kulman, National Public Radio: "As with their previous books, this husband-wife team has researched their subject exhaustively...to put together the definitive pairing guide...As easy to use as a thesaurus."
David Leite, LeitesCulinaria.com: "Destined to become a classic."
Eric Ripert, chef-partner, Le Bernardin: "The most exciting and comprehensive guide to wine pairing that I have ever seen."
Ellen Rose, "Good Food," KCRW/National Public Radio: "Astounding...Brilliant."
Jason Tesauro and Phineas Mollod, Sunday Paper: "A be-all, end-all masterwork...An impossibly comprehensive and utterly readable book that belongs among the greats in any epicure's reference shelf."
Robert Whitley, Copley News Service: "The world's greatest book on the subject."

About the Author

Recently cited as two of a dozen "international culinary luminaries" along with Patrick O'Connell, Alice Waters, and Tim and Nina Zagat (in Relais & Chateaux's L'Ame et L'Esprit magazine), the award-winning authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have written several groundbreaking books chronicling and celebrating America's culinary revolution. What to Drink with What You Eat,Becoming a Chef, Dining Out, and The New American Chef were all winners of or finalists for Gourmand World Cookbook, IACP, and/or James Beard book awards. In March 2007, Page and Dornenburg were named weekly wine columnists for the Washington Post. Karen Page is a graduate of Northwestern and Harvard Business School. Andrew Dornenburg studied with the legendary Madeleine Kamman at the School for American Chefs and has cooked professionally in top restaurants in New York City. Their Web site is www.becomingachef.com.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bulfinch; Illustrated edition (September 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0821257188
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0821257180
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.9 x 1.4 x 10.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #70,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5 in Wine Pairing
- #68 in Wine (Books)
- #97 in Alcoholic Spirits

