The outer cover is Damage.

Sour: The Magical Element That Will Transform Your Cooking by Mark Diacono is a distinctive cookbook devoted to the complex, palate-awakening quality of sourness and acidity. Published by Quadrille in 2019, the 288-page hardcover explores how sour ingredients and fermentation can balance, sharpen, and transform the flavor of food. Diacono moves beyond familiar ingredients such as lemon and vinegar to explore tamarind, sumac, amchoor, dried black lime, anardana, gooseberries, cultured dairy, and fermented foods.

The book also serves as an accessible introduction to fermentation and souring techniques, with guidance on making sourdough, sour cream, sauerkraut, kombucha, yoghurt, kefir, vinegar, pickles, and other fermented ingredients. Recipes span salads, soups, mains, desserts, drinks, and cocktails, including dishes such as sumac-roasted duck, kombucha mayonnaise, roasted plums with labneh, cherry sour cream clafoutis, and passion-fruit, grapefruit and pomegranate ceviche.