I was lucky enough to receive advance proofs of this book (thank you to the publishers and author) and thoroughly enjoyed the read. It was beautifully put together with lush photographs and more importantly infographics to expand on the explanations of the science behind the magic of balancing flavours. Part memoir, explaining how the chef grew from exploring food within scientific experiments to exploring cooking and preparing dishes, it draws upon his childhood memories of food, his experience of America, and it also contains varied recipes – some very simple, with vegetables and just a few ingredients – to provide a practical taste of the theory!
I have long admired Nik Sharma’s blog a brown table, and this book deserves its awards; an interesting, varied food book so well done.

Although most people can follow a simple recipe and know a little about cooking, there are those who want to know more, and why certain ingredients act the way they do. Enter Nik Sharma with his excellent cookbook The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes. While this isn’t a book for those who cook as little as they possibly can get away with, it is a book for those of us who love to cook and want to expand our horizons and learn as much as we can.

Sharma has come up with what he calls the Flavor Equation: emotion, sight, sound mouthfeel, aroma, and taste. He explains how certain components work, such as saltiness, bitterness, brightness, sweetness, fireness, etc. This book is actually part textbook with fascinating information and illustrations of what affects our overall eating experience. It is a brilliant concept, and will appeal to anyone who wants to learn something. Another appealing component of this cookbook is that it includes beautiful photographs of almost every recipe.

Also included are recipes that will enhance the eating experience. Many are vegetarian, and many have Indian nuances. They are innovative, unique, and mouthwatering. The instructions are easy-to-follow, and most of the ingredients can be obtained at your local Asian grocery store.

While this is a cookbook designed more for serious cooks, it is full of great cooking and eating information, as well as recipes. It is excellent and is one that is suitable for curling up in a corner and just reading. It is an excellent addition to any cookbook collection.



Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

The Flavor Equation approaches cooking and recipes from a scientific viewpoint, explaining how flavor is made up of several different qualities that can be combined and balanced. He suggests there are seven elements to consider: emotion, sight, sound, mouthfeel, aroma, taste, and flavor. Some things are apparent, our emotions affect how we perceive flavor and flavor affects our emotions. There is even a chart for that.

The chapter on sight discusses food colors. He explains how the pigments in our foods are changed by cooking and steps to preserve the brightness of colors. There is a chart for that. He also explains how food shapes can be appealing to us. Then there is sound such as the crisp/crunch of celery. Mouthfeel, crispiness, smoothness, softness, creaminess, and more. There is a chart for that. Then there is aroma. Not only does aroma evoke memories, it is an essential part of flavor. There is a chart. There is also a chart for flavor, from salty to bitter and many more.

The second part of the book explains how to map the flavors of a recipe. It includes brightness and how to affect the brightness of a recipe. There are several recipes that utilize brightness. Bitterness is another flavor element and again many recipes are included. He does the same with saltiness, sweetness, savoriness, fieriness, savoriness, and smokiness.



The Flavor Equation is a very informative book, full of charts – so full of charts – and chock full of science. In terms of information, I would guess it is as good as they come. However, as much as I love charts and graphs, at times they felt as though there were charts for the sake of having charts and they did not actually help. In some ways, the charts complicated the information which makes me think Edward Tufte’s many works on graphic information design would be helpful. I want to reward Sharma for the effort, but this book feels designed to make cooking too complicated and offputting. The recipe choices also feel exclusionary, as though this book is for the professional cook, not the home cook.

I received an e-galley of The Flavor Equation from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

The Flavor Equation at Chronicle Books
Nik Sharma author site

This is a truly unique cookbook. Not only are you given interesting, yummy looking recipes, but you are also taught how to use these spices and how they affect the dishes.

I love books that are more than just one thing and this one certainly delivers. There were lots of interesting insights into why things taste the way they taste and while some of it was already familiar to me, there was enough new information to keep me entertained. Plus, some really good recipes to drive the point home. The perfect mixture of information and recipes to drool over which eventually made me feel like I understood cooking better and while hopefully make me a better cook. This book is definitely most suited to read and keep as a hardcopy and reference book, it suffers in ebook form.