Customer Reviews:
603 ratings

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Andrew Dornenburg
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"Karen Page, along with her husband Andrew Dornenburg, has written some of the most important books on food and cooking."
--Evan Kleiman, host of "Good Food" on KCRW, Southern California's flagship NPR affiliate
"The definitive food writing duo....Perhaps the most influential and important of all food writers working today."
--Jennifer English, James Beard Award-winning radio host, KLAV Radio
"I think THE FLAVOR BIBLE should be in every kitchen today....A perfect book....Beautifully written...I take my hat off."
--Chef Michel Roux, of the first Michelin three-star restaurant in Britain
Author KAREN PAGE and photographer ANDREW DORNENBURG's latest collaboration is KITCHEN CREATIVITY (Little, Brown; Oct. '17), which picks up on its study of culinary creativity where the duo's groundbreaking books CULINARY ARTISTRY (1996) and THE FLAVOR BIBLE (2008) left off. The book has been described as a "groundbreaking exploration of culinary genius" that reveals "the surprising strategies great chefs use to do what they do best" and "a paradigm-shifting guide to inventive cooking (without recipes!) that will inspire you to think, improvise, and cook like the world's best chefs."
Dornenburg photographed and Page wrote THE VEGETARIAN FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown; 2014), which the Los Angeles Times named one of the top five best-reviewed cookbooks of the year, based on a study of 300+ media conducted by EatYourBooks.com. Other media citing it as one of the year's best cookbooks included Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Foodista.com, Food & Wine, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, The Globe & Mail, Houston Chronicle, KCRW's "Good Food," Miami Herald, Philadelphia Daily News, Tablehopper.com, Washington Post, and WBEZ's "Chewing the Fat." It was recognized as the year's Best Vegetarian Cookbook in the United States at the 2015 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
The couple co-authored THE FOOD LOVER'S GUIDE TO WINE (Little, Brown; Nov. '11), which was honored in March 2012 at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris as "Best in the World" in its category and in April 2012 as a Nautilus Book Award winner. It was also one of only 16 books published in 2011 to be named a Finalist for both the 2012 James Beard Book Award and the 2012 IACP Book Award. It was named the "#1 Wine Book of 2011" based on 195 year-end "Best of" lists (including those of the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, LA Weekly, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Vancouver Sun, and the Wall Street Journal) compiled by the website EatYourBooks.
Page and Dornenburg's groundbreaking 2008 book THE FLAVOR BIBLE has been cited as one of the best cookbooks of the past 100 years. Winner of both the 2009 James Beard Book Award for Best Book: Reference and Scholarship and the 2010 Nautilus Book Award, it was featured on both "Today" and "Good Morning America" as one of the year's best cookbooks, as well as in an eight-page feature in Oprah Winfrey's O magazine. In 2011, THE FLAVOR BIBLE was named by Forbes columnist Alex Munipov as one of the "10 Best Cookbooks in the World" of the past century. In 2012, Cooking Light magazine named THE FLAVOR BIBLE to its list of "The Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years," and in 2013, Powell's Books named it one of the "20 Best All-Around Cookbooks." eCookbooks.com named it "One of the most important cookbooks of the past 30 years: 1980-2010," and Amazon.com's cookbook editor named it "One of the best Cookbooks of the Decade: 2000-2009."
Their book WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT was named the 2007 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) "Cookbook of the Year" and Georges Duboeuf "Wine Book of the Year" as well as winner of a Gourmand World Cookbook Award. An iPhone app based on the book is available on iTunes.
Page and Dornenburg's other titles, which have cumulatively sold hundreds of thousands of copies, include BECOMING A CHEF, winner of the 1996 James Beard Book Award for Best Writing on Food; CULINARY ARTISTRY, a favorite of professional chefs and serious home cooks globally and the first known reference on flavor compatibility; DINING OUT, a 1999 Finalist for both the IACP and James Beard Awards and a winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Award; CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, named the year's #1 book on FabulousFoods.com; and THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF, a 2004 IACP Cookbook Award Finalist.
The married couple, whose website is KarenAndAndrew.com, lives in New York City, and posts on Twitter @KarenAndAndrew, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KarenAndAndrew, and on Instagram @theflavorbible.
See more on the author's page
Karen Page
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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
“Together with her husband, photographer Andrew Dornenburg, [Karen Page has] written some of the most respected tomes on modern cooking today. Karen and Andrew recently released their 11th book — called KITCHEN CREATIVITY. In it, they offer culinary education from the world’s greatest chefs, without relying on a single recipe.”
—Evan Kleiman, host, “Good Food” on NPR member station KCRW (Los Angeles)
“Just as THE FLAVOR BIBLE and CULINARY ARTISTRY have been invaluable to chefs and cooks navigating the world of flavor, KITCHEN CREATIVITY guides insightfully and inspirationally through the creative process."
—Chef Marcus Samuelsson
“An incredible reference for home cooks, young chefs, and seasoned pros alike. KITCHEN CREATIVITY should be in everyone’s library.”
--Chef Eric Ripert
"I think THE FLAVOR BIBLE should be in every kitchen today....A perfect book....Beautifully written...I take my hat off."
--Chef Michel Roux, of the first Michelin three-star restaurant in Britain
Author KAREN PAGE and photographer ANDREW DORNENBURG's latest collaboration is KITCHEN CREATIVITY (Little, Brown; Oct. 31, 2017), which picks up on its study of culinary creativity where the duo's groundbreaking books CULINARY ARTISTRY (1996) and THE FLAVOR BIBLE (2008) left off. The book, considered a prequel of sorts to THE FLAVOR BIBLE, has been described as a "groundbreaking exploration of culinary genius" that reveals "the surprising strategies great chefs use to do what they do best" and "a paradigm-shifting guide to inventive cooking (without recipes!) that will inspire you to think, improvise, and cook like the world's best chefs." New York Times bestselling authors Michael Gelb described KITCHEN CREATIVITY as "utter genius" and Seth Godin as "an instant classic."
Page wrote and Dornenburg photographed THE VEGETARIAN FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown; 2014), which the Los Angeles Times named one of the top five best-reviewed cookbooks of the year, based on a study of 300+ media conducted by EatYourBooks.com. Other media citing it as one of the year's best cookbooks included Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Foodista.com, Food & Wine, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, The Globe & Mail, Houston Chronicle, KCRW's "Good Food," Miami Herald, Philadelphia Daily News, Tablehopper.com, Washington Post, and WBEZ's "Chewing the Fat." It was recognized as the year's Best Vegetarian Cookbook in the United States at the 2015 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
Previously, the couple co-authored THE FOOD LOVER'S GUIDE TO WINE (Little, Brown; 2011), which was honored in March 2012 at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris as "Best in the World" in its category and in April 2012 as a Nautilus Book Award winner. It was also a Finalist for the 2012 James Beard Book Award, and for the 2012 IACP Book Award. THE FOOD LOVER'S GUIDE TO WINE was named the "#1 Wine Book of 2011" based on 195 year-end "Best of" lists (including those of the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, LA Weekly, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Vancouver Sun, and the Wall Street Journal) compiled by the website EatYourBooks.com. Popular wine blogger Tom Wark of Fermentation described it as "The best wine book I'd laid my eyes on in a very long time...Original...Enlightening and entertaining."
Page and Dornenburg's groundbreaking 2008 book THE FLAVOR BIBLE has been cited as one of the best cookbooks of the past 100 years. Winner of both the 2009 James Beard Book Award for Best Book: Reference and Scholarship and the 2010 Nautilus Book Award, it was featured on both "Today" and "Good Morning America" as one of the year's best cookbooks, as well as in an eight-page feature in Oprah Winfrey's O magazine. In 2011, THE FLAVOR BIBLE was named by Forbes columnist Alex Munipov as one of the "10 Best Cookbooks in the World" of the past century. In 2012, Cooking Light magazine named THE FLAVOR BIBLE to its list of "The Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years," and in 2013, Powell's Books named it one of the "20 Best All-Around Cookbooks." eCookbooks.com named it "One of the most important cookbooks of the past 30 years: 1980-2010," and Amazon.com's cookbook editor named it "One of the best Cookbooks of the Decade: 2000-2009."
Their book WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT was named the 2007 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) "Cookbook of the Year" and Georges Duboeuf "Wine Book of the Year" as well as winner of a Gourmand World Cookbook Award. An iPhone app based on the book is available on iTunes.
Page and Dornenburg's other titles, which have cumulatively sold hundreds of thousands of copies, include BECOMING A CHEF, winner of the 1996 James Beard Book Award for Best Writing on Food; CULINARY ARTISTRY, a groundbreaking cult favorite of professional chefs and serious home cooks around the globe and the first known reference on flavor compatibility; DINING OUT, a 1999 Finalist for both the IACP and James Beard Awards and a winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Award; CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, named the year's #1 book on FabulousFoods.com; and THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF, a 2004 IACP Cookbook Award Finalist.
The married couple lives in New York City, and posts on their website at KarenAndAndrew.com, on Twitter @KarenAndAndrew, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KarenAndAndrew, and on Instagram @theflavorbible.
See more on the author's page

