My Cookbook Shortlist
Dec 9th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Cooking Basics | Comments | 31 Comments |A while back readers began asking me about which cookbooks I own, and the answer is always, “a lot.” I must own several hundred. They rest comfortably in bookcases, in stacks on the floor, in the kitchen pantry and scattered around in the living room.
But there is one place in the house that is exalted above the rest. A place of honor in the kitchen reserved for only those cookbooks I go to with the most frequency. These are the first books I look at when I am seeking inspiration, checking a reference or wondering what this culture or that one does with whatever new ingredient I’ve brought home.
I figured with the holidays coming up and people looking for gifts for their cooking friends, I’d be a good time to run down my top 10 cookbooks. (You can buy them on Amazon by clicking the links, if you are so inclined.) All rest in my cookbook altar, atop the liquor cabinet at the entrance of the kitchen. In no particular order, they are:
OK, I lied. There is a reason I’ve listed Chef Paul Bertolli’s Cooking by Hand
Years after I began cooking with this book, I had a conversation with an editor who wanted to work with me on my own book, which I am writing now. When I said I wanted to write something that was more than just a cookbook, I told her I had Cooking by Hand in mind. There was a pause. “I edited that book,” she said. I was sold.
Let’s get this straight: I have a love-hate relationship with classic French cuisine. Yes, it is the bedrock of most Western cooking, and its techniques can be translated into other cultures. Hell, I use these techniques all the time. But I am not a big fan of stuffy cooking, and a lot of classic French to me feels like wearing a beautiful tie that is just a hair too tight around my neck. They apparently don’t wear ties in Southwest France. Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of Southwest France
If you a duck hunter who likes to cook, you absolutely must own this book. It should be a law. And if you don’t hunt, reading Wolfert’s book will make you either want to head into the marsh, or make nice with your local poultry dealer…
Speaking of unpretentious French cooking, allow me to introduce you to the great Suzanne Goin, who runs Lucques, the only restaurant in Los Angeles I’d travel to eat at. Her Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Sunday Suppers is really best if you live in California, because it is organized by season and begins with key ingredients of each season. If you live in Minnesota, you will not be able to get the same produce as easily. That said, remember L’Etoile in Madison, Wisconsin, has done similar cooking for a generation. Goin’s cooking zeroes in on that prime ingredient, whatever it is, and her recipes require you to use only the best — even if it is a turnip.
As for turnips, some may be surprised that another of my go-to cookbooks is The New Vegetarian Epicure
Be sure to buy the new version of Vegetarian Epicure, as the old one is a hippie throwback with lots of muddy, brown rice abominations. Yech. This version, while still a little dated (it came out in 1996), offers excellent, seasonal menus. It is a complement to Goin’s Sunday Suppers book.
Greeks don’t eat a hell of a lot of meat, and the harsh terrain of much of the country requires them to be thrifty and cunning with the relatively few ingredients they have in abundance. I’ve yet to find a better all-around cookbook that walks me through the intricacies of Greek cuisine than Diane Kochilas’ The Glorious Foods of Greece. Loaded with recipes from Crete to Macedonia, it is a fantastic reference — and a good read. I’ve developed many a recipe just by reading her references to foods in the substantial text that accompanies the recipes. My Thessaly style sausages is one example.
This is a book to own if you love greens, seafood and above all lamb. For hunters, the lamb recipes become a perfect starting point for venison dishes, and match even better with antelope. There are a bunch of rabbit recipes in here, too, chief among them the classic kouneli stifado.
Sliding over one country we come to Italy, and while I have yet to find the be-all, end-all book of Italian cooking, I love the modern take on it Chef Mario Batali does in his The Babbo Cookbook. Batali is a Falstaffian scholar of Italian cuisine, drinking in (literally) everything he can on Italian wines and food, from Sicily to the Alto Adige. For the most part, the Babbo book is not for beginners. I like it because it has some challenging recipes in it, including some basic charcuterie such as duck prosciutto.
I am particularly fond of the olive oil-rosemary cake in the dessert section. Readers of this space know I don’t dwell much on desserts; fresh fruit and cream is my favorite. But this cake rocks. I have made it many times, and its piney richness is a great way to end a wild game dinner. Batali’s Barolo braised short ribs are to die for as well. They make me miss eating beef. Almost.
Continuing westward we come to a pair of books, both by Penelope Casas: Delicioso!, and the older The Foods and Wines of Spain. These are excellent regional overviews of the vastly disparate cuisines of Spain, which range from the wintry Celtic food of Galicia to the Muslim-influenced Andalucia to the exotic cooking of the Canary Islands.
I use these books heavily, and Casas does not repeat herself much between them — even when she has the same dish repeated, such as a classic red pepper stew chilindron, the recipes are different. It is hugely valuable to see how different Spanish regions or even individual chefs treat their classic recipes. Foods & Wines of Spain also has some excellent fresh sausage recipes, and my longaniza recipe is an adaptation of Casas’. Hunters will find a host of game recipes here, especially for game birds such as partridges and quail.
