The Art and Science of Foodpairing: 10,000 Flavour Matches That Will Transform the Way You Eat

10,000 flavor matches that will transform the way you eat.

What is foodpairing? It is not the familiar and mundane matching of wine and food or even food and food, but it is certainly all about creating the most delicious culinary results possible.

When humans taste a food, they are processing its taste 80 percent through the nose -- via the food's aromatic molecules -- and only 20 percent on the tongue. We can conclude then that knowing the aromatic molecular properties of a food is critical to pairing foods successfully for ultimate taste.

For a long time, we have been unknowingly pairing aromatic molecules out of instinct, cultural history, tradition, and plain guesswork. Many of those are routine and make sense but others are counterintuitive, like balsamic vinegar on strawberries. We like them because they are delicious. What we didn't know is that they work because they share aromatic molecules. With this new knowledge we have discovered unheard-of pairings like chocolate on cauliflower and kiwi with oyster. So how do we use this new science? We at home don't have the technology to isolate molecules or store the results in a database.

That's where The Art and Science of Foodpairing(R) comes in. From the scientists and chefs who discovered this new culinary science, and the company that created and maintains the enormous database, here is a fabulous reference to 10,000 food pairings for use in both professional and home kitchens. Foodpairing(R) has proven to be revolutionary: When the Foodpairing(R) database went live, the chef and restaurant community came on like a storm with 100,000 website hits on the first day. Now over 200,000 chefs and restaurants in 140 countries regularly access the database when designing their menus.

The Art and Science of Foodpairing(R) provides 10,000 flavor matches laid out in taste wheels and color keys. When cooks go to one ingredient, they will find 10 food pairings and a color wheel revealing the taste results. For example, boiled beets will taste less like the earth they grew in and more like cheese if they are paired with coffee, and cauliflower sprinkled with cocoa could turn the fussiest child into a veggie fiend.

Foodpairing(R) has the potential to transform our food choices with outcomes that include good health as well as the power to alleviate boredom. The same dinner, the same staples. We get bored, our children get bored. Foodpairing(R), even without adding anything new to the pantry, can alleviate that.

Beginning with an in-depth introduction and the story of Foodpairing(R), the book contains:

The book also covers key food characteristics, aroma profiles, classic dishes, contemporary combinations, scientific explanations, special features and contributions from some of the world's greatest chefs for the top 150 ingredients, and much more.

The Art and Science of Foodpairing(R) is destined to become the essential reference to creating delicious, exciting and perfectly balanced meals.

Peter Coucquyt is a chef, Bernard Lahousse is a bio-engineer, Johan Langenbick is an entrepreneur and all three are the co-founders of Foodpairing(R), a creative food-tech agency that works with chefs, bartenders, cookery schools and other culinary creatives to provide new food combinations based on the intrinsic properties of different foods. The company analyzes foods to identify common flavor components and operates one of the world's largest ingredient and flavor databases. The pairings have been validated by 14 of the world's top chefs. Foodpairing(R) is based in New York City and Ghent, Belgium.