This book was a personal non-fiction highlight for me both in science AND in cooking. Delighted to feature it in The Gift of Books lists - specifically, “Nesting Instinct” - among Zoomer magazine’s year-end lists. See link for full feature article and text.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange of my honest opinion.

I absolutely loved every page of this book. It's not just a cookbook, it's a treasure. Each chapter presents wither one of the tastes (sour, salty, umami etc) either other parts that makes a meal flavourful (fat, heat etc). The author goes very hard science on food and I loved it. It tells you why things works so well in certain pairings and how to enhance various parts you want to focus on when cooking.

And then we have the recipes! Each chapter offers a few recipes that adds more flavour to the science lesson received in the beginning. Honestly, I saved every recipe from this book and I want to cook them all! Most of the recipes are close to Indian cuisine and they look amazing!

Here's the thing with this cookbook: don't go into it thinking it's a casual bunch of recipes with some flavor pops- you're gonna learn real science of flavor here, with charts and graphs and explanations of the different components of flavor. And it's fascinating! It's worth getting the book just for that aspect, learning all about flavor- why we like certain flavors, what different flavors represent in nature, the various aspects of flavor, and of course, how to enhance it. We also have the recipes to help us learn- when to add ingredients, how the ingredients react to each other, how to use them to take our cooking up a notch. I won't say the recipes are all easy; there are unusual ingredients that might not be readily available nearby, but should be available online, and that doesn't occur in most recipes, just know it'll come up several times. I did appreciate that in the "heat" section of recipes, there are recipes that don't use chile peppers as the source of the heat- I can't do capsaicin, but I'm fine with ginger, black pepper, horseradish.... Anyway, this is a fabulously interesting book, perfect for foodies and chefs (including the home variety, this book isn't intimidating). A perfect gift for yourself, or for someone who will cook for you!

#TheFlavorEquation #NetGalley

Fantastic book, a real assault to the senses. Along with some very interesting recipes, this book provides an amazing outlook on flavours. It’s extremely informative on different flavours and their origins. A great read for any budding or experienced chef.

It’s unusual to find a new cookbook that offers you a new way of looking at food. Julia Child did it with Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Mark Bittman did it with How to Cook Everything. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt did it with The Food Lab. Samin Nosrat did it with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. And now Nik Sharma is doing it with The Flavor Equation.

The Flavor Equation is part Indian cookbook, part science textbook. But it is also all heart. While Sharma talks about the chemical makeup of the aromas of food, he knows that what is really important is that it is aroma that tells us that a food has gone bad. Aroma is one of the things that connects us to the foods of our childhood, the foods we grew to love, and it is aroma that draws us to the kitchen because whatever is cooking smells so good.

He talks about the way pectin changes the color of a food, because the way a dish looks can draw us in. He offers up information on textures, because the mouthfeel of a food can increase or decrease our enjoyment of eating. And he looks at the effect of taste on emotions and the effect of emotions on taste, because he understands that our memories are key to our enjoyment of a plate of food. These are all part of the flavor equation.

Some of the science sections get a little intense. Either you’re really into that and you want to dig into those sections and understand all the chemistry. Or you’re uninterested or intimidated by the science, and that’s okay too. You don’t have to understand or care about all the science to know that these recipes are infused with flavor, texture, interest, and heart. But if you want to be that food nerd, Sharma offers up charts and data and resources to help you answer your every question about the science of food.

The recipes themselves are divided into 7 sections: Brightness, Bitterness, Saltiness, Sweetness, Savoriness, Fieriness, and Richness. Each of these chapters adds another layer of flavor, and gives home cooks more tools to add to their cooking to boost flavor and enjoyment. Brightness includes recipes like Roasted Butternut Squash + Pomegranate Molasses Soup, Spareribs in Malt Vinegar + Mashed Potatoes, and Lemon-Lime Mintade. Bitterness offers up Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad, Sweet Potato Honey Beer Pie, and Chocolate Miso Bread Pudding.

