The Art of Eating


M.F.K. Fisher - 1954
    Fisher, whose wit and fulsome opinions on food and those who produce it, comment upon it, and consume it are as apt today as they were several decades ago, when she composed them. Why did she choose food and hunger she was asked, and she replied, 'When I write about hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth, and the love of it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied.

Hungarian Cookbook: Old World Recipes for New World Cooks, Expanded Edition


Yolanda Nagy Fintor - 2000
    The author also explores the seasonal and ceremonial observances still practised by Hungarian Americans: bacon cookouts, fall grape festivals, weddings, Christmas, New Year's, and Easter.

A Meal Observed


Andrew Todhunter - 2004
    As Todhunter describes it, Taillevent’s highly orchestrated kitchen is “less an atelier than a gun deck on a ship of war, a place of shouts and fire.”On the other side of the kitchen’s double doors, in the warm light of the nineteenth-century dining room, the American couple surrenders to the sensual pleasure of a beautifully wrought and meticulously served dinner—from the amuse-bouche (a warm cheese puff to “amuse the mouth”) and the crème de cresson soup, with its sunken treasure of lobster tomalley, to the crowning glory of the fantaisie. In the spirit of A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals, Todhunter layers mouthwatering descriptions of French dishes and their preparation with reflections on his American childhood (when food, like sex and money, was not to be discussed at the table), dips into culinary history and philosophy, and entertains with asides on everything from olive oil and chestnuts to the science of viniculture and the chemistry of chocolate. Between courses, Todhunter brings us back to the sanctum of the kitchen itself, where he has probing conversations with chef de cuisine Philippe Legendre and pastry chef Gilles Bajolle, both major figures in the French culinary pantheon, and their assistants. Through these great chefs and their impeccably trained brigade we gain a unique glimpse into the heart of French cuisine and the love of fine food. Is cooking more an art, a craft, or a science? Are great chefs born or made? Why are there so few women chefs in France? What is the greatest danger for a chef at the top of his game? How is a new dish developed? What is the future of haute cuisine in France and in the world at large? When we cook for others, for love or for money, what do we give of ourselves?As richly satisfying as the five-hour meal it describes, A Meal Observed is a delightful paean to the French and French cuisine, and to the universal love of the table. Bon appétit!

Home Comforts


James Martin - 2014
    The very British love of spicy foods is properly indulged with recipes from all over the world, including Indian deep-fried soft-shell crab with a delicious home-made lime pickle. There is also the true comfort food — such as Chicken and wild mushroom frying pan pie — and old favourites such as chicken Kiev.

This is a Cookbook: Recipes For Real Life


Max Sussman - 2012
    Use what’s in there. And don’t be worried about f’ing it up. James Beard Foundation 2012 Rising Star nominee Max Sussman and his partner in crime, Eli, are over perfection. They care about cooking good food that tastes like you made it. Teaming up with Olive Press, these Brooklyn brothers of Über-hip New York establishments Roberta’s and Mile End have a go-to, hands-dirty method for wannabe-kitchen-badasses. This is a Cookbook for Real Life features more than 60 killer recipes that demystify the cooking process for at-home chefs, especially young people just starting out. Combining years of elbow grease in the fiery bowels of restaurants, the Sussmans bring readers a plethora of tricks to make life in the kitchen easier and frankly, more fun. This new cookbook also re-creates some of their favorite comfort foods while growing up, as well as some recipes with their origins in brotherly b.s. that wound up tasting delicious.The Sussmans have got the back of twenty-somethings, who may be too freaked to pick up a cast-iron skillet and instead opt for cop-out take-out as a culinary standby. This is a Cookbook for Real Life is designed to be a go-to kitchen companion with meals fit for one, two, or many, and features plans of attack for dinner shindigs. The best part? All of the book's recipes have easy-to-find ingredients that limit the prep time fuss and can be prepared in small (read: shoebox) kitchens.Chapters are organized by occasion, eating habits, and time of day so readers can enjoy lazy brunches, backyard grilled grub, a night in, dinner parties, midnight snacks, and sweet stuff. Want to increase your kitchen swag? Each chapter boasts special projects like home-curing bacon; pickling; making pasta from scratch; mixing cocktails, and “what’dya got sandwiches” -- and take it from the Sussmans, creativity in the kitchen makes a good impression in the long run.

Fancy AF Cocktails: Drink Recipes from a Couple of Professional Drinkers


Ariana Madix - 2019
    Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval, two of the show’s stars, fell in love on the show and have stuck together through it all. They've been talking about writing a cocktail book on the show for a few seasons, and now they're finally delivering the goods with this book that has drinks for every situation. It features a mix of classy cocktails for fancy special occasions and trashier recipes for those times when you just have a few random ingredients in your kitchen and want to keep the buzz going. Shots and recovery recipes are also included, so your pregame and morning after will be covered too. Woven throughout are brand-new photos and behind-the-scenes stories crafted with the help of Bravo insider and co-author Danny Pellegrino, making this a true must-have for fans of the show.

