Samin Nosrat - Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

Praise for SALT FAT ACID HEAT

Named one of the years best books by NPR, The Atlantic, Bon Apptit , BuzzFeed, Forbes , Food52, Martha Stewart Living, Rachel Ray Every Day, USA Today, Vice, Wired, and many more.

An exhaustively researched treatise on the four pillars of successful cooking.

The New York Times Book Review

[Nosrat and MacNaughton] debunk the concept of recipes, instead teaching you how to build food (and flavor) from scratch and by instinct. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat uses its eponymous guiding principles to chart a very delicious course.

NPR.org

A fascinating and inspirational read thatll have them rushing into the kitchen between chapters. The illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton are priceless as well.

Wired

Inventively illustrated... ambitious.... [Nosrat is] a talented explainer.

The Wall Street Journal

If youre only going to buy one cookbook this year, let it be this so-much-more-than-arecipe- book.... Guaranteed to turn even the most culinarily inept among us into kitchen proficient.

Elle

Nosrats volume has hit upon a theory not only easy to remember, but also fun to learn in practice. Even more fun: the accompanying art by Wendy MacNaughton.

Eater

An incredibly engaging master class... The curious cook will eventually find her copy of this book stained and dog-eared, as she consults its essential kitchen wisdom for years to come.

Cooking Light

Genius!

Rachael Ray Every Day

This beautiful, approachable book not only teaches you how to cook, but captures how it should feel to cook: full of exploration, spontaneity, and joy. Samin is one of the great teachers I know, and wins people over to cooking with real foodorganic, seasonal, and alivewith her irrepressible enthusiasm and curiosity.

Alice Waters , New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Simple Food

Everyone was impressed when Michael Pollan managed to summarize the huge and complex subject of what we should be eating in just seven words: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Samin Nosrat has managed to summarize the huge and complex subject of how we should be cooking in just four words: Salt, fat, acid, heat. Everyone will be hugely impressed.

Yotam Ottolenghi , New York Times bestselling author of Jerusalem

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a must for anyone wanting to be a better cook. Samin Nosrat, along with Wendy MacNaughtons fun illustrations, teaches the fundamentals of cooking and dives into the four elements that make food taste great. So do yourself a favor and buy this book. I promise you wont regret it.

April Bloomfield , James Beard Awardwinning chef and author of A Girl and Her Pig

Like the amazing meals that come out of Samin Nosrats kitchen, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is the perfect mixture of highest-quality ingredients: beautiful storytelling, clear science, an infectious love of food, and Wendy MacNaughtons powerful art. Nosrats prose combined with MacNaughtons beautiful illustrations are a perfect guide to employing the science of cooking for maximum deliciousness.

Rebecca Skloot , New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a very important book not because it contains many excellent recipes, although it does, or because it is written by a Chez Panisse alum, although it is. It is important because it gives home cooks a compass with which to navigate their own kitchens, and it places trust in them that they will be able to use that compass. Samins easygoing, cook-by-feel approach is never condescending or elitist. It is a step toward cooking without recipes and true empowerment (and joy!) in the kitchen.

John Becker and Megan Scott , fourth-generation stewards of the New York Times bestselling Joy of Cooking

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is a wildly informative, new-generation culinary resource. Samin Nosrats wealth of experience comes together here in a pitch-perfect combination of charm, narrative, straight-talk, illustration, and inspiration. Ticking all the boxes for new and seasoned cooks alike, this book meets you wherever you are in the kitchen, in all the right ways.

Heidi Swanson , New York Times bestselling author of Super Natural Cooking

Simon & Schuster

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Text copyright 2017 by Samin Nosrat

Illustrations copyright 2017 by Wendy MacNaughton

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2017

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior and cover design by Alvaro Villanueva

Cover art by Wendy MacNaughton

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nosrat, Samin, author.

Title: Salt, fat, acid, heat : the four elements of good cooking / Samin Nosrat.

Description: New York : Simon & Schuster, [2017] | Series: Simon & Schuster nonfiction original hardcover | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016040649 (print) | LCCN 2016055183 (ebook) | ISBN 9781476753836 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781476753843 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781476753850 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX651 .N66 2017 (print) | LCC TX651 (ebook) | DDC 641.5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040649

ISBN 978-1-4767-5383-6

ISBN 978-1-4767-5385-0 (ebook)

For Alice Waters, who gave me the kitchen, and for Maman, who gave me the world

Anyone who likes to eat, can soon learn to cook well.

Jane Grigson

A s I write these words, this book hasnt even been published yet, but already it feels indispensible.

That must sound over-the-top, I know, but I honestly cant remember the last time I read a book on cooking that was this useful or unusual. I suspect thats because reading Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat feels less like being in the pages of a cookbook than at a really good cooking school, standing in your apron around the butcher-block island listening as a smart, eloquent, and occasionally hilarious chef demonstrates how to repair a broken mayonnaise. (Add a few drops of water and then whisk with the urgency of a swimmer escaping a shark.) Now she passes around the bowl of silky, no-longer-broken emulsion so you can dip a tasting spoon and feel it on your tongue. I get it.

In Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat , Samin Nosrat manages to take us so much deeper and farther into the art of cooking than cookbooks ordinarily do. Thats because her book offers so much more than recipes, a literary genre that, while useful, has severe limitations. A well-written and thoroughly tested recipe might tell you how to produce the dish in question, but it wont teach you anything about how to cook, not really. Truth be told, recipes are infantilizing: Just do exactly what I say, they say, but dont ask questions or worry your little head about why. They insist on fidelity and faith, but do nothing to earn or explain it.