Mandy Aftel

Renowned perfumer Mandy Aftel explores the primal nature and fundamental importance of aroma in everyday life, teaching people about the nature of smell and the idea of "olfactory consciousness" in Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume.

A Natural History of Perfume

Essence and Alchemy

Mandy Aftel is widely acclaimed as a trailblazer in natural perfumery. Over two decades of sourcing the finest aromatic ingredients from all over the world and creating artisanal fragrances, she has been an evangelist for the transformative power of scent. In Fragrant, through five major players in the epic of aroma, she explores the profound connection between our sense of smell and the appetites that move us, give us pleasure, make us fully alive. She imparts the essentials of scent literacy and includes recipes for easy-to-make fragrances and edible and useful concotions.

The Secret Life of Scent

Fragrant

Daniel Patterson

The Magic of Essential Oils in Foods and Fragrance

Aroma

Creating Solid Perfumes for Well-Being

Scents & Sensibilities

For centuries, people have taken what seems to be an instinctive pleasure in rubbing scents into their skin, and using them to pray, to heal, and to make love. Yet in many ways perfumery is a lost art, its creative and sensual possibilities eclipsed by the dominance of synthetic ingredients. In "Essence and Alchemy," winner of the Sense of Smell Institute's Richard B. Solomon Award, Mandy Aftel unearths a forgotten world in which scent was celebrated by poets, contemplated by philosophers, and universally appreciated for its profound resonance with body, mind, and soul. And she seduces the adventurous into experiencing firsthand the pleasures of working with natural essences.

A Book of Perfume

'Mandy Aftel's latest work with Daniel Patterson is a masterpiece on the science of cooking from an olfactory and culinary perspective through the same lens. This book is a must for any chef or cook looking to find new inspirations and a deeper understanding of the way flavours work together.' Pratap Chahal (@thathungrychef), Flavour Bastard, Soho, London 'Am counting down the days till your book arrives!' Nigella Lawson Daniel Patterson, a chef, and Mandy Aftel, a perfumer, present a revolutionary new approach to creating delicious, original food. Aftel and Patterson are rock stars in their respective fields: Patterson has won two Michelin stars for his San Francisco restaurant Coi and numerous James Beard and other food awards, and his new path-breaking co-venture Loco'l is attracting national interest; Aftel has been profiled in the New York Times T Magazine and other publications and is constantly featured and quoted in magazines and blogs. In a world awash with cooking shows, food blogs and recipes, the art of flavour has been surprisingly neglected. The multibillion-dollar flavour industry practises its dark arts by manipulating synthetic ingredients, and home cooks are taught to wield the same blunt instruments: salt, acid, sugar, heat. But foods in their natural states are infinitely more nuanced than the laboratory can replicate - and offer far greater possibilities for deliciousness. Chef Daniel Patterson and natural perfumer Mandy Aftel are experts at orchestrating ingredients, and here they teach readers how to make the most of nature's palette. The Art of Flavour proceeds not by rote formula but via a series of mind-opening and palate-expanding tools and concepts: using a flavour 'compass' to find the way to transformative combinations of aromatic ingredients; pairing ingredients to make them 'bury' (control) one another and 'lock' (achieve an alchemy that transcends the sum of the parts); learning to deploy cooking methods for maximum effect; and the seven 'dials' that allow a cook to fine-tune a dish. With more than sixty recipes that allow the cook to grasp each concept and put it into practice, The Art of Flavour is food for the imagination that will help cooks at any level to become flavour virtuosos in their own right. From The Flavour Bible on, flavour has been a particular focus of recent interest, but no one has Patterson's and Aftel's unique perspective on it, their combined expertise, or their winning blend of ideas, information, recipes and cooking and perfuming lore. The Art of Flavour is a thinking person's cookbook that uses recipes to instil principles for creating delicious food at home, larded with fascinating information on the history and science of flavour that make it a great armchair read as well.

Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food

The Art of Flavour

An artisan perfumer reveals a lost art and its mysterious, sensual history. For centuries, people have taken what seems to be an instinctive pleasure in rubbing scents into their skin. Perfume has helped them to pray, to heal, and to make love. And as long as there has been perfume, there have been perfumers, or rather the priests, shamans, and apothecaries who were their predecessors. Yet, in many ways, perfumery is a lost art, its creative and sensual possibilities eclipsed by the synthetic ingredients of which contemporary perfumes are composed, which have none of the subtlety and complexity of essences derived from natural substances, nor their lush histories. Essence and Alchemy resurrects the social and metaphysical legacy that is entwined with the evolution of perfumery, from the dramas of the spice trade to the quests of the alchemists to whom today's perfumers owe a philosophical as well as a practical debt. Mandy Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, offering insights on the relationship of scent to sex, solitude, and the soul. Along the way, she imparts instruction in the art of perfume compositions, complete with recipes, guiding the reader in a process of transformation of materials that continues to follow the alchemical dictum solve et coagula (dissolve and combine) and is itself aesthetically and spiritually transforming.

โลกเร้นลับของกลิ่นหอม

As seen in Food52, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg Two masters of composition—a chef and a perfumer—present a revolutionary new approach to creating delicious food. Michelin two-star chef Daniel Patterson and celebrated natural perfumer Mandy Aftel are experts at orchestrating ingredients. Yet even in a world awash in cooking shows and food blogs, they noticed, home cooks get little guidance in the art of flavor. In this trailblazing guide, they share the secrets to making the most of your ingredients via an indispensable set of tools and principles: • The Four Rules for creating flavor • A Flavor Compass that points the way to transformative combinations • The flavor-heightening effects of cooking methods • “Locking,” “burying,” and other aspects of cooking alchemy • The Seven Dials that let you fine-tune a dish With more than eighty recipes that demonstrate each concept and put it into practice, The Art of Flavor is food for the imagination that will help cooks at any level to become flavor virtuosos.

The Art of Flavor

As long as there has been passion, there has been perfume. Wealthy Romans used to scent their doves to impress their friends; in Shakespeare's time, a woman in love would place a peeled apple into her armpit to saturate it with her scent and then present it to her lover. This book is a sensual journey through one of life's great pleasures.

Essence & Alchemy

Desde los tiempos mas remotos las personas parecen experimentar un placer instintivo cuando frotan sus cuerpos con unguentos perfumados hechos con cortezas, hojas, flores y plantas. El perfume, etereo y casi intangible, inigualable en su capacidad para evocar nuestras emociones mas profundas, nos ha ayudado a orar, a curar y a hacer el amor. Los perfumes no solo estan directamente relacionados con sus fabricantes, sin mas bien con sus sacerdotes y alquimistas, que fueron los primeros en descubrir los poderes de la combinacion de esencias. Sin embargo, en gran medida, la perfumeria es un arte perdido. Su promesa creadora y sensual se eclipso con la llegada de los ingredientes sinteticos; productos quimicos que carecen de la sutileza y complejidad de las esencias derivadas de substancias naturales y de sus lujuriosas historias, y de los cuales se incluye una alta proporcion en la fabricacion de los perfumes contemporaneos Mandy Aftel resucita la rica herencia relacionada con la evolucion de la perfumeria, desde el comercio de especias hasta las investigaciones de los alquimistas, y desentierra un mundo olvidado donde el aroma era alabado por los poetas, contemplado por los filosofos y apreciado universalmente por sus profundos efectos sobre el cuerpo, la mente y el alma. La autora nos induce a experimentar por nosotros mismos los placeres derivados de las composiciones con fragancias naturales, guiando asi al lector en un proceso de transformacion que sigue el decreto alquimico solve et coagula disuelve y combina y que supone, en si mismo, toda una transformacion estetica y espiritual.

La Alquimia de las Esencias

Pequena Historia del Perfume

Delve into the world of natural aromas and discover their profound effect on emotional well-being, from relieving stress to enhancing sensuality.

Scents and Sensibilities

Describes how to weave life's three major plotlines--love, mastery, and loss--into the most interesting and fulfilling experience possible

Mandy Aftel

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