Taste : A New Way to Cook

by Sybil Kapoor, David Loftus (Photographer)

"Taste" approaches cooking in a radical new way. It teaches the reader how to cook by using the five basic tastes - sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami (savoury) - and reveals that anyone can make delicious food at home by simply understanding how these tastes react to one another. Each chapter is based around a different taste, and takes the reader on a gastronomic journey of discovery. Consider sour for the chapter begins with recipes for drinks and soups to demonstrate the effect of combining either salt, bitter, sweet or umami with sour; as the chapter progresses the dishes - and the variety of tastes found in them - become increasingly complex. By following these chapters, the reader learns how to create meals with complementary ingredients so that every dish tastes amazing. Two final chapters on chilli and flavours explore how ingredients such as dried kashmiri chillies, paprika, mint, saffron, rosewater and vanilla pod alter our perception of taste, and there are recipes for each of the ingredients featured.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good cookbook for both beginner cooks who want to learn a bit about, or just play around with, different tastes (which are not flavours, explained well in the introduction), and equally for more experienced chefs as a way to understanding why certain recipes work, and how they can use different tastes in their own recipe ideas.

There are sections for the four tastes (umami is included within one of them, can't remember which, because when this book was written there wasn't much research into it- it's basically the taste of deep savouriness, found in things like parmesan, ripe tomatoes, beef stock and marmite, and is my favourite of all tastes) and another for spiciness, which isn't strictly a taste but is a very obvious sensation so it makes sense to have a section on it. Each chapter starts off with soups and drinks to experience the taste in its purest form, and then goes on to show how they can be combined or take different forms in different ingredients.

I've cooked several recipes from this and all have turned out well- favourites include a lamb and date tagine and a salty black bean, bacon, avocado and tomato salad that even my veggie-hating sister adores!

After this one could go onto The Flavour Thesaurus (what it says on the tin) and Flavour: A World of Beautiful Food (imaginative flavour combinations).

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my blog: >>The book "Taste" makes for an interesting read; it's in my bookcase for a while now and while I read it from cover to cover I have only made 2 or 3 recipes but I plan to keep it downstairs for a while to explore further. So far each and every recipe is a hit.

The set up for this book is quite different from what you're used to, categories aren't the usual appetizer, entree, dessert chapters. It is based on individual flavours and what they do to each other when combined.(which makes it difficult to search for recipes but I can see why it's done, still I would have like an added register based on the usual chapters)
The author explains and gives examples of each flavour and then follows up with recipes (from sweet to drinks and soups to savoury) where you experience what she describes. You'll be finding chapters as Sour, Salt, Bitter, Sweet, and Savoury -or umami-. My sons' favourite fried rice recipe comes from her and you can't believe how simple it is but it blows you away on flavour.<<

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of ways to organize a cookbook (or any treatise on the culinary arts). Chef Kapoor chooses to organize hers around the five tastes -- sour, salt, bitter, sweet and umami. While her insights are many and useful, one could wish that her text were a bit more systematic in explaining what bitter ingredients do to salty dishes, what sour ingredients do to sweet dishes, and so on. Each premise is illustrated by two or three recipes which allow the cook with an experimental bent to try out her claims. This text is of the most use to the more advanced (and adventuresome) cook as it assumes mastery of the basics.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite cookbook! A novel way to approach food, this book organizes recipes by how the different tastes interact with each other to produce flavors our tongues appreciate. How a bit of spice can accentuate sweetness, how a bit of bitterness with sweet makes feel satisfied and full, etc. Highly recommend Sybil Kapoor's book.