Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor

Review Quotes:

"Arielle Johnson's Flavorama is the "everyman's" food science book we've all been waiting for, even if we didn't know we needed it. Dr. Johnson delves into every aspect of flavor, how we sense it, create it, and control it, in a way that will elevate the culinary game of all who read it. Fun, clear, and uber-approachable, Flavorama instantly vaults to the top shelf to take its rightful place at the right hand of Harold McGee. If I didn't love it so much, I'd be green with envy." - Alton Brown

"I've known and admired Arielle Johnson and her work for more than a decade. Arielle is that rarest of flavor scientists, as experienced in restaurant kitchens as in the lab, and a skilled translator of the chemistry into clear and useful advice for any food lover. I can't recommend Flavorama highly enough: it's essential reading for anyone who's serious about understanding deliciousness and how to create it." - Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking

"Count yourself lucky to be alive in the time of Dr. J. She has dedicated her life to understanding the aspects of food that others write off as mystical or inexplicable. And now she's taken the time to explain them, bestowing us with the tools to harness and understand flavor. It's as though an advanced alien civilization has deemed us worthy of faster-than-light technology. You're lucky Arielle's one of us, and you're even luckier to be holding this book." - David Chang, founder of Momofuku

"If you want to figure out how to make the ginger in your dish hotter or make brown butter more delicious, Flavorama is your book. Arielle Johnson, a food chemist who found her way into the Noma kitchen in Copenhagen and eventually built the restaurant's fermentation lab, takes a brainy dive into manipulating molecules to create deliciousness, but the book is written in such an engaging, useful way that you're not sad about the science. Get pleasantly lost in her treatise on smell receptors, or just experiment with smell by making a mug of citrus peel dashi." - Kim Severson, New York Times

"Arielle changed the way that I think about flavor, and in these pages, she will do the same for you" (René Redzepi, chef of Noma).

A 2025 JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG - DELISH - KCRW/NPR GOOD FOOD - LOS ANGELES TIME - NEW YORK TIMES - SAVEUR - SCIENCE NEWS - TIMES UNION - WASHINGTON POST - ROBB REPORT

An irreverent, accessible, essential guide to the food science of flavor and how to use it in your own kitchen, from the flavor scientist-confidante of some of the world's best chefs, Arielle Johnson, with more than 75 recipes--plus a foreword by René Redzepi.

Meet Arielle Johnson--she's a flavor scientist (she loves flavor so much, she got a Ph.D. in the subject). She spends most of her time helping chefs better understand what's going on beneath the hood of flavor and make delicious new foods. Now, with Flavorama, she shares this invaluable knowledge with home cooks everywhere. Mixing equal parts fun and braininess, Arielle dives into how chemistry, sensation, and craft unite to create flavor, distilling what flavor really is (molecules!) and how to get it to work for you (spotting patterns, breaking rules) in an easy-to-digest handbook for creative cooking.

You don't need a lab or a professional kitchen--or even a background in science--to get something out of the science of flavor. With Flavorama, you'll be able to easily finesse flavor while cooking to give any dish a little oomph, master creative ingredient swaps, use a recipe or technique to improvise something new, or boldly replicate a flavor. Out of basil for pesto? Pivot and use mint, shiso, or tarragon--all are members of the same "herbal-aromatic" flavor family--for a new-but-somehow-familiar herb sauce. Or add a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of flaky salt to chocolate ice cream-- a simple hack for deliciously complex flavor. Included are 99 recipes so you can hit the ground running with your new science-of-flavor knowledge:

• An Algorithm for a Minimalist but Excellent Dressing for Lettuce
• Umami-Boosted Cacio e Pepe
• Chilled Soba Noodles with Grapefruit
• The Meatiest Slow-Cooked Meat
• Panela-Coconut Iced Coffee
• Pineapple Caramel Sauce
• Burnt Scallion Butter
• Under-appreciated-Spice Pumpkin Pie

Cook with the creativity, confidence, and flexibility of a world-class chef and learn powerful cooking techniques to unlock the flavor potential of your ingredients, create your own dishes, make your own bitters, ferment your own miso, and much, much more. Charming illustrations and diagrams drawn by Arielle herself accompany this indispensable guidebook to flavor town.

Review Citations:

• Booklist 01/01/2024 pg. 16 (EAN 9780358093138, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:Johnson, Arielle

Arielle Johnson, Ph.D., is a flavor scientist who consults for some of the top chefs and restaurants in the world. Co-founder of the fermentation lab at René Redzepi's Noma in Copenhagen and Science Director for Noma Projects, Arielle is a former Director's Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and Science Officer for Alton Brown's Food Network show, Good Eats: The Return. She has lectured on food and science at SXSW, Tales of the Cocktail, WIRED, and the Harvard Science and Cooking series, and her writing on the subject has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Lucky Peach. She lives in New York City. Follow her on Instagram @arielle_johnson.