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.
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