Combining Flavors

When you think about all the ingredients that exist around the world, it soon becomes clear that there is an infinite number of combinations of ingredients. So how on earth is any cook supposed to figure out which ingredients go best together?

Happily, it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. Probably almost as long as people have had to eat, people have been experimenting with combining various ingredients. While the most ill-conceived of these experiments did not produce lasting results, other charmed combinations have since gone on to become classics.