The Green Roasting Tin: Vegan and Vegetarian One Dish Dinners


Rukmini Iyer - 2018
    ‘This book will earn a place in kitchens up and down the country’ Nigella Lawson Seventy-five one-tin recipes: half vegan, half vegetarian, all delicious.With all seventy-five recipes in this book, you simply pop your ingredients in a tin and let the oven do the work.From flexitarians to families, this book is for anyone who wants to eat easy veg-based meals that fit around their busy lives.

Salad for President: A Cookbook Inspired by Artists


Julia Sherman - 2017
      Julia Sherman loves salad. In the book named after her popular blog, Sherman encourages her readers to consider salad an everyday indulgence that can include cocktails, soups, family style brunch dishes, and dinner-party entrées. Every part of the meal is reimagined with a fresh, vegetable obsessed perspective. This compendium of savory recipes will tempt readers in search of diverse offerings from light to hearty: Collard Chiffonade Salad with Roasted Garlic Dressing and Crouton Crumble, Heirloom Tomatoes with Crunchy Polenta Croutons, or Flank Steak and Bean Sprouts with Miso-Kimchi Dressing. On the lighter end there are Grilled Hearts of Palm with Mint and Triple Citrus, Persimmon Caprese, and fresh Blood Marys. The recipes, while not exclusively vegetarian, are vegetable-forward and focused on high-quality seasonal produce. Sherman also includes insider tips on pantry staples and growing your own salad garden of herbs and greens.   Salad—with its infinite possibilities—is a game of endless combinations, not stifling rules. And with that in mind, Salad for President offers a window into how artists approach preparing their favorite dishes. She visits sculptors, painters, photographers, and musicians in their homes and gardens, interviewing and photographing them as they cook. Utterly unique in its look into the worlds of food, art, and everyday practices, Salad for President is at once a practical resource for healthy, satisfying recipes and an inspiring look at creativity.

Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy


Diana Kennedy - 2010
    Acclaimed as the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, Kennedy has been an intrepid, indefatigable student of Mexican foodways for more than fifty years and has published several classic books on the subject, including The Cuisines of Mexico (now available in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, a compilation of her first three books), The Art of Mexican Cooking, My Mexico, and From My Mexican Kitchen. Her uncompromising insistence on using the proper local ingredients and preparation techniques has taught generations of cooks how to prepare--and savor--the delicious, subtle, and varied tastes of Mexico.In Oaxaca al Gusto, Kennedy takes us on an amazing journey into one of the most outstanding and colorful cuisines in the world. The state of Oaxaca is one of the most diverse in Mexico, with many different cultural and linguistic groups, often living in areas difficult to access. Each group has its own distinctive cuisine, and Diana Kennedy has spent many years traveling the length and breadth of Oaxaca to record in words and photographs "these little-known foods, both wild and cultivated, the way they were prepared, and the part they play in the daily or festive life of the communities I visited." Oaxaca al Gusto is the fruit of these labors--and the culmination of Diana Kennedy's life's work.Organized by regions, Oaxaca al Gusto presents some three hundred recipes--most from home cooks--for traditional Oaxacan dishes. Kennedy accompanies each recipe with fascinating notes about the ingredients, cooking techniques, and the food's place in family and communal life. Lovely color photographs illustrate the food and its preparation. A special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the three pillars of the Oaxacan regional cuisines--chocolate, corn, and chiles. Notes to the cook, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index complete the volume.An irreplaceable record of the infinite world of Oaxacan gastronomy, Oaxaca al Gusto belongs on the shelf of everyone who treasures the world's traditional regional cuisines.

