I have always loved to cook. Even as a little girl, the smell of spice stirred something inside of me – and the pleasure of taste did the same. When my mother set dinner on the table, stir-fries usually with plenty of white rice, I could tell exactly which variety of rice she used (and whether she mixed them) by its fragrance alone. At eight, when my mother braised her mushrooms in white wine and served them with steak, I cautioned her not to do it again because red wine, not white marries better with the richness of beef.
And when other little girls played with Barbies, I planned elaborate meals. And when the school year ended, liberating us children for yet another summer, I worked in the kitchen – pouring over cookbooks, developing recipes and planning dinner parties for my eleven year-old friends. One evening, I served Cornish game hens stuffed with wild rice and currants to a group of 6th graders who, admittedly, would have been happier with hot dogs and hamburgers, but I took my joy in good food – and still do.
While cookbook collection has ebbed and flowed: sometimes bordering on near 100 and others close to twenty, there’s a handful of cookbooks I credit with fostering my love of honest and real food, prepared well. It’s these books that changed the way I thought about food and how it should be prepared; moreover, they’re a must-have for any real food kitchen. Most you probably know, some you might not – but they’re all worth having in your kitchen.
I typically purchase my books from independent booksellers, many of which you can find online (see sources), through Barnes & Noble and through online bookswaps like Paperbackswap.com which operates on a trade basis: you mail a book to someone and receive a credit to order a book from someone else; this, in turn, means you’re receiving books for the cost of shipping by media mail.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
I first came across Mastering the Art of French Cooking when I was twelve. We’d just moved to Colorado from New Mexico. It was summertime and I was bored, which meant scouring the cupboards looking for some sort of inspiration; I stumbled across my mother’s worn copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking which both intrigued and disgusted me. No, I was not – at least, initially – a fan of Julia Child. She taught everything in that book: recipes for liver and bone . And everything was doused in butter. The stained pages captivated me and I looked at the butchering diagrams with a sense of horrified fascination. People eat that? I wondered as she described thirteen recipes for sweetbreads. Now, of course, things have changed for me thanks, in part, to books like Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We try serve offal several times a month, and everything is doused in butter (read: good quality from grass-fed cows – which you can buy it online when it’s not available locally.)
What did it teach me? Essentially, Mastering the Art of French Cooking opened my eyes to a world of rich cooking twenty years ago and, today, it still teaches me to honor my ingredients with proper technique.
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
In my early teens, I became deeply disturbed by the revelation of factory farming in the U.S. and committed myself to a vegetarian diet (and sometimes vegan diet) which lasted, more or less, until my early twenties. Meat, in general, disgusted me now and I was horrified by the prospect of touching, cooking and eating a steak, a piece of chicken breast, a roast or anything that had once been living. Too bad that my young and still developing body needed the nutrients found in animal foods and needed balance desperately. Like any good veg*n, I ate a whole foods vegetarian diet and while I enjoyed a number of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, it was Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone that I loved the most. The recipes were fresh, and rich with the flavor of the seasons. So even though I gave up vegetarianism several years ago in favor of traditional foods, I still kept Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone on my shelf/ And when my nearly 15-year old copy fell apart this year in a dilapidated heap of crusted and dog-eared pages, I bought another.
What did it teach me? Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone fostered in me a love of vegetables and fruits, artfully and carefully prepared. It taught me to eat with the seasons and to cherish plants for their variety and the myriad ways they can enliven the plate.
Nourishing Traditions
I happened upon Nourishing Traditions by chance in an online bookswap on the natural parenting message board: Mothering.com. I sent off a selection of cookbooks to one mother, and another sent a selection to me. Of course, I was still, more or less, a vegetarian at this time though I’d given in repeatedly to consuming wild-caught fish because my pregnant (and then lactating) body desperately craved animal food – a signal I should have honored sooner than I did. I initially thought that Nourishing Traditions, by its name along, must be a vegetarian cookbook. After all she used the word nourishing, and everyone knows that the only true nourishment to be had comes from plant foods, of course. (I can’t tell you how many people make the same mistake with Nourished Kitchen and then send me terribly offended and angry emails when dishes like Asian-style Chicken Feet Stock pop up in their inboxes.)