Saltiness has recipes for Couscous with Sesame-Roasted Carrots and Feta, Lamb Chops with Scallion Mint Salsa, and Spiced Fruit Salad. Sweetness includes Honey + Turmeric Chicken with Pineapples, Masala Cheddar Cornbread, and Peppermint Marshmallows. Savoriness has Chicken Hakka Noodles, Shepherd’s Pie with Kheema + Chourico, and Coffee-Spiced Steak with Burnt Kachumber Salad. Fieriness includes recipes for Chicken Lollipops, Potato Pancakes, and Gingerbread Cake with Date Syrup Bourbon Sauce. And Richness has Crab Tikka Masala Dip, Roasted Eggplant Raita, and Chicken Coconut Curry.

With recipes for starters through desserts, even for snacks and drinks, The Flavor Equation brings a host of Indian and Indo-Chinese recipes to modern cooks. And the photography in this book is phenomenal. Sharma is a food stylist as well as cook, recipe creator, and blogger, so the pictures bring these dishes to life. And there are even some tips for improving your food photos too.

The Flavor Equation is one of those cookbooks that will not only teach you new recipes, it will teach you a whole new way to think about cooking. This is a book that will live on my cookbook shelf for many years, so that I can go back to it over and over, learning from it and cooking food that creates new memories for me and my family. This one is a keeper!

Egalleys for The Flavor Equation were provided by Chronicle Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Unfortunately I was unable to download this book for review. It is hard for me to review without being able to see/read it. The rating is based on his reputation.

Nik Sharma's new book, The Flavor Equation, will be an absolute staple in my kitchen without a doubt. Sharma, a former chemist, has filled it with enough food science geekery to keep you reading, pondering, and experimenting for a very long time indeed, In this regard, it reminds me of Ciao Samin's immensely popular Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat; this is the sort of book that informs how you make anything, not just the recipes within. But oh, the recipes within! He's packed it full of recipes that just beg to be made, and that are very doable for both weeknight quick dinners and more elaborate weekend meals. Instructions are clear, and the photography is gorgeous. Highly recommended.

NIk Sharma goes into cooking from a more scientific approach, discussing the place of elements like fat, spice, heat, etc. And like in Seasons, provides endless delicious recipes to try. I have my eye on the chickpea pancakes with roasted broccolini, the masala shrimp, and for some reason that cornbread!!

I dont know quite where to start.. but.. after sitting with the book for a while, and cooking from it once so far ( honey-tumeric pineapple chicken skewers..pictured yum!!!) I am confident this will be THE cookbook for 2020. Amazingly unique recipes.. and my first exposure to Indo-Chinese cooking... now might look for a cookbook on this subj alone. Ingredient wise... to cook a lot of these dishes you may need to hit up amazon if you don't have a Indian Grocery nearby.. ingredients like amchur, curry leaves, etc.. If you have Season, then you know what Im talking about.

Like Season, the food photography and styling is amazing. One minor qualm, I have noticed at least one recipe where the picture has an ingredient not listed in the recipe.. chickpea salad picture has tomatoes in the picture, but no tomato is in the ingredient list. Havent dived super deep to see any other offenders :)

What REALLY sets this book apart, is the SCIENCE in it.. Literally at least 100 pages of describing what causes and what are flavors... The first 75 pages of the book literally look like a college chemistry textbook. .. then the chapters with the recipes all start with a 10 or 15 pages of science of the flavor.. Its like harold mcgee and season had a love child...a delicious, enthralling love child.

The recipes are separated by flavor profile.. think bitter, sweet, fiery, etc.. so it may take a bit of effort to plan a menu if you're used to books divided by sweets, appetizers, mains, sides, etc.. which brings to mind, some menu suggestions would have been appreciated.. that being said.. its hard to say, at 350 pages, that this book is lacking anything.

October has seen lots of amazing cookbooks come out.. this is the leader of the pack! I cant wait to dive in deeper and cook more!

The Flavor Equation is an interesting look at the science behind food and cooking. It offers a very unique cookbook experience. The book breaks down how we taste food through our senses and through our emotions. Gorgeous photos and unique flavor combinations make this a stand out.

Thank you to Nik Sharma and Chronicle Books for this ARC in exchange for my opinion.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this ebook from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.... and I immediately preordered it in print!

