I love to cook. I'm also a nerd.
I want to start off by stating that I think going too far into flavor science can be a huge creativity killer. This was one of my first thoughts when reading The Art and Science of Foodpairing. This book is pretty reliable when it comes to suggesting the last few ingredients that might help you balance out a sauce or add brightness to a spring salad. I try to think of it not as a strict Bible, but as a source of inspiration for the last mile of a recipe.
1. Not every ingredient has a flavor profile page. Many ingredients are displayed as a sub-pairing of another ingredient and lack the depth provided to more common ones.
2. My process for using this book involves lots of sticky notes and bookmarking. I often get lost flipping between sections, pages, and the index attempting to cross-reference an ingredient's flavor profile.
3. The diagrams leave a lot of data to be desired. Each ingredient contains a row of core flavors indicated by dots. Their sizes represent the relative presence in said ingredient's flavor profile. It's often difficult to discern how a combination of these element might balance each other out when two ingredients of differing flavor strength and quantity are combined.
I set out to design a concept that combined the best informational elements of "The Art and Science of Foodpairing" with an interactive recipe builder. I wanted an app that could help me visualize how adding a particular ingredient could alter the balance of the overall profile and suggest potential candidates to do things like "add brightness" or "balance richness".
[Full case study coming soon]