"I don't really get it," a friend said to me when I mentioned that I was reviewing Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs (buy from Amazon). "They already did that book, like a million years ago." She was referring to Culinary Artistry, an earlier book from the duo, which came out over a decade ago and which, yes, exactly like The Flavor Bible, is a meticulous index of ingredient pairings.

When it came out in 1996, Culinary Artistry was revolutionary. Ostensibly a multi-format exploration at what makes a great chef, its recipes and brief interviews with 30 or so prominent culinary figures fell by the side next to the book's extraordinary heart: An alphabetical listing of ingredients, each annotated with the season in which it was best, the smartest ways to prepare it, and — revolutionary — a list of other ingredients with which it plays nice. The chefs who were polled to make the list read like a who's who of late twentieth century culinaria: Alice Waters, Jasper White, Norman Van Aiken, Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

In the preface to the more recent The Flavor Bible, which was published late last year, Page and Dornenburg take care to note that while they are playing essentially the same game in this volume, the books are, in fact, more complementary than redundant.

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