Jump across the Straits of Gibraltar and you are in Morocco. Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
Not everything I do is Mediterranean, or even European for that matter. I also do a little Asian cooking, and the cuisine of Japan has the strongest hold on me right now. I am a novice at Japanese cooking, but the book I am learning from is Shizuo Tsuji’s Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art. This is one of the few comprehensive primers on a difficult cuisine to master. Japanese cooking is highly technical, and is every bit as seasonal and ingredient-based as both Italian and California cuisine; probably even more so. Delicacy and balance are the hallmarks, and no fish cook worth his or her salt can practice the craft long without turning to Japan.
I am increasingly experimenting with Japanese technique and style using wild game, which has not been a part of the Japanese diet for a century or more — although a massive sika deer overpopulation problem on Hokkaido may change that. Venison, being so lean, works well with Japanese beef recipes, which, Kobe excepted, are nearly always trimmed of fat. And pheasant, especially pen-raised birds, are a dead-on substitute for chicken in a yakitori dish.
Finally, the one book I find I cannot live without is Karen Page and Andrew Dornberg’s The Flavor Bible. It is not so much a cookbook as a book for cooks to use as a reference when faced with a new ingredient, or an ingredient they want to use in a different way. The Flavor Bible is essentially an alphabetical list of ingredients with other ingredients that go well with them listed underneath. So for venison, it has the obvious: Rosemary, juniper and garlic, but also things like tomatoes and allspice.
If you are already a decent cook and want to elevate your art, to create recipes rather than just modify or copy someone else’s, you need this book. Nearly every chef I know has either it, or Page and Dornberg’s earlier version, Culinary Artistry. I own both.
So that’s my Top 10. Now I have a question for you: Now that you know my go-to booklist, what cookbooks do you think I ought to put on my Christmas list?
License to Grill by Christopher Schlesinger is the book that started it all for me and is still a go-to favorite. Big, fresh flavors, nothing too complex or long, and all on the grill… what could be better?
Well, I doubt I’ve got anything for you, because my coooking is like rough-cutting lumber compared to your fine sculpture.
The books I use are Angus Cameron’s “L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook”, and Crescent Dragonwagon’s (yes, that’s her name) “Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread”. I would use Pat McManus’ “Whatchagot Stew” but I lost it during our last move… very sad.
Do you think Wolfort’s book, and SWestern France’s cooking, is due to its proximity to the Camargue? What an amazing place that looks to be.
Most of my cooking was passed down matrilineally, and doesn’t appear in a book. It’s Okie.
Sounds like you could use a German cookbook in there. I have two favorites: The Cuisines of Germany – Regional Specialties and Traditional Home Cooking, by Horst Scharfenberg, and The German Cookbook – A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic German Cooking, by Mimi Sheraton. I didn’t get German cooking as a kid, but married a half-German from Kaiserlautern. It’s not his mother’s cooking I’m trying to emulate- she cooked American for her service-man husband- it’s his grandmother’s cooking that I’m trying to make for him. It turns out that German cuisine is incredibly wonderful – I never had a bad meal during the two trips there, and some were amazing. I’m happy to cook German food three or four times a week- it makes him feel loved, but I love it myself!
If you’re in the Bay Area and want to try a great German restaurant, check out Suppenkuche in the Hayes Valley area in SF. Always a good time, and just the place on a cold, wet night.
We’ve got lots of cookbooks about technique, but we’re always turning to Vikram Vij’s Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine for great dishes. He’s taken Indian cuisine and married it with local ingredients from BC – so not your typical chicken tikka masala.
Great list, BTW!
I would have to throw in;
Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland
By Beth Dooley and Lucia Watson.
It does a great job of covering the foods of the Norwegians, Swedes and Germans that colonized the Midwest but also covers some recipes of the Ojibawa and others that were here already and it even includes some Hmong recipes as well. I think I overlooked the cultural and historical significance of sauerkraut and Rommegrot before reading this book.
Cooking by Hand is a great book that I keep waiting for mother to give up to me. I agree with Paula about the German food but haven’t been knocked over by any books on the subject. I enjoyed reading Amanda Hesser The Cook and The Gardener and find myself revisiting it frequently. Thanks for your list, I’ll forward to the wife and kids for X-mas..
If I remember correctly, baking is not really your thing. However, if you’re looking for one decent baking book, I’m a fan of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio. It explains the formulas involved in baked goods, rather than just offering recipes.
Do you have any advice on how or where to get a fresh goose for Christmas dinner (in Sacramento)?
Oh, and I recommend Alice Waters’ “Vegetables”.
When it come to pork cookery you can’t go wrong with Stephane Reynaud’s Pork and Son’s the sausage casoulet and the larded pork roast can’t be beat.
Excellent suggestions! I already have the LL Bean book, and yes, it is worth every penny.
Paula: Not a big fan of German cooking here in California — it is a very limited cuisine and suffers greatly when the temperature climbs above 60 degrees. Since it’s mostly hot here, I’ve not done a lot of German. Might be nice for December-February, though.