But, as I read the book my outlook on food began to change. Remember my horror at the liver pate and sweetbreads recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Well, Nourishing Traditions had a whole chapter on offal! I tossed the book on the shelf in disgust, but, over time, I crept back to it and read and read. What she wrote made sense: good health comes from good food – more importantly, our ancestors maintained health even in the harshest circumstances from a healthy and deeply nourishing diet. And that diet included ample animal foods and good quality fat. Not content to switch my decade-old vegetarian diet on the philosophy in one cookbook, I read other books on the subject: Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine, Real Food: What to Eat & Why, Nutrition & Physical Degeneration and even the China Study. It was the failed science behind the China Study – what should have been a bastion of veg*n philosophy paired with the other books that left me cold and helped me to abandon vegetarianism for traditional foods (and I haven’t looked back since, thank you very much.)
What did it teach me? Nourishing Traditions taught me to embrace real food and balance in my cooking: meat, fish, offal, butter, olive oil, coconut oil, vegetables, fruits. More, it taught me to cherish and honor the foods and practices that nourished my ancestors in good health through hard times. And while I’ve never actually cooked a recipe from Nourishing Traditions (can you imagine, a NT blogger who’s never cooked an NT recipe?), I refer to it continually for inspiration.
The Flavor Bible
A good friend who has just completed culinary school turned me on to the Flavor Bible just this year, and I fell in love. The Flavor Bible is not strictly a cookbook, but, rather it is a encyclopedic collection of ingredients and their matches. So if I’m stumped by a new ingredient in my CSA box or am just seeking a little bit of inspiration, I turn to the Flavor Bible which lists a series of compatible ingredients. So if I want to know what flavors go well with those fresh lychees I picked up at the Asian market in Denver, I just turn to page 209 and find a list of good matches: chicken, blackberries, raspberries, rum, scallops, shrimp and other foods. The thoughtful reference provides endless inspiration in creating and preparing new dishes.
What did it teach me? How to match compatible ingredients in various dishes.
Foods of the World (Time Life Series)
This 27-book series was released by Time-Life in the 1970s and the books have since become collectors items which are, fortunately, widely available in second-hand shops and in online book swaps like Paperbackswap.com. The books which address the traditional cuisines of the world ranging from the Americas to the Pacific including looks at the cooking of Scandinavia, Japan, Russia, Germany and Polynesia among others combine cultural history with culinary traditions in a beautiful approach to cooking. Each of the hard-back books comes with an accompanying spiral-bound recipe book. Take care though that the editors of these books often replaced traditional fats like butter or tallow with modern versions to suit the American palates of the 1970s and 1980s – so you’ll find reference to vegetable oil and margarine where, traditionally, there would be none. The series, if you can find them, provides a fascinating look at traditional foods across the globe which helps to solidify a more worldly and well-rounded look at whole foods cooking.
What did it teach me? To take pleasure in and inspiration from the traditional foods from cultures around the world and to embrace history in the way I manage my kitchen and select the foods that nourish my family.
Which are your favorite cookbooks and how have they changed how you cook?
Sure, my top five represent only a small number of the wonderful cookbooks available. I’ll always have a place in my heart for Full Moon Feast, Wild Fermentation and The Professional Chef. So if you’ve got a favorite cookbook to share – let me know by posting it in the comments.
I am reading Nourishing Traditions right now. I am really liking it so far. I haven’t done much cooking from it, beyond making my own chicken broth and letting it cook a whole lot longer than I ever have before! I love the section on vegetables as well. I like it a lot though and we’ve been talking about making some more changes in our home.
I’ve heard about the Flavor Bible. I think I’m going to see if it’s available at my library before I buy it though. Thanks!
For me, Nourishing Traditions was definitely about philosophy more than the recipes – which is kinda why I started NK – and of course, no one was talking about real/traditional foods back then. You’ll love Flavor Bible.
I have a question hopefully someone can help me with:
in the NT cookbook directions for making cutured butter/buttermilk, it says to let the cream sit out for 8 hours at room temp, then process the cream into butter and the remaining liquid is buttermilk. It also gives a variation to make sweet butter with fresh cream that hasn’t sat at room temp for 8 hours, but it does not say what to do with the leftover liquid. So I made sweet butter, and poured the remaining liquid into a glass container, covered and let sit overnight at room temp (75* F). In the morning I put it into the refrigerator. Does anyone know if this is now cultured buttermilk? I did not add any culture starter to it, just merely let it sit at room temp.
As I was finishing this post, my mind was saying, “Where’s Wild Fermentation?”. Then I saw the mention at the bottom. I’ve been on a fermenting kick lately.
I’ve never actually cooked anything out of NT either, but we eat traditionally. I never thought about it before. Perhaps I should find a few recipes to try from the book.
Wild Fermentation is awesome and Sandor Katz is wonderfully knowledgeable and passionate about his subject.
