Books about cooking but not cookbooks

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puffin3

puffin3

Senior Cook
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What 'classic' books around food have I not read/bought. Here's a short list of a few I treasure: Please add any you'd recommend.
AB's Kitchen Confidential
Orwell's Down and Out In Paris and London
Nicolas Freeling's The Kitchen Book and The Cook book
Waverly Root's The Food of France
A.J. Liebling's Between Meals
Zola's The Belly of Paris
J. Pepin's The Apprentice
Ludwig Bemelman's 'Hotel Bemelman' is a must read. It's hilarious. His other book 'La Bonne Table' is my 'White Whale'. I've been looking for it in used book stores and swap meets and garage sales for years. "Why not just buy one off Amazon?". Because a new one is listed at $450.00 and a used one is $229.00. Does anyone have this book? If so is it worth the money?
 
A couple of years ago I told family and friends I wasn't going to get many more recipe books as I had several hundred and only use them for reference. After the total shock wore off, :LOL: my sister gave me a book for my birthday from The America's Test Kitchen. It has tips, stories, and much more. Yes there are recipes, but it is the background that I love.

Since then I have received, to name just a few:
-three Julia Child books
-Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
-The "Ace of Cakes" book detailing the bakery and the show
-Several cake "picture books"
and my favourite:
-Culinaria: Spain - a huge table book with info on each region and it's culinary treasures (with a few recipes thrown in!)

People say they really enjoy this because they really look to see something that interests me and they get something out of it too!
 
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Since it's really not a recipe book, I'll chime in with one I love - The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It tells which flavors go with which, and it has been the spark that has ignited many a recipe for me :)

PS: Puffin - this is a GREAT topic! Thanks for thinking of it!
 
jkath said:
Since it's really not a recipe book, I'll chime in with one I love - The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It tells which flavors go with which, and it has been the spark that has ignited many a recipe for me :)

PS: Puffin - this is a GREAT topic! Thanks for thinking of it!
Click to expand...

JKath, I will definitely have to check that one out! And I agree, Puffin, thanks for this one!
 
A couple of my favorites:

- "Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal" by Margaret Visser. Each chapter describes the history and development of an ingredient that goes into an "ordinary meal": corn with butter and salt (each in a separate chapter); chicken; rice; lettuce with olive oil and lemon juice; and ice cream.

- "Heat (An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany" by Bill Buford. He quit his job as a writer for the New Yorker to go to work in Babbo, Mario Batali's restaurant in New York. Eventually, he decides to go to Italy to learn to make pasta and butcher a pig. Funny book.
 
LPBeier said:
-Culinaria: Spain - a huge table book with info on each region and it's culinary treasures (with a few recipes thrown in!)
Click to expand...


I love the Culinaria Books. I have 6 or 7 of them and I can read them from cover to cover again and again.


I'll add Michael Ruhlman's books to the list. Especially his first one about the CIA.

Heat is an excellent book (mostly about Mario Batali)

Ruth Reichl's books are great, especially the one about being a food critic in NYC.

Jeffrey Steingarten's books are both entertaining and facinating. I was reading one while having lunch in NYC a few years ago and voila he was standing there right in front of my table! He winked at me!

Robert Wolke's What Einstein told his Cook books are great reads.

"How to Read a French Fry," and anything by Shirley Corriher and/or Harold McGee are very informative.

Calvin Trillin has some great food books.

IMO, everyone should read Michael Pollan's books about food, where it comes from and how.
 
jennyema said:
I love the Culinaria Books. I have 6 or 7 of them and I can read them from cover to cover again and again.
Click to expand...
I would love to get more. My friend gave me this one knowing how much I love Spanish food and culture. I will have to look for the others! Thanks!:)
 
LPBeier said:
I would love to get more. My friend gave me this one knowing how much I love Spanish food and culture. I will have to look for the others! Thanks!:)
Click to expand...

Before they went belly up there was a Borders in first floor of my office building. They had discount bins in the doorways.

I can't recall which one I got first, but it was only maybe $5 and it was spectacular. I think it might have been Spain which is my favorite.

