Leung, Wency (23 November 2010). "A growing genre of cookbooks skips recipes and focuses on science". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 23 February 2017. Light on step-by-step instructions and filled with food history and tidbits of science Zoe Perrett (3 October 2010). "Book review: Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit". foodtripper.com . Retrieved 23 February 2017. 'The Flavour Thesaurus' fills a very wide gap in the market- a book for those who not only love to eat, but, perhaps more importantly, to think. I was unable to make it past the chocolate section. The author's rambling is so incoherent it is indiscernible from bad editing.

Lezard, Nicholas (17 July 2010). "Books: The Flavour Thesaurus: Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook by Niki Segnit". The Guardian . Retrieved 23 February 2017. The Flavor Thesaurus: A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes, and Ideas for the Creative Cook". kcls.bibliocommons.com . Retrieved 23 February 2017. Any aspiring culinary student will find this an invaluable reference work, and home cooks may find equal inspiration in Segnit's creative ruminations. The plant-led follow-up to The Flavor Thesaurus, "a rich and witty and erudite collection" ( Epicurious), featuring 92 essential ingredients and hundreds of flavor combinations.

Jancis Robinson (6 April 2011). "André Simon Awards 2010 winners". jancisrobinson.com . Retrieved 23 February 2017. However, the absolute worst and reason I stopped reading was CHOCOLATE AND STRAWBERRY. Obviously I dont care about individual taste preferences. I'm fine with her decision not to include zucchini, as it seems she doesnt enjoy it. She should have felt comfortable doing the same with chocolate and strawberry. What she does instead, is rant in an ugly manner about how chocolate covered strawberries are the food fed by 'businessmen to call girls in hotel rooms'. I'm going to put my notes here. And probably do up a blog post. Needless to say, this is the type of book that I would tend to buy to help me generate ideas. But trust me on this. It’s about flavor combinations, yes, and I know you are familiar with lots of these, but the author is odd and snarky and fun, and, most important, she can write about food in a way that will make you look for more of her works, even if it’s a food dictionary or a taste encyclopedia. I ran across this book at the new coffee shop in my town, and I was so taken with it that I asked the coffee shop owner if I could borrow it! Yes, I am now asking to take home books I run across at coffee shops. And then I had to buy my own copy.

Peter Smith (14 March 2011). "Good Books: Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus". good.is. GOOD Worldwide Inc . Retrieved 23 February 2017. Certainly, there's room for more exploration of the molecular science of flavors, but this book represents a provocative, visual way to rethink the recipe.The Flavour Thesaurus has also been reviewed by The Sunday Times, [3] Foodtripper, [4] Good, [5] Library Journal, [6] Booklist, [7] Michigan Quarterly Review, [8] and The Globe and Mail. [9] I’ve told a dozen people who I know love to cook about this book now, and all of them have given me some version of the same stare, a You-Want-Me-to-Read-a-Book-About-Flavor Combinations? look that reminds me of the look a person might have on his face as he fills out the paperwork for taking out a mental illness warrant against you. A couple of examples: the section called CHOCOLATE AND COCONUT features the author going on about her cigarette addiction. There is no connection. She goes through her addiction journey, childhood memories and the tasting notes of tobacco. I am genuinely unsure if this is a misplaced CHOCOLATE AND TOBACCO entry or if the author is making a connection to the 'addictive' flavor combo. Coconut is tossed in once or twice, enough to make it truly ambiguous. Sorry. I really wanted something that would guide me to understand patterns, create new templates, visualize & predict what's likely to work or not. But the author and I do not organize ideas in complementary ways, and we taste and eat very differently. I could not study the 'color wheel' as I could not process/ understand it, and I am not motivated to read all the fine print stories interspersed with the lists of pairings. It really is most akin to an American Heritage dictionary, in that it's mostly lists, with the odd illustration, chart, or usage note (but in the cookbook, those additions are just text). The Flavour Thesaurus was the first book to examine what goes with what, pair by pair and is divided into flavour themes including Meaty, Cheesy, Woodland and Floral Fruity. Within these sections it follows the form of Roget's Thesaurus, listing 99 popular ingredients alphabetically, and for each one suggests unique flavour pairings that range from the classic to the bizarre.

An eclectic combination of dictionary, recipe book, travelogue and memoir ... A deceptively simple little masterpiece' SUNDAY TIMES This book is way more entertaining than I expected. I had done a few brief “flip-throughs” before I obtained my own copy noting the lists of flavor pairings and thinking of all the new combinations I’d learn to love. Since I assumed this would be a pretty straightforward reference book (I mean common, thesaurus in the title, a British author, a seemingly complex diagram/color wheel on steroids on the inner front cover, an intro quote with the following words “Sauternes,” “foie gras,” “steak-frites,” rouille”…), I read through the intro before I went exploring. And whatdoyaknow. She’s witty! Funny! She admits to her own misgivings and like me questions, “Had I ever really learned to cook? Or was I just reasonably adept at following instructions?” – Questions I constantly ask myself. The idea of this book is “out-of-the-box” both in its concept and how it leaves you thinking. Sections are organized in “flavor categories” like Meaty, Cheesy, Sulfurous, Citrusy, Fruity, Woodland, etc. Flavor combinations are then listed in short paragraph form which could either contain a simple recipe (more guidance, than literal – see below), a witty anecdote, or an amusing aside. Take the commentary on Chocolate and Strawberry for example: Now featuring a new foreword by Bee Wilson and a fold-out poster of the flavour wheel, The Flavour Thesaurus is a highly useful, and covetable, reference book for cooking - it will keep you up at night reading.Galaxy National Book Awards". readingagency.org.uk. The Reading Agency. 6 February 2011 . Retrieved 23 February 2017.