I love this entry!
One of the books that has most influenced me is Annalise Roberts’ Gluten Free Baking Classics. Although no longer having to follow a gf diet, I still refer to this book. The book is divided into different baking areas from quick breads, cakes, pies, cookies, and lean breads. But more importantly, she gives her recipe for her rice flour mix…the core ingredient to all the recipes that follow.
What did it teach me? That even though I needed to follow a gf diet, I could still eat well. In fact I could eat even better than I was. But more importantly, Roberts helped teach me the joy of baking (from the making to the sharing) and made me curious enough to discover the science behind it all. This is the book that really started me on my path to culinary school.
I’ve enjoyed “The World’s Healthiest Foods”, except the soy chapter. I use it with unfamiliar produce, too! I appreciate the very fast prep in their recipes and that so much good info is available at their website: http://www.whfoods.com/
Real Stew: 300 Recipes for Authentic Home-Cooked Cassoulet, Gumbo, Chili, Curry, Minestrone, Bouillabaisse, Stroganoff, Goulash,
Clifford A. Wright
I love this book! It has introduced me to so many new techniques and ingredients and I can’t describe the tongue joy
Also need to mention, the first experience that got me passionate about food and cooking was the movie ‘Like Water For Chocolate’ and the book has all the recipes!
My favorite cookbooks:
Brazilian Cooking (c. 1966)
The Way to Cook by Julia Child
The Settlement Cookbook by Mrs. Simon Kander
Larousse Gastronomique
Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy by Andre Simon
Pellaprat
It’s not an NT book, but I love Apples for Jam, the only cookbook I know that’s arranged by color. The recipes are an interesting mix and kid friendly. I also like The Commonplace Kitchen, which has a lot of good basic foods. I sometimes use an old Searchlight cookbook from the 40s. Due to rationing, it uses less sugar (and fat), but has good basic recipes too.
My overall fav is Madame Benoit’s books,
My mother-in-law gave me the Better Home and Garden cookbook when I got engaged. It covers a lot of basics. There are grids in the back of each chapter for how long to bake salmon or roast poultry. It has the BEST fudge brownies in the world.
I also like 500 Low Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender and some of vegetable recipes in South Beach Diet. I go to blogs a lot for recipe advice. One of my favorites is Kalyn’s Kitchen. She has great salads and vegetable recipes.
My very first cookbook and one I still love is :A Little Greek Cookbook – it is a small pocket sized cookbook that I got from my mom when I was a young teen.
Some of my other favorites are:
The Joy of Pickling
Dishing Up Vermont
The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook
Home Cheesemaking
New/Recent Favorites:
Black Forest Cuisine
The Spunky Coconut’s Grain Free Baking Cookbook
Simply Sugar and Gluten Free
Primal Blueprint Cookbooks
Older editions of everyday cookbooks. My mother was never really happy when she replaced her early 60′s edition of the red check covered Better Homes & Gardens cookbook in the 70′s. And mr 80′s edition was even more disappointing. I’ve since tracked down a copy of my moms earliest and am looking for an older version still. The recipes are more detailed and use whole foods and natural fats. It’s where I go for traditional recipes.
Another useful book, this time from culinary school, is Food for 50. Get any edition you see because the useful bit are the charts which tell you how much useful product to expect from a certain weight of whole, untrimmed fruit or veg. Helpful when learning how to deal with farmers market veg. Other charts define what is meant by a ‘small’ onion or ‘large’ apple which again helps you make better use of product and recipes. There is also advice on how to expand recipes, both the mathematics and changes in technique. Weights and measures equivalents for common ingredients. All sorts of time and temperature references for cooking, chilling, and warm or cold holding. There are probably Apps for at least some of these references but sometimes it’s still easier to flip to a page in a book than to figure out what to ask in which app!
That’s so interesting about the BH&G cookbook; I’ve always thought the same thing. I had an elderly neighbor give me her copy, which I believe is a first edition (it’s from the 30′s), and the differences in recommended foods are amazing. I think it recommends eating 4 eggs per week, vs 1 or 2 in the newer editions. Plus the illustrations are great! She was 102 when she died, and had memorized most of the recipes from that cookbook!
My dad introduced me to both Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Foods of World. I loved cookbooks as a child, as well, and spent a lot of rainy Saturdays imagining the day when I would have my own kitchen and could make whatever I wanted (my mom wasn’t/isn’t a terribly adventurous cook or eater). The cookbook I use the most is my 1950 edition of Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, not because the fare is particularly inspiring, but it’s such a great compendium of basic knowledge: how to poach an egg, how long to bake a potato, etc.
