My Favorite Cookbooks (and books about food–and all the rest)
What you will find below is a list of many of my favorite books. I begin with the most relevant: cookbooks. But I cannot resist also sharing some of my favorite food-related books, and then some of my favorite literature. They are all of them worth their weight in gold.
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Cookbooks:
For me, what makes a good cookbook is not just a list of recipes, but a book that helps you to better understand a cuisine and its ingredients. Each of these books will not only teach you delicious recipes, but will also increase your overall knowledge of food and cooking technique.
Professional Cooking – Le Cordon Bleu Textbook – Wayne Gisslen
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking – Marcella Hazan
The Essential Cuisines of Mexico – Diana Kennedy
Into the Vietnamese Kitchen – Andrea Nguyen
Simple Thai Food – Leela Punyaratabandhu
The Food of Sichuan – Fuchsia Dunlop
Cook Real Hawaii – Sheldon Simeon
Books About Food:
These are some of the books about food that I have personally found most influential. The books below run the gamut from Anthony Bourdain’s punk rock kitchens in New York City to the rainy forests of the Pacific Northwest, where Langdon Cook searches for mushrooms. All of these authors have a great respect for food, but they each come to it from a different (and educational) perspective.
Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
Eating Vietnam – Graham Holliday
Pasta Pane Vino – Matt Goulding
A Cook’s Tour – Anthony Bourdain
Blood Bones and Butter – Gabrielle Hamilton
Hunt, Gather, Cook – Hank Shaw
The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine – Steven Rinella
Fat of the Land – Langdon Cook
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
Unrelated Favorite Books:
This list is here simply to share some of the most wonderful writing and storytelling that I know. If you you do not already have each of these books on your shelf, I would strongly suggest you remedy that. Each of them will delight you and, if you’re lucky, change the way you see the world.
Still Life With Woodpecker – Tom Robbins
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway
The list above consists of Amazon affiliate links. If you click through one of the links, we receive a small percentage of anything you purchase during that session (even if it is not the linked item). These are all books that I love, so I have no qualms about endorsing them. I hope you enjoy them!