Culinary Artistry - Softcover

Dornenburg, Andrew; Page, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471287857 ISBN 13: 9780471287858

Publisher: Wiley, 1996

Synopsis

"In Culinary Artistry...Dornenburg and Page provide food and flavor pairings as a kind of steppingstone for the recipe-dependent cook...Their hope is that once you know the scales, you will be able to compose a symphony." --Molly O'Neil in The New York Times Magazine.

For anyone who believes in the potential for artistry in the realm of food, Culinary Artistry is a must-read. This is the first book to examine the creative process of culinary composition as it explores the intersection of food, imagination, and taste. Through interviews with more than 30 of America's leading chefsa including Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Gray Kunz, Jean-Louis Palladin, Jeremiah Tower, and Alice Watersa the authors reveal what defines "culinary artists," how and where they find their inspiration, and how they translate that vision to the plate. Through recipes and reminiscences, chefs discuss how they select and pair ingredients, and how flavors are combined into dishes, dishes into menus, and menus into bodies of work that eventually comprise their cuisines.

About this title

Review:

If you really find food fascinating--the idea of food, working with food, and the eating of food--then Culinary Artistry should be on your bookshelf. There are two books at work here. One is What Chefs Have to Say About the Foods They Create. The other is Fun with Food Spread Sheets. A cynic might suggest that after putting together Becoming a Chef, the authors had so much leftover interview material that Culinary Artistry was but the natural outcome. The chef's point of view, however, would be to make use of everything passing through the kitchen, to throw nothing away. In other words, if Becoming a Chef is an entrée, then Culinary Artistry is the special of the day.

The book is divided into sections that discuss and reach out to chefs to join in that discussion of such ideas as the chef as artist, dealing with sensory perception in food, composing with flavors, putting a dish together, putting together an entire menu, and standing back to admire the growth of a personal cuisine. This is thoughtful material. It is not how-to material. These guided conversations are made practical for the home cook by charts such as which foods are in season and when, the basic flavors of foods (bananas are sweet; anchovies are salty), food matches made in heaven (lamb chops with aioli or ginger or shallots), seasoning matches made in heaven (dill and salmon), flavors of the world (Armenia means parsley and yogurt), common accompaniments to entrées (beef and potatoes), and, most fun of all, the desert-island lists of many of the chefs quoted so extensively throughout the text. Many recipes accompany the text.

How this will affect any individual's own culinary art, be that professional or personal, remains unclear. It may be as private an experience as reading. For the uninitiated, this book will prove that there's a lot more going on with food and restaurants and chefs than they may ever have imagined. --Schuyler Ingle

From the Author:

"CULINARY ARTISTRY offered a groundbreaking approach to the idea of flavor pairings and garnered astounding sales of more than 100,000 copies; the book is said to have revolutionized the way leading chefs cook, including Chicago's Grant Achatz of Alinea, who claims it is his most-used cookbook." --WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio

March 2015

Dear Readers,

On the heels of winning the James Beard Award for Best Writing on food for our first book BECOMING A CHEF (1995), our second book CULINARY ARTISTRY (1996) wasn't nominated for a single award upon its publication. 

Over time, however, CULINARY ARTISTRY went on to become one of the most influential culinary books on professional chefs and experienced home cooks alike -- not just across the United States, but around the world.  It's now considered a classic.

Last year, Southern Living magazine's cookbook editor Sarah Gleim named CULINARY ARTISTRY one of the "Top 10 Must-Have Cookbooks" -- a list that also featured our James Beard Award winner THE FLAVOR BIBLE. 

In January 2015, the judges of TV's "Chopped" (Canada) named CULINARY ARTISTRY one of "18 Must-Own Cookbooks."

And just this month, we were thrilled to see Food & Wine magazine feature CULINARY ARTISTRY as one of the "Best Cookbooks of All Time."  (We were also delighted to see Milwaukee magazine cite CULINARY ARTISTRY in this month's cover story as one of the four books that most inspire the city's best chefs.)

Classic books are classic for a reason -- their wisdom endures, whether or not they ever had the good fortune of an award medallion gracing their cover. 

We hope you'll treat yourself to the wisdom of dozens of America's best chefs (including Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Hubert Keller, Patrick O'Connell, Nancy Silverton, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Alice Waters) featured in CULINARY ARTISTRY.

Delicious wishes,
Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0471287857
• ISBN 13: 9780471287858
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448