Jenny: I’ve been thinking about doing more Indian, but have resisted so far. If I change my mind Vikram’s book will be one I buy.
Rick: Same deal as with the German food. Our climate doesn’t lend itself to too much of that sort of cooking. That said, I find Scandinavian cooking far lighter than German. Wonder why?
Michele: If anyone knows vegetables, it’s Alice. As for the goose, can’t help you. I shoot my own. Try the Sacramento Farmer’s market on Sunday — there’s a guy who sells chicken there. He might know how to score one. Taylor’s meat market might also be able to order you one.
I’m going to guess you have this one, but I like Marcella Hazan’s “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking”. Her recipe for Rabbit with Rosemary and White Wine, which uses a tomato paste sauce, works really well with cottontails. Also, not a cooking book at all, but the book Pheasant Tales has a chapter “The Taste of Wildness” by Steve Stallard that includes a very good discussion of field care, aging, cooking, along with several recipes.
I have to second Jenny above on Vikram Vij! I discovered “Vij’s” while living in Vancouver. If you (or anyone) is in Vancouver, a must dining experience! I’ve been using his book a lot lately as I expand my Indian cooking skills. And I have to second you on Penelope Casas book, absolutely love it!
Oh. I love your list. It is so fun to see someone’s top 10 where I don’t own a single one! My wish
list online is filled to bursting now. You didn’t say what is on your wish list cookbook-wise. Another post perhaps?
Yeah, we usually get our geese from Taylor’s, but this year we’re looking for fresh, never frozen which they can’t supply us with. I was hoping you’d know about some sort of hunter network…the farmer’s market is a good idea. Here’s another question — when I buy a goose from Taylor’s, what kind is it? A Canadian goose? When you shoot one? The same?
-michele
Mike: Actually I don’t have Hazan’s book — it is on my wishlist.
Heather: Maybe not another post, but my wishlists in general are less about recipes and more about technique: I can’t read enough about new cooking techniques. Once you know them, you can apply them to your own recipes and ingredients…
Michele: Domestic geese are descended from the Graylag goose of Europe, which is most definitely not a Canada goose. D’Artagnan often sells these geese, so you might try online — beware, they are VERY expensive. As for a hunted goose, if I had lots of them I would offer you one, but alas, I have only one in the freezer now. Wah!
Thanks! And thanks for the info — so the geese we buy and the geese you hunt are both Graylags? So does that mean that I’m misidentifying the geese I see around this time of year as Canada geese? Or do we have both in the area right now and a hunter would know the diff?
-michele
Michele: I must not be making myself clear. There are at least six different species of wild geese in California. None are related to the domestic goose, which is descended from a wild goose that lives in Europe called the Greylag goose; the closest analog to that goose in the United States is the whitefront or speecklebelly goose.
The white geese you see are snow geese, the gray ones are specklebellies, and the “standard” wild goose, with dark gray and black with a white chin strap, are Canada geese. D’Artagnan occasionally sells Canada geese (don’t know where they get them) but normally sells only premium domestic geeese, which are NOT Canadas…
Hope that helps.
Would love to know your thoughts on The Conscious Cook, by Tal Ronnen, here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Conscious-Cook/Tal-Ronnen/e/9780061874338
Barker: Will have to check it out. I’ve heard of this book…
Aha! Thank you. So what will you be cooking for Christmas dinner?
My wife picked up one for her brother, the prof. at Bryn Mawr, and I have to give it two thumbs’ up!:
http://www.amazon.com/Cookin-Coolio-Star-Meals-Price/dp/1439117616
Hank – dunno if you’re interested in West African cuisine, but a friend of mine here in Brooklyn (one of the world’s biggest African cities) has a great Senegalese restaurant and recent cookbook that runs rings around Marcus Samuleson’s culinary tourism. It’s called “Yolele: Recipes From The Heart of Senegal” by Pierre Thiam. I’d be curious to know what you think…
Forgot the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Yolele-Recipes-Heart-Senegal-Pierre/dp/1891105388
Moro Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark. I have the first two but not the third. I have all of Hazan, agree on the Paul Bertolli as the go to book with taste sensations, and agree on Cassis having several of them, also agree on the Lucia Watson mentioned above.
The Moro cookbook is exciting and one to own and use. Find out yourself and get it out there. They use to cook at the River Cafe in London.
I have tons of cookbooks too. Love them all. I must get Sunday Suppers and the Flavor Bible! Thanks for listing those.
BTW…I recently made beef tongue and had a hell of a time getting it in Sac. I had to order it thru the Nuggett. It was delicious!
Tom: I am interested in African cooking, and you might remember I worked as a line cook in an Ethiopian restaurant years ago. I will check that book out. I find a lot of Western chefs overlook Africa…
Melly: As for beef tongue, go to a Mexican market – they always carry lengua. Cheap and yummy!
I like your list but Claudia Roden’s “Arabesque: the Foods of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon” is stellar and in many ways puts her Big Book of Middle Eastern Food to shame. W
Wayne: Will have to get that one – thanks for the suggestion!