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16 votes
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A list of commonly recommended cookery books
Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books. These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed!...
Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books.
These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed! I'm sure there are lots of great books that I haven't heard of. I wanted to link to a bookshop, but I got stuck with that so I used Wordery, unless they didn't have it in which case I link to Amazon. Some of these books have hardback and soft-cover versions, or newer editions, so go careful with the links because I just link to any version of the book. I have done no research at all into the authors or illustrators here, so if I've included people who are toxic arseholes please do let me know and I'll fix it. (This post is episode 2 of "DanBC goes down a rabbit hole and dumps the results onto Tildes").
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking - Samin Nosrat and Wendy MacNaughton.
A review from Kitchn: 8 cooks on why "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is such a special, unlikely, hit
A lot of people love this book. Beginners say it gave them a bit more confidence, and good home cooks say it helped elevate their cooking by giving them usable information.
How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman.
How to Cook Everything - the basics - Mark Bittman. A review from ShelfAwareness.
A lot of people don't know how to cook, and have never cooked anything. Mark Bittman's books are often recommended to this group of people. And the books are excellent sources of information, and so they're useful to lots of people. They're very clear and easy to use.
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan.
A VERY SHORT, almost bullet point, review from FiveBooks And a longer review from LitHub
She wrote two books in the 1970s, and these were combined and updated in the 1990s for this book. These books are widely credited as introducing people outside Italy to "authentic" Italian cooking. LitHub review has already said everything that I'd want to say about this, but better than I could.
On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen - Harold McGee.
This is a heavy duty book about the science of food. It's often described as the best single reference book for the science of food and cooking.
Food Lab: Better home cooking through science - J. Kenji López-Alt.
A review from Chemistry World
Surely everyone knows J. Kenji. He's really approachable. He give you science, but it's actionable and achievable.
In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean - Hawa Hassan, Julia Turshen.
A mini-review from Kitchn. So, I'm cheating here because I haven't seen this recommended by anyone but I wanted more books that are not Euro-US focussed. This book focuses on food from Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros
Each chapter starts with a short geo-political intro. You'll be familiar if you've ever read the CIA World Factbook. It then has a short interview with a grandmother, and then it gives some recipes.
Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making - Wordery link - James Peterson.
A review from MostlyFood
"Don’t be put off by the size of this book. It’s true that it’s as big as a small piece of furniture but it’s as big as that for a good reason. There isn’t any padding in Sauces. It’s cover-to-cover solid information that will be welcomed by anyone wanting to perfect sauce-making. Nothing seems to be omitted or overlooked. Every imaginable sauce is described, including Asian Sauces which have been added since the publication of the first edition."
Lots of people like that "no padding" feature.
How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food - Nigella Lawson.
A review by Food 52
"Thinking back on the lifespan of this formative book, I can’t help but feel that it’s to the recipes in it, and of course to Lawson herself, that I owe much of my confidence in the kitchen today."
Lots of people just want to cook tasty food and they're not bothered by The Science. Lawson's books are excellent if you want great home cooking.
The Professional Chef - The Culinary Institute of America
There are lots of versions of this book. The current version will be expensive. The older version are usually very similar and will be much cheaper.
Home cooks often get into weird habits and that's fine - it's your kitchen, do what works for you. But if you want to get better in the kitchen by improving your techniques and skills this is the book for you.
25 votes -
2021 U2 spy plane pilot tube food, US Air Force ration taste test MRE review
25 votes -
Japanese man quits corporate job to learn to make tacos
21 votes -
'No kill' meat, grown from animal cells, is now approved for sale in the US
104 votes -
Why Britain's curry houses are in decline
21 votes -
Taco Bell's iconic Crunchwrap goes vegan
40 votes -
Why it took thirteen years to engineer the Taco Bell Crunchwrap
8 votes -
I opened a ramen pop-up restaurant for just one night, and all 300 tickets sold out in 40s. It's one thing to cook for youtube videos, but it is another to cook for real customers.
5 votes -
How they saved the holes in Swiss cheese
6 votes -
Japanese Jidori chicken is perhaps the world's best, but how good is it? We'll visit a Jidori "free range" chicken farm and then visit my favorite restaurant in Miyazaki
4 votes -
How Somali food in the diaspora holds the history of forced migration
4 votes -
Jamie Oliver's war on nuggets
14 votes -
Chinese takeout Lo Mein secrets revealed
4 votes -
Is Alchemist the world's most creative restaurant? Rasmus Munk offers Michelin-starred meals from food waste, drinks from rabbit's ears and a new way to look at food.
