What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers

I may run out of superlatives in the course of this review, so I'm just warning you now. What to Drink with What You Eat is absolutely the most spectacular book ever written about pairing food with wine. It will turn you instantly into a world-class sommelier, confidently able to pair virtually any cuisine with a compatible choice. What's more, the recommendations extend far beyond wine to include beer, sake, spirits coffee, tea and different types of water, so even a teetotaler can derive some value. There isn't a food- or wine-lover on the planet who wouldn't benefit from having the book always on hand as a resource. The secret sauce here is that the authors, who have great credentials themselves, have also enlisted the input of dozens of top sommeliers and other authorities to create an uber-reference, one that gains considerably from its generous tendency to be more rather than less inclusive in offering up suggestions. Think of the principle of "the wisdom of crowds," but here the crowd are all experts and have the chops to back up their opinions. The list of foods, cuisines and beverages that are explored is truly encyclopedic, so odds are pretty good whatever you want advice on will be covered. For example, speaking of secret sauce, you'll even get suggested pairings with a Big Mac. The crowning glories of the book are chapters 5 and 6, which really should be turned into a searchable database online and made available via PDA. These chapters are mirror images, one that starts with the beverage and suggests foods, and the other that starts with the food and matches the drinks. I'm telling it to you straight: if you've ever had a moment's hesitation about what to bring to a dinner party or just flat out what might go best with your frozen pizza, the answer is at hand. Wanna build the meal around a special bottle of wine? No problem. In fact, I'm not sure this book isn't subversive in the sense that it does such a great job of simplifying a complicated subject and making it accessible that it renders real-life sommeliers unnecessary. Of course, that's a ridiculous notion; I'm just stating it for effect. You still need a sommelier to put together a wine list, add a personal perspective, precisely match the cuisine of a restaurant to its wines and gauge the "readiness" of any particular client to explore new territory. But if you live in New Jersey, where the only advantage of archaic, Prohibition-based liquor laws is the plethora of BYO restaurants and thus there are very few sommeliers period, this book is like manna from heaven. I don't mean to imply that What to Eat is prescriptive to the point where you aren't allowed to express yourself and exercise free will. Quite the contrary. The book does a splendid job in the first few chapters of breaking down various pairing conventions developed over the past 20 years (plus of course the most classic matches) and providing guidelines that anyone can build on, and the authors encourage imagination and experimentation. Let's go with a real life example, my first since I bought the book, and quite an "acid" test at that. I was asked by a hostess to suggest something that might go with roasted sea bass served with a Mediterranean ragout of red peppers, tomatoes, olives, and capers. My first instinct when approaching anything Mediterranean is to go with the "territory," which means for me clinging to the coastline from Provence to Sicily. Here I would have gravitated toward a white because a tannic red wouldn't go anyway and it's summer now and a chill is definitely welcome. Besides, I'm not sophisticated enough to figure out what to do with capers to begin with, so why not let a thousand years of local experience do the hard work for me? Then, I turned to chapter 5 and looked up sea bass. There were 16 suggestions, but nothing related to a Mediterranean ragout, which would clearly provide the dominant flavors to the dish. So with a little trepidation (are they going to whiff on my first challenge?), I looked for "Mediterranean" and sure enough found the following entry: "Mediterranean Cuisine (eg anchovies, olives, peppers, etc) Champagne, rose; Chateauneuf-du-pape, white; Pinot blanc; red wine, esp. tart Old World; rose; verdicchio, esp with onion-based dishes." Not feeling wholly comfortable yet, I cross-referenced the pesky caper and found: "Beaujolais, high acid; beer; Muscadet; Pinot Grigio/ Pinot gris, esp. dry; Pinot Noir, esp from Russian River Valley." That's enough breadth for anyone to find an appealing option. The genius of the book is the exhaustive number of dishes and international cuisines covered. I'm sure there are some things you can eat that aren't paired here, but I'm not sure why you would want to! Also, while it wasn't true for my sea bass, many if not most of the listings actually go a step further and provide recommendations specific to the actual method of preparation. It's not just one size fits all. Pasta with artichokes? Check. Pasta with sardines? Check. You get the idea. I haven't been this excited about a wine book in a couple of years, maybe since reading Andrew Jefford's The New France The New France: A Complete Guide to Contemporary French Wine (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides) . If you have even a passing interest in drinking wine with your meals you'd be crazy not to buy this book. It has the potential to enrich every dinner (and the occasional lunch/brunch/breakfast?/snack) you eat for the rest of your life, and if that isn't enough hyperbole, I don't know what is.