I just finished Nourishing Traditions and I have some navy beans sprouting as we speak. I’m not giving up alcohol and I definitely not going to be making anything with stevia (blech), but I agree with the premise of the book and most of the information. I love continuing my education!
i *totally* feel you on both the alcohol and stevia. I like a cocktail once in a while and love wine with dinner. I cannot and will not use stevia.
Curious, Jenny, why won’t you use stevia? I’ve been using it in my coffee (and now tea since I quit caffeine) in 2004, and it’s a big reason why I’ve lost a lot of my sweet tooth.
Right with you on the alcohol. You will never pry the wine or beer (or Barenjaeger, rum, scotch…) from these hands.
I don’t use it because the liquid and the white powder are *heavily* processed, plus it has a terrible aftertaste. Also it was traditionally used as a contraceptive herbal remedy, not as a sweetener. I think people are better off with a little of the real thing, or nothing at all.
I don’t really have an issue with green stevia which is just the herb that has been dried and powdered.
Never knew about the contraceptive value of stevia! I use a little of it combined with natural sweeteners like maple syrup and coconut sugar so that I can cut down the amount of sugar. I have a wicked sweet tooth and stevia + natural sweeteners helps me keep it under control. I supposed there’s that much room in my diet for a little processing; not much else that I eat is processed anymore.
oh my, I didn’t know about stevia for contraception too. ah, curse you sweet tooth.
Amen on both! A little wine in the evening and with food is just fine and stevia, yuck! It tastes just like Sweeta or Nutrasweet!
These are great! I also love Deborah Madison’s book and refer to it all the time. Great resource!
So many books jump to mind, but I think I’d have to pick Alice Waters (The Art of Simple Food) and Mollie Katzen (Mossewood and Enchanted Broccoli Forest). Great topic. I look forward to checking out the ones on your list. Watch out Barnes and Noble. HERE I COME!
The Art of Simple Food is definitely my favorite all-time cookbook. I love Wild Fermentations & also the concepts behind Nourishing Traditions, but have never found myself making any of the recipes out of it. Moosewood helped me through my vegetarian years & there are still a few recipes I go back to now & then. I just ordered Full Moon Feast from betterworldbooks.com–thanks for the recommendations!
Do you recommend something that will teach about herbs and spices? I’d like to learn what seasonings pair well with each other and how much/little to use in dishes.
In terms of seasonings: I’d go for the Flavor Bible which not only matches foods together, but also herbs and spices. A good book to learn about cooking with herbs is the Herbal Kitchen by Kami McBride.
I love cookbooks too – here are my favorites:
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook – my copy is from the early 80′s and is full of simple traditional dishes.
The Shaker Kitchen- Also lovely traditional recipes- with a unique, spiritual take on meat eating.
The Nepal Cookbook- this tiny cookbook continually fascinates me – there’s a recipe for fermented greens, spice mixtures, and curries for every season.
The Ayurvedic Cookbook- a look at the Ayurvedic way of eating – full of sidebars with wonderful info. This book taught me that boiled milk is easier to digest than pasteurized. It got me thinking about “real” milk long before I had heard of raw milk.
I still love the Fannie Farmer cookbook too! I’ve used many of the recipes and real-foodified them.
I need to play around with cookbooks again, the last few years of working full time and school part time has limited my chance to experiment with recipes.
For reference I LOVE The Joy of Cooking (and hope to get the 75th edition at some point) and How to Cook Everything. Nourishing Traditions is great for more ideas of making traditional food than I can ever think of myself. I also am a fan of Jacque Pepin’s Fast Food My Way and More Fast Food My Way.
The Food Substitutions Bible has also been a gift in the kitchen, like last night when I discovered I was out of thyme.
OMG!! Four of those are my cookbooks, the ones I use constantly! The only one that was different was your Flavor Bible cookbook. My cookbook Bible for several decades was and still is, The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marion Morash. I refer to NT and Debra Madison weekly and have two of her others. So you are my new kindered cooking spirit!
The Victory Garden Cookbook is one of my favorites too.
Great choices! I am a natural foods private chef and my favorite cookbook and one I believe you would love is “Lord Krishna’s Cuisine- The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking” by Yamuna Devi. There are so many recipes for making cheese, yogurt and various fermented foods. It is a true treasure and the recipes and techniques WORK!. I also like “The Complete Asian Cookbook” by Charmine Solomon.
Thank you for sharing this list! I think I will buy Vegetarian Cooking for my 21-year-