So I kept snooping in the discount rack and lo and behold Italy, Germany and France popped up! The Southeast Asia!

I bought Russia and Hungary at regular price.

I think htere are a few more to collect...

 
I checked them out at our Chapters/Indigo site and they have them all. I want every one of them! I love Spain but would really like the others as well. They are already on my "wishlist"!:angel:
 
puffin3 said:
Ludwig Bemelman's 'Hotel Bemelman' is a must read. It's hilarious. His other book 'La Bonne Table' is my 'White Whale'. I've been looking for it in used book stores and swap meets and garage sales for years. "Why not just buy one off Amazon?". Because a new one is listed at $450.00 and a used one is $229.00. Does anyone have this book? If so is it worth the money?
Click to expand...

Is this what you're looking for?

LA Bonne Table by Ludwig Bemelmans (Paperback): booksamillion.com
 
I might repeat some of you, because I had to go upstairs and look at my extensive collection. First off, not going to name the books (too many), but any biography/autobiography/memoir of chefs. Reichl (her first tales of trying to keep her mother from killing her family/guests with food poisoning is poignantly funny), Pepin, ... all great.

Food history books. "Much Depends On Dinner" (Visser), "Food in History" (Tannahill), "Why we Eat What we Eat" (Sokolov).

Tour guides that are food oriented. "The Food Lover's Handbook to the Southwest" is an example.

Anything by MFK Fisher

Something I cannot really catagorize, but I suppose food-oriented memoirs, not famous chef ones. My two favorites are "Monsoon Diary" (Narayan) and "Katish, our Russian Cook" (Frolov). I've read these to a friend who couldn't care less about eating or cooking and she loved them.

Again, how to catagorize? Steingarten's "The Man Who Ate Everything."

How about food oriented murder mysteries? There are so many I cannot count them here. They are usually "cozy" mysteries with a few recipes in back.
 
GotGarlic said:
A couple of my favorites:

- "Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal" by Margaret Visser. Each chapter describes the history and development of an ingredient that goes into an "ordinary meal": corn with butter and salt (each in a separate chapter); chicken; rice; lettuce with olive oil and lemon juice; and ice cream.

- "Heat (An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany" by Bill Buford. He quit his job as a writer for the New Yorker to go to work in Babbo, Mario Batali's restaurant in New York. Eventually, he decides to go to Italy to learn to make pasta and butcher a pig. Funny book.
Click to expand...

Heat is an excellent read, especially for anyone contemplating a career in the kitchen. Nothing about cooking, everything about cheffing.

I also like the Beautiful Cookbook series. While full of good recipes, very informative reading, I buy them to read. Costco often has them.
 
Claire said:
...Anything by MFK Fisher
Click to expand...

That went by a little fast, and I want to talk about it a little more, because I'm always surprised that threads like this can get so far without Fisher coming up. While there are many good books about food and eating, I don't think there's anyone who approaches Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher as both a great food writer and a great writer.

Of her 27 books, most are about cooking or eating, and those that aren't explicitly about food feature food prominently. She was also the translator of the classic, The Physiology of Taste by Brillat-Savarin. A list of works can be found on the foundation website M.F.K. Fisher , and the Wikipedia article is good. Most of her books can be had very cheap from half.com . Without them, you have not read the essential American prose of food and feast.
 
I have a collection of MFK Fisher's works that I haven't looked at in years. I do especially remember one about the wolf at the door, about how to eat well (not fancy) when money is gone. It was great. If you want to read a great American food writer, she's the ticket.
 
Oh, and can't forget the staggering Larousse Gastronomique. In spite of 4,000 recipes, it's more encyclopedia than cookbook.

51VRP5JR7WL._SL500_SS500_.jpg


Larousse does nothing half way, including the associated cooking website, which is inspiring, even if you don't read French.
Larousse Cuisine, la plus belle définition de la cuisine
 
jkath said:
Since it's really not a recipe book, I'll chime in with one I love - The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It tells which flavors go with which, and it has been the spark that has ignited many a recipe for me :)
Click to expand...

+1 I love that book! I actually used it when I was working on one of of CGGs last year.
 
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