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Leper Khan

Goes great with flavor/scent wheels

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

Love spending a bit more time eating amd drinking and thinking about what i am doing! Get some language skills- do it for yourself. Not to be some pretentious dillbag.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 28, 2008

Verified Purchase

I may run out of superlatives in the course of this review, so I'm just warning you now. What to Drink with What You Eat is absolutely the most spectacular book ever written about pairing food with wine. It will turn you instantly into a world-class sommelier, confidently able to pair virtually any cuisine with a compatible choice. What's more, the recommendations extend far beyond wine to include beer, sake, spirits coffee, tea and different types of water, so even a teetotaler can derive some value. There isn't a food- or wine-lover on the planet who wouldn't benefit from having the book always on hand as a resource.

The secret sauce here is that the authors, who have great credentials themselves, have also enlisted the input of dozens of top sommeliers and other authorities to create an uber-reference, one that gains considerably from its generous tendency to be more rather than less inclusive in offering up suggestions. Think of the principle of "the wisdom of crowds," but here the crowd are all experts and have the chops to back up their opinions. The list of foods, cuisines and beverages that are explored is truly encyclopedic, so odds are pretty good whatever you want advice on will be covered. For example, speaking of secret sauce, you'll even get suggested pairings with a Big Mac.

The crowning glories of the book are chapters 5 and 6, which really should be turned into a searchable database online and made available via PDA. These chapters are mirror images, one that starts with the beverage and suggests foods, and the other that starts with the food and matches the drinks. I'm telling it to you straight: if you've ever had a moment's hesitation about what to bring to a dinner party or just flat out what might go best with your frozen pizza, the answer is at hand. Wanna build the meal around a special bottle of wine? No problem. In fact, I'm not sure this book isn't subversive in the sense that it does such a great job of simplifying a complicated subject and making it accessible that it renders real-life sommeliers unnecessary.