First off, I'm a cook who loves the artistry and science behind cooking. I use recipes primarily as research and reference and then concoct my own dishes. This book is the PERFECT combo of the best elements of my favorite cookbooks (which include titles such as The Flavor Bible, The Modernist Cuisine at Home, In Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, and the Thomas Keller cookbooks).

Rich, beautiful food photography with process photographs (when needed) fill the pages. Well-written and approachable food science narratives introduce and explain flavor concepts thoroughly. The infographics and tables could woo any graphic designer. Sharma utilizes wonderful organization with chapters on: Brightness, Bitterness, Saltiness, Sweetness, Savoriness, Fieriness, and Richness. Organized within those chapters are recipes (mostly Indian) that elucidate how flavors react to other ingredients and/or with various techniques. Quick tips give the readers way in which they can quickly impact the flavors of their dishes.

I wouldn't be surprised if this won a James Beard award. Spectacular achievement. A lust-worthy cookbook indeed.

This was an awesome book that merges food science with Indian fine dining. I loved it! Great giftable book with the science of food (including charts and diagrams) and some beautifully photographed food.

This is a good book to dip into if you love food and science. I am primarily talking about the science parts of the book here; I haven't tried the recipes. However knowing Nik, and being often successful with the recipes in his columns and The Brown Table, I definitely have high hopes for the ones included in the book. I wanted to read and understand the science behind taste and I like what Sharma did with it. The book explores food science in both theory and practice - mouth feel, how emotions affect the food, scent affecting taste and so on. Lots of interesting tidbits. The recipes are arranged thematically: brightness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness,etc. Also with beautiful photographs. This would make a wonderful holiday gift.

Nik Sharma's The Flavor Equation is like auditing a course at cooking school in the very best of ways. It is rife with information breaking down the components of flavor, clearly presented, in a way that allows a reader to learn, not a particular recipe, but a way of achieving the results they imagine when they enter the kitchen. There are recipes of course, all interesting and unique and illustrative of the ideas in the book, but these are not the main event. Instead, this book seeks to draw back the curtain, explaining the components of the flavor experience. The Flavor Equation clarifies, for any level of curious cook, the building blocks of creating a dish that will satisfy whatever it is they seek for a meal, and assists with concrete examples of those building blocks, and how they can be put together to create something wonderful. This review is based on an advance uncorrected proof.

Science + Cooking = Tasty Delights

As someone with an interest in both science and cooking, I thought this would be a fun cookbook. And it mostly is. I actually really enjoy the scientific information shared in the book about how chemicals in food or other elements impact our sense of taste and food experience. I thought some diagrams, though, weren't really helpful or truly scientific, even though they attempted to look like it. Most of the real science is in the text—the introductory section before the recipe sections as well as the introductions to the taste recipe sections that make up the bulk of the book.

The book is broadly divided into three sections. The first looks at what the author considers to be the components of flavor, including aroma, mouthfeel, and sound as well as the previously mentioned taste (and a few others). In these introductory sections, the author takes each concept apart scientifically and into its food/prep component parts, telling you how to improve each aspect. In the taste section in this first part of the book, he further breaks taste down into what we sense on our palettes or within our mouths, like sourness, bitterness, sweetness, savoriness (umami), and creaminess.

The second section of the book takes a deeper dive into each of these elements of taste, first from a scientific perspective and then with recipes that exploit it. Many recipes are vegetarian, which I appreciate as a longtime vegetarian, though there are a few chicken and other meat dishes, along with mostly vegetarian dishes with what I like to call “condiment” meat, like a little pancetta. The flavor profiles for these recipes are fascinating, both in terms of ingredients and preparation, and the photographs of them are so colorful and inviting. While some recipes have longer ingredient lists and look more complicated to make, many are surprisingly simple with only a handful of ingredients. In the last section, the author provides a small set of core component recipes he uses in multiple recipes in the second section of the book as well as some other helpful ingredient advice..

Honestly, the only thing I didn't like about this book was most of the somewhat odd diagrams. The science text was a fascinating read, and the recipes themselves looked and sounded very good. I know I will certainly be incorporating some of the scientific ideas shared to make my dishes more flavorful.