Joy of Cooking


Irma S. Rombauer - 1931
    Rombauer self-published the first three thousand copies of Joy of Cooking in 1931, it has become the kitchen bible, with more than 20 million copies in print. This new edition of Joy has been thoroughly revised and expanded by Irma’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott.John and Megan developed more than six hundred new recipes for this edition, tested and tweaked thousands of classic recipes, and updated every section of every chapter to reflect the latest ingredients and techniques available to today’s home cooks. Their strategy for revising this edition was the same one Irma and Marion employed: Vet, research, and improve Joy’s coverage of legacy recipes while introducing new dishes, modern cooking techniques, and comprehensive information on ingredients now available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You will find tried-and-true favorites like Banana Bread Cockaigne, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Southern Corn Bread—all retested and faithfully improved—as well as new favorites like Chana Masala, Beef Rendang, Megan’s Seeded Olive Oil Granola, and Smoked Pork Shoulder. In addition to a thoroughly modernized vegetable chapter, there are many more vegan and vegetarian recipes, including Caramelized Tamarind Tempeh, Crispy Pan-Fried Tofu, Spicy Chickpea Soup, and Roasted Mushroom Burgers. Joy’s baking chapters now include gram weights for accuracy, along with a refreshed lineup of baked goods like Cannelés de Bordeaux, Rustic No-Knead Sourdough, Ciabatta, Chocolate-Walnut Babka, and Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza, as well as gluten-free recipes for pizza dough and yeast breads. A new chapter on streamlined cooking explains how to economize time, money, and ingredients and avoid waste. You will learn how to use a diverse array of ingredients, from amaranth to za’atar. New techniques include low-temperature and sous vide cooking, fermentation, and cooking with both traditional and electric pressure cookers. Barbecuing, smoking, and other outdoor cooking methods are covered in even greater detail. This new edition of Joy is the perfect combination of classic recipes, new dishes, and indispensable reference information for today’s home cooks. Whether it is the only cookbook on your shelf or one of many, Joy is and has been the essential and trusted guide for home cooks for almost a century. This new edition continues that legacy.

The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide


Mary Lou Heiss - 2007
    In this sweeping tour through the world of tea, veteran tea traders Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss chronicle tea's influence across the globe and provide a complete reference for choosing, drinking, and enjoying this beverage.The Story of Tea begins with a journey along the tea trail, from the lush forests of China, where tea cultivation first flourished, to the Buddhist temples of Japan, to the vast tea gardens of India, and beyond. Offering an insider'­s view of all aspects of tea trade, the Heisses examine Camellia sinensis, the tea bush, and show how subtle differences in territory and production contribute to the diversity of color, flavor, and quality in brewed tea. They profile more than thirty essential tea varietals, provide an in depth guide to tasting and brewing, and survey the customs and crafts associated with tea. Sharing the latest research, they discuss tea's health benefits and developments in organic production and fair trade practices. Finally, they present ten sweet and savory recipes, including Savory Chinese Marbled Eggs and Green Tea Pot de Crâme, and resources for purchasing fine tea.Vividly illustrated throughout, The Story of Tea is an engrossing tribute to the illustrious, invigorating, and elusive leaf that has sustained and inspired people for more than two thousand years.

Ten Restaurants That Changed America


Paul Freedman - 2016
    Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled The Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone’s, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé’s Le Pavillon, food historian Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. Freedman also treats us to a scintillating history of the then-revolutionary Schrafft’s, a chain of convivial lunch spots that catered to women, and that bygone favorite, Howard Johnson’s, which pioneered midcentury, on-the-road dining, only to be swept aside by McDonald's. Lavishly designed with more than 100 photographs and images, including original menus, Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a significant and highly entertaining social history.

Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum Cocktail to the Zombie {80 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories behind Them}


Ted Haigh - 2004
    This book does not repeat the timeworn cocktails of old. Instead historian, expert, and drink aficionado Dr. Cocktailhas hand-picked a superb collection of 80 drinks rarely made today, and all of them deserve revival. Some are from the nineteenth century, some from the Prohibition era, and some from just after World War II, just as the golden age of the cocktail was waning. All are retrieved from extremely uncommon sources. In fact, some of these drinks were found carefully penned into old cocktail manuals or on scraps of paper and may never have been published. They are true treasures, indeed.Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails pays homage to the great bartenders of the past and the grand beverages they created, the recipes for which were almost lost to history. Fully illustrated, it is filled with golden-age style, narrated with humorous and colorful anecdotes, chock-full of fascinating cocktail history, and brimming with delicious concoctions. If you have half the fun looking at this book and trying these recipes as the author did putting them together, a great party is about to ensue.

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat


Bee Wilson - 2012
    It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious - or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen. It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Knives - perhaps our most important gastronomic tool - predate the discovery of fire, whereas the fork endured centuries of ridicule before gaining widespread acceptance; pots and pans have been around for millennia, while plates are a relatively recent invention. Many once-new technologies have become essential elements of any well-stocked kitchen - mortars and pestles, serrated knives, stainless steel pots, refrigerators. Others have proved only passing fancies, or were supplanted by better technologies; one would be hard pressed now to find a water-powered egg whisk, a magnet-operated spit roaster, a cider owl, or a turnspit dog. Although many tools have disappeared from the modern kitchen, they have left us with traditions, tastes, and even physical characteristics that we would never have possessed otherwise. Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time


John J. Palmer - 2006
    This book includes ingredients, methods, recipes and equipment information. It provides reference to intermediate techniques like all-grain brewing variations and recipe formulation.