5 votes -
Food giant Unilever is planning a dairy ice cream that uses milk that doesn’t come from a cow
11 votes -
Exclusive: We tasted the world's first cultivated steak, no cows required
4 votes -
Chinese takeout fried rice secrets revealed
9 votes -
A guide to Norway's Trøndelag – this year's European Region of Gastronomy
4 votes -
The mysterious, stubborn appeal of mass-produced fried chicken (2019)
11 votes -
The inside scoop on ice cream innovation – a Tetra Pak product development centre where future recipes and technology are tested out
6 votes -
How Japanese grow and eat $46,500 melons
4 votes -
A history of tacos
3 votes -
Why modern sandwich bread is different from 'real' bread
6 votes -
Can lab-grown dairy proteins give us a cow-free future? | Lab-Grown
6 votes -
I tried RoboBurger, the world’s first burger vending machine
9 votes -
Lab-grown lion, tiger and zebra meat could be set for tables at UK restaurants
5 votes -
What everyday foods are 10/10?
People eat a lot of food. So much, in fact, that we tend to overlook exactly how good our food is. In celebration of this (and to get our minds off of the scary stuff), I thought this was a good...
People eat a lot of food. So much, in fact, that we tend to overlook exactly how good our food is. In celebration of this (and to get our minds off of the scary stuff), I thought this was a good time to reflect on the good things in life. So I give you this question: what average, everyday supermarket food is secretly fantastic? So fantastic that you could eat it everyday - and probably actually do.
My vote is bread. Bread is so delicious you can practically make a complete meal out of it. But it's also versatile and with just a few more ingredients can be transformed into something even more delicious. Buttered toast is absolutely divine. Everyone has their favorite sandwich, and any of those would also be perfect for this list as well, but you can't have any of them without bread.
I'm also not above ultraprocessed garbage food, so as a bonus suggestion is (bread-adjacent!) premade frozen pizzas. While some people will prefer fresh made pizzas, I've never seen anyone hate frozen pizza altogether, and everyone has a favorite brand. I personally like Totino's; it has a strangely appealing artificial quality to it, and most importantly it's a filling meal that takes zero effort (it can be cooked in the toaster oven without even needing to dirty a pan) and costs only about a dollar.
23 votes -
With climate change threatening traditional coffee farming, Finnish scientists have produced coffee from cell cultures with an aroma and taste resembling the real thing
9 votes -
World's coldest BBQ festival | Hokkaido, Japan
4 votes -
How humanity has changed the food it eats
3 votes -
The evolution of the frozen pizza
2 votes -
The history of NYC restaurant inspections: That letter grade in the window is a lot more effective than you might think
8 votes -
Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut
23 votes -
Portland police officers guard Fred Meyer dumpsters, face off with residents seeking discarded food after power outage
11 votes -
Leading baby food manufacturers knowingly sold products with high levels of toxic metals, a US Congress investigation has found
11 votes -
McDonald's is testing the 'McPlant' burger in Denmark and Sweden – burger features a patty made from pea and rice proteins, which was co-developed with Beyond Meat
23 votes -
What the hole is going on? The very real, totally bizarre bucatini shortage of 2020.
11 votes -
The new soul food of Paris: Black chefs are exploring “Afropean” identity and building on American soul food’s long history in the European dining capital
5 votes -
The more boneless, skinless chicken breasts I sell, the worse I feel
17 votes -
No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time. Singapore’s approval of chicken cells grown in bioreactors is seen as landmark moment across industry.
14 votes -
Brad learns how to compost | It's Alive
6 votes -
A Maori community center in New Zealand is distributing bags of donated fish heads to families in need. But it’s more than just charity; it’s a model for reducing food waste.
7 votes -
McDonald's confirms creation of McPlant plant-based burger
13 votes -
A close look at the science of lactic acid fermentation, the process responsible for some of the sour foods we all know and love: sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, yogurt, and more
4 votes -
Many fusion foods associated with the US, such as Hawaiian pizza and California sushi rolls, are really from Canada
9 votes -
Chef recreates the KFC Zinger burger... But can he also make it vegan?
4 votes -
The race to redesign sugar
5 votes -
Subway bread does not meet tax exempt legal definition of bread, Irish court rules
17 votes -
The state fair is canceled, but deep-fried Oreos are not
5 votes