Everyone knows how to spot a wine snob, high class, arrogant, sips a little wine, smells it. Well now you can be that person w/o having to be arrogant. This book will explain what wines go with what foods, why you sniff a wine, how to taste it, what to look for in a wine and many other fun facts. Everyone knows that red meat and red wine go well together but what goes well with a roast,or short ribs, heck even meatloaf? This book will help you.It goes beyond just main ingredients, it teaches you to also look at the other aspects of it as well such as different herbs, spices, the marinade you use, and how your going to cook it. Even mashed potatoes have more than just potatoes. I have worked in restaurants and even have a degree in culinary and I must say, this is a good point to start with and even to look back as a reference point. I own all three reference books Culinary Artistry , The Flavor Bible and this one and I read them almost every day. Great series of books by the authors, I trust these books like I trust my chefs at school.

This book is described by Amazon most accurately, but does not mention it has no to index to reference by, but if one knows to use it as a Dictionery, it becomes a useful item. The authors have given both reasoning and culinaery expertise in writing the texts, and this reader agrees that the awards given are deserved. Analysis of foods, and cuisines, compatable with wines provides information to the reader what is most needed both everday and entertaining: a fine dining experience. As a professional waiter in a reknowned eating establishment, in New York City, it builds great confidence in recommending wines with the foods ordered by customers.

First off, it's very wide ranging and is incredibly easy to use. All of the recommendations in this book have come from top notch chefs and sommeliers, so you know they can be trusted. You'll often find a wealth of options to choose from, due to the democratic group effort behind this. You'll also get more than just wine, which is incredibly refreshing. Some refuse to admit it, but there are dishes that simply work better with other drinks. They go above simply listing "beer" and will put "lager", "wheat beer", etc., which is nice. The book uses a system of bold print, capital letters, and asterisks to point out which drinks work particularly well. It's also nice to see a section afterwards that does the reverse and is listed by drink and then has food suggestions. Sometimes you want to build the meal around a special bottle of wine instead of vice versa. After that comes specific recommendations from some of the well known contributors to the book. It's an almost flawless book. Except.... ....the book is very poorly edited and, in at least two cases, factually inaccurate. Jean-Luc Le Du is either misquoted, misinformed, or simply misspoke. The quote: "Where to find great Cabernet Sauvignon: This would be a toss-up between hillside vineyards in California and Pomerol in France." I had to do a double take...Pomerol? For Cab Sauv? Huh? Not only that, I noticed this statement in two different parts of the book. I'm assuming M. Le Du meant to say Pauillac, as Pomerol is, of course, known for Merlot, which makes up most or all (80-100%, usually) of the wine blend there. Even if there is Cab Sauv in the blend, it's a minimal amount of the wine. I can understand misspeaking and saying Pomerol when you mean Pauillac. It happens. But how this obvious factual error ended up in the final print of the book is beyond me. Anyone that buys a Pomerol expecting a shining example of Cab Sauv will be disappointed (although they may end up with some of the world's best Merlot.) I noticed another factual error concerning the retail price of a certain wine. They mention Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon as a great value wine at $10 a bottle. It actually retails for around $30-$35 a bottle, not $10. While I have yet to find any other major errors in the text (not that I'm actively searching for them), I have noticed a couple grammatical blunders; missing punctuation, spelling errors and such. It's disappointing to see easily correctable errors like this mar an otherwise fantastic book. That being said, don't let these gripes deter you from buying this excellent reference source for food and drink pairings. Clean up the grammar and factual errors and this becomes a 5 star book.

This book is perfect for anyone who likes to cook, drink wine or both. We got it as a gift and now have bought it several times to gift others. You can either look up by the type of wine and then determine what is good food to pair with it or if you are cooking something you can look up what wine to drink with it. Such a fun book that we use in our house weekly!