Of course, that's a ridiculous notion; I'm just stating it for effect. You still need a sommelier to put together a wine list, add a personal perspective, precisely match the cuisine of a restaurant to its wines and gauge the "readiness" of any particular client to explore new territory. But if you live in New Jersey, where the only advantage of archaic, Prohibition-based liquor laws is the plethora of BYO restaurants and thus there are very few sommeliers period, this book is like manna from heaven.

I don't mean to imply that What to Eat is prescriptive to the point where you aren't allowed to express yourself and exercise free will. Quite the contrary. The book does a splendid job in the first few chapters of breaking down various pairing conventions developed over the past 20 years (plus of course the most classic matches) and providing guidelines that anyone can build on, and the authors encourage imagination and experimentation.

Let's go with a real life example, my first since I bought the book, and quite an "acid" test at that. I was asked by a hostess to suggest something that might go with roasted sea bass served with a Mediterranean ragout of red peppers, tomatoes, olives, and capers. My first instinct when approaching anything Mediterranean is to go with the "territory," which means for me clinging to the coastline from Provence to Sicily. Here I would have gravitated toward a white because a tannic red wouldn't go anyway and it's summer now and a chill is definitely welcome. Besides, I'm not sophisticated enough to figure out what to do with capers to begin with, so why not let a thousand years of local experience do the hard work for me? Then, I turned to chapter 5 and looked up sea bass. There were 16 suggestions, but nothing related to a Mediterranean ragout, which would clearly provide the dominant flavors to the dish. So with a little trepidation (are they going to whiff on my first challenge?), I looked for "Mediterranean" and sure enough found the following entry: "Mediterranean Cuisine (eg anchovies, olives, peppers, etc) Champagne, rose; Chateauneuf-du-pape, white; Pinot blanc; red wine, esp. tart Old World; rose; verdicchio, esp with onion-based dishes." Not feeling wholly comfortable yet, I cross-referenced the pesky caper and found: "Beaujolais, high acid; beer; Muscadet; Pinot Grigio/ Pinot gris, esp. dry; Pinot Noir, esp from Russian River Valley." That's enough breadth for anyone to find an appealing option.

The genius of the book is the exhaustive number of dishes and international cuisines covered. I'm sure there are some things you can eat that aren't paired here, but I'm not sure why you would want to! Also, while it wasn't true for my sea bass, many if not most of the listings actually go a step further and provide recommendations specific to the actual method of preparation. It's not just one size fits all. Pasta with artichokes? Check. Pasta with sardines? Check. You get the idea.

I haven't been this excited about a wine book in a couple of years, maybe since reading Andrew Jefford's The New France The New France: A Complete Guide to Contemporary French Wine (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides) . If you have even a passing interest in drinking wine with your meals you'd be crazy not to buy this book. It has the potential to enrich every dinner (and the occasional lunch/brunch/breakfast?/snack) you eat for the rest of your life, and if that isn't enough hyperbole, I don't know what is.

55 people found this helpful

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Nancy C. De Young

Always get it right!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

Son is a chef and loves this book. I think having a guide is brilliant..if you are going to dine with great food, pair with wonderful libations for a memorable feast.

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aquarices

Great content, sloppy editing

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 6, 2007

Verified Purchase

First off, it's very wide ranging and is incredibly easy to use. All of the recommendations in this book have come from top notch chefs and sommeliers, so you know they can be trusted. You'll often find a wealth of options to choose from, due to the democratic group effort behind this. You'll also get more than just wine, which is incredibly refreshing. Some refuse to admit it, but there are dishes that simply work better with other drinks. They go above simply listing "beer" and will put "lager", "wheat beer", etc., which is nice.

The book uses a system of bold print, capital letters, and asterisks to point out which drinks work particularly well. It's also nice to see a section afterwards that does the reverse and is listed by drink and then has food suggestions. Sometimes you want to build the meal around a special bottle of wine instead of vice versa. After that comes specific recommendations from some of the well known contributors to the book. It's an almost flawless book. Except....

