Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For anyone who believes in the potential for artistry in the realm of food, "Culinary Artistry" is a must-read. This is the first book to examine the creative process of culinary composition as it explores the intersection of food, imagination, and taste. Through interviews with more than 30 of America's leading chefs'including Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Gray Kunz, Jean-Louis Palladin, Jeremiah Tower, and Alice Waters'the authors reveal what defines "culinary artists," how and where they find their inspiration, and how they translate that vision to the plate. Through recipes and reminiscences, chefs discuss how they select and pair ingredients, and how flavors are combined into dishes, dishes into menus, and menus into bodies of work that eventually comprise their cuisines.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• The Chef as Artist?
• Meet Your Medium?
• Composing Flavors?
• Composing a Dish?
• Why Food Matches??
• Food Matches Made in Heaven?
• Seasoning Matches Made in Heaven?
• Composing a Menu?
• Common Accompaniments to Entrees?
• Evolving a Cuisine?
• The Evolution of Leading Chefs' Cuisines?
• Desert Island Lists?
• Culinary Art as Communion?
• Resources?
• Biographies of Chefs?
• Index?
• About the Authors

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Booklist Review

In this ambitious guidebook to the current state of culinary art in American restaurants, the authors offer a comprehensive flavor catalog of comestibles that constitutes a palate-pleasing palette of the spectrum of gustatory stimuli. They flesh out long lists with reflections and observations on the craft of cooking by some of the world's most illustrious chefs, both historical and contemporary. These philosophical ruminations give the up-and-coming chef an understanding of the evolution of taste in the past half century by comparing the classic tastes of France's Fernand Point with the tastes of current celebrity chefs, such as Alice Waters and Rick Bayless. Although short on prescription (hence, the paucity of recipes), the book is exhaustive in its rosters of flavor complements. So extensive are the volume's lists that the book is useful as a reference tool for only the most serious chefs and die-hard foodies. --Mark Knoblauch