I don't claim to be a wine expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate good food and wine pairings when dining out. This guide has given me a "cheater" shortcut to food and beverage pairings at home. I reference it often, whether ordering takeout, cooking a home meal, or planning a menu for guests. I appreciate the user-friendly organization, through which you can look up either a food or wine in alphabetical order for pairing suggestions. Wine receives the most attention here, but other beverages (beer, cider, etc.) also get their due. This book has earned a prime spot on my cookbook self, and I reach for it often. A keeper!

As an intermediate home cook and wine lover I *love* this book. I received it as a gift years ago and use regularly. Once you read the first few chapters you won't really use them much again, though I've gone back and re-read them occasionally anyway. The core of the book is literally the "What to Drink with What you Eat" and the "What to Eat with What you Drink" sections. I am constantly flipping back and forth hoping to create harmony in the kitchen. Sometimes I begin with a decided main course then skim the suggested wine pairings; then I go to the wine selection and look for companion flavors for a side dish selection. Other times I begin with a particular wine i am curious about or am just craving at the moment and find complementing foods to prepare a menu. That's what I mean by flipping back and forth; I love it, so much fun! After years of using this book I have (thankfully) retained some knowledge and actually feel as though I have learned and advanced my wine pairing skills as well as my passion to do so. As for the Kindle edition, it needs some work. Right now it is complicated and cumbersome to use as a reference book. I would love a simplified search and shortcut method to particular wines and foods. The formatting isn't quite right either, at least on my Kindle Fire (original) and through the Kindle app on my iPhone. Save your money on the digital format, at least for the time being, and put it towards the hardcover. P.S. This book makes an excellent gift, especially when paired with a Vertical Rabbit bottle opener and, of course, a bottle of wine.

Just a beautiful book...the photos...the writings...I love ...thank you

Selecting a wine for a dinner is often simple. Cab-sov with red meat and white wine with fish. This book however explores the depths of the culinary world. If you ever wondered what drink to serve with camembert, game meats, sea urchin, or Bratwurst, this book is for you. The wine directory also helps with pairing an unfamiliar wine with a dish, which could help you explore new recipes.

Great Book, but the cover was quite scratched.

Wooooow. Vaya nivel de detalle y calidad de contenido. Me ha sido muy útil para comprender más acerca de la armonía del vino y los alimentos.

This is a real gold mine of information for anyone interested in food and drink matching. Most of the book consists of two sections, the first indexed by food giving suggested matching drinks, and the second indexed by drinks giving suggested matching food. Unlike most books on the subject, it also considers drinks other than wine, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. These sections are farly comprehensive - there's even suggestions for what wines to drink with KFC or McDonalds, should you have the inclination. Sometimes there is a certain lack of symmetry between the two sections - you may find that although drink A references food B, food B may not necessarily reference drink A and vice versa. This occasional sloppy editing does not detract from the usefulness of this book too much. Because the authors have enlisted a large panel of experts (I counted over 70 names in the appendix) in compiling the lists, this avoids any narrow bias of personal preferences and gives a wider choice of suggestions than if it was compiled by a single individual. Each suggestion given in the list for each food/drink is given a grading (1-4 scale indicated by normal font, bold, bold capitals or starred) according to how many of the experts suggested it. There is an introductory section discussing the principles of food and drink matching, but this is relatively concise (there is also an end section with some of the experts giving their dozen "desert island wines" along with the food they would eat with it; this section is about as much use as a chocolate teapot to you and I however as they all tend to choose some ridiculously expensive vintage wines from Chateau Somewhere-You've-Never-Heard-Of). This book would best be used therefore in conjunction with some other book teaching you more detail about the principles of food and wine matching (for example Food and Wine Pairing: A Sensory Experience ).

Mi aspettavo un libro che spiegasse in modo approfondito gli elementi da prendere in considerazione per gli accostamenti cibo-vino, ma in realtà si tratta di una lista di suggerimenti provenienti da diversi sommelier. Sono fornite due liste: una che parte dal cibo e suggerisce quali bevande accostarvi, l'altra che parte dalle bevande e suggerisce quali cibi accostarvi. Le liste sono lunghe e accurate, ma a mio avviso sono comunque soggettive e non forniscono spiegazioni sui motivi dell'accostamento.