....the book is very poorly edited and, in at least two cases, factually inaccurate. Jean-Luc Le Du is either misquoted, misinformed, or simply misspoke. The quote: "Where to find great Cabernet Sauvignon: This would be a toss-up between hillside vineyards in California and Pomerol in France." I had to do a double take...Pomerol? For Cab Sauv? Huh? Not only that, I noticed this statement in two different parts of the book. I'm assuming M. Le Du meant to say Pauillac, as Pomerol is, of course, known for Merlot, which makes up most or all (80-100%, usually) of the wine blend there. Even if there is Cab Sauv in the blend, it's a minimal amount of the wine. I can understand misspeaking and saying Pomerol when you mean Pauillac. It happens. But how this obvious factual error ended up in the final print of the book is beyond me. Anyone that buys a Pomerol expecting a shining example of Cab Sauv will be disappointed (although they may end up with some of the world's best Merlot.)

I noticed another factual error concerning the retail price of a certain wine. They mention Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon as a great value wine at $10 a bottle. It actually retails for around $30-$35 a bottle, not $10.

While I have yet to find any other major errors in the text (not that I'm actively searching for them), I have noticed a couple grammatical blunders; missing punctuation, spelling errors and such. It's disappointing to see easily correctable errors like this mar an otherwise fantastic book. That being said, don't let these gripes deter you from buying this excellent reference source for food and drink pairings. Clean up the grammar and factual errors and this becomes a 5 star book.

18 people found this helpful

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KMcD

Great reference/coffee table book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

Took an online wine class and the sommelier recommended this book as a reference he has used over and over, so I ordered one to have on hand as I learn wine pairings. Seems very useful.

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kathy jones

Very useful book if in the restaurant business

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2022

Verified Purchase

As I am in the wine industry this book has been like a bible to me….pairing wine with food for wine dinners can be tough but this book gives you all the tools you need to be successful! So whether a dinner in a restaurant or pairing for guests at home, you will find this book perfect

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Top reviews from other countries

SpareOom

I've been doing my WSET exams and this is a great book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 27, 2011

Verified Purchase

If you love to cook and struggle with wine or you love wine and want a better idea of how to make the most of what you have, novice or someone in the trade, this is a great book. It's really helped me at work and I'm definitely buying copies for my family for Christmas. It really is one of those books, that if you're a foodie will move in to your kitchen and never move out.

3 people found this helpful

Valerie

Definately Difinitive

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 7, 2011

Verified Purchase

I bought this book to share with my students studying a Diploma in Hospitality, it has proved to be a great source of reference and opened a whole new world of taste sensations for them. I would recommend this book for someone who wants to know more about matching food and drink, without being "snobbish" asbout it.

3 people found this helpful

Vittorio S.

Too many suggestions/examples and little theory

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Too many suggestions/examples and little theory. A bit disappointed. Also some suggestions seem dubious.

E. L. Wisty

A gold mine of information

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 13, 2008

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This is a real gold mine of information for anyone interested in food and drink matching. Most of the book consists of two sections, the first indexed by food giving suggested matching drinks, and the second indexed by drinks giving suggested matching food. Unlike most books on the subject, it also considers drinks other than wine, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. These sections are farly comprehensive - there's even suggestions for what wines to drink with KFC or McDonalds, should you have the inclination. Sometimes there is a certain lack of symmetry between the two sections - you may find that although drink A references food B, food B may not necessarily reference drink A and vice versa. This occasional sloppy editing does not detract from the usefulness of this book too much. Because the authors have enlisted a large panel of experts (I counted over 70 names in the appendix) in compiling the lists, this avoids any narrow bias of personal preferences and gives a wider choice of suggestions than if it was compiled by a single individual. Each suggestion given in the list for each food/drink is given a grading (1-4 scale indicated by normal font, bold, bold capitals or starred) according to how many of the experts suggested it.

There is an introductory section discussing the principles of food and drink matching, but this is relatively concise (there is also an end section with some of the experts giving their dozen "desert island wines" along with the food they would eat with it; this section is about as much use as a chocolate teapot to you and I however as they all tend to choose some ridiculously expensive vintage wines from Chateau Somewhere-You've-Never-Heard-Of). This book would best be used therefore in conjunction with some other book teaching you more detail about the principles of food and wine matching (for example Food and Wine Pairing: A Sensory Experience ).

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Hannyp85

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 28, 2016

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Good product and sent on time

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