[alexia]

On another thread, Isa wrote, "Like they say in Elements of Taste, a fish store should smell oceanic not fishy."

I've read this book and even made a recipe from it. I'd be interested in your response to the organizing of cookbooks around elements of taste and Kunz' ideas. I think even good home cooks, much less chefs, have paid careful and deliberate attention to the balancing of flavor categories all along. What strikes me as new in his book is the use of this kind of food balancing as the organizing principle of cookbooks.

I'd be interested in what others think of this book which I'm sure many have read and some may have cooked from. (The one recipe I tried worked very well - fruit stuffed pork with gastrique pears.)

Are there any other books with this sort of emphasis other than perhaps Culinary Artistry? Michael Roberts' Secret Ingredients (1988) does this in a less comprehensive fashion. Are there others?