For the follow-up to his first cookbook, which flirts with flavor combinations, recipe developer Nik Sharma knew he wanted to focus in on the individual intricacies of specific flavors. The result is the new cookbook The Flavor Equation, which starts by outlining how we all rely on senses and feelings when we eat — sight, sound, texture, taste, and memories among them.

As for basic tastes and flavors, there’s brightness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, savoriness, fieriness, and richness, and Sharma lays