Books like Dangerous Tastes by Andrew Dalby

The Flavor Bible is a definitive culinary reference that teaches chefs and home cooks how to season ingredients for maximum flavor, drawing on the expertise of leading chefs and offering thousands of ingredient pairings.

"Spice: The History of a Temptation is a history of the spice trade told not in the conventional narrative of politics and economics, nor of conquest and colonization, but through the intimate human impulses that inspired and drove it. Here is an exploration of the centuries-old desire for spice in food, in medicine, in magic, in religion, and in sex - and of the allure of forbidden fruit lingering in the scents of cinnamon, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mace, and clove." "We follow spices back through time, through history, myth, archaeology, and literature. We see spices in all their diversity, lauded as love potions and aphrodisiacs, as panaceas and defenses against the plague. We journey from religious rituals in which spices were employed to dispel demons and summon gods to prodigies of gluttony both fantastical and real. We see spices as a luxury for a medieval king's ostentation, as a mummy's deodorant, as the last word in haute cuisine." "Through examining the temptations of spice we follow in the trails of the spice seekers leading from the deserts of ancient Syria to thrill-seekers on the Internet. We discover how spice became one of the first and most enduring links between Asia and Europe. We see in the pepper we use so casually the relic of a tradition linking us to the appetites of Rome, Elizabethan England, and the pharaohs. And we capture the pleasure of spice not only at the table but in every part of life."--BOOK JACKET.

"Throughout time, people have chosen to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for a variety of reasons, from ethics to economy to personal and planetary well-being. Experts now suggest a new reason for doing so: maximizing flavor - which is too often masked by meat-based stocks or butter and cream. The Vegetarian Flavor Bible is an essential guide to culinary creativity, based on insights from dozens of leading American chefs, representing such acclaimed restaurants as Crossroads and M.A.K.E. in Los Angeles; Candle 79, Dirt Candy, and Kajitsu in New York City, Green Zebra in Chicago, Greens and Millennium in San Francisco, Natural Selection and Portobello in Portland, Plum Bistro in Seattle, and Vedge in Philadelphia,"--Amazon.com

The smell of sweet cinnamon on your morning oatmeal, the gentle heat of gingerbread, the sharp piquant bite from your everyday peppermill. The tales these spices could tell: of lavish Renaissance banquets perfumed with cloves, and flimsy sailing ships sent around the world to secure a scented prize; of cinnamon-dusted custard tarts and nutmeg-induced genocide; of pungent elixirs and the quest for the pepper groves of paradise. The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trotting tale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, fickle fashion, and mouthwatering cuisine -- in short, the very stuff of which our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, and anecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writer and food historian, tells the story of three legendary cities -- Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam -- and how their single-minded pursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet and set in motion the first great wave of globalization. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the world's peoples were irrevocably brought together as a result of the spice trade. Before the great voyages of discovery, Venice controlled the business in Eastern seasonings and thereby became medieval Europe's most cosmopolitan urban center. Driven to dominate this trade, Portugal's mariners pioneered sea routes to the New World and around the Cape of Good Hope to India to unseat Venice as Europe's chief pepper dealer. Then, in the 1600s, the savvy businessmen of Amsterdam "invented" the modern corporation -- the Dutch East India Company -- and took over as spice merchants to the world. Sharing meals and stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, and Venetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore the world of long ago and sample its many flavors. The spice trade and its cultural exchanges didn't merely lend kick to the traditional Venetian cookies called peverini, or add flavor to Portuguese sausages of every description, or even make the Indonesian rice table more popular than Chinese takeout in trendy Amsterdam. No, the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans led to great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesale slaughter. As stimulating as it is pleasurable, and filled with surprising insights, The Taste of Conquest offers a fascinating perspective on how, in search of a tastier dish, the world has been transformed. - Jacket flap.