Chef-author uses all the senses in cooking

Chef-author Nik Sharma delves into the science behind cooking

The communal clanging of pestles pounding mortars, the scent of toasted seeds, the warmth of a savoury broth and the intensity of an experience shared with a dining room full of strangers.

Appropriately named “Bonding,” this particular course was an interlude during a lunch at Mugaritz in the Basque Country, but the memory was a lasting one.

Flavour is more than the interplay of just two senses, as was clear to me during this unforgettable meal. Taste and aroma may dominate discussions, but as author Nik Sharma illustrates in his second book, The Flavor Equation (Chronicle Books, 2020), a multitude of components shape our perceptions. Memories, emotions and cultural context interlace with our senses.

“In most cookbooks, aroma and taste are the two things that are focused on. Then comes texture and, if you're a chef, you're much more focused on plating, which is the visual part,” says Sharma.

When contemplating all the factors contributing to flavour, it occurred to him that they're regularly at play in our kitchens, whether we're explicitly aware of their effects or not.

“We focus on sound when we cook. There are some cultural practices that influence also how we perceive flavour, like funerals: Some people lose their appetite at a funeral,” he says.

“And even something like the call to dinner, like when you ring a gong or a bell, and you get people to come to the table. That also builds the mood, so to speak. We do this all the time and I thought I needed to give them all their special place in this cookbook.”

Explaining the hows and whys of what we do in the kitchen, Sharma examines the core principles of flavour through essays, case studies, flavour maps and other illustrations, and upward of 100 recipes supporting seven tastes: brightness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, savouriness, fieriness and richness.

From making food crispy to how taste works and tips for cooking with aroma, The Flavor Equation offers an education in the science behind the processes generations of cooks have finessed over time. Sharma connects the dots so people can understand why they have to take certain steps and apply the learning to their own dishes.

“I'm a self-taught cook and I've used cookbooks, newspapers and magazines for recipes, or to learn more about how to cook,” says Sharma. “I would read these books and not find explanations as to why I was doing something or what I was doing. And that threw me off because how is someone going to learn to cook if they don't know why they're doing what they're doing?”

Sharma's background in molecular biology and public policy gives him a unique perspective on the multi-dimensional nature of flavour.

Whether a failed pie crust or bitter-tasting mayonnaise, he takes a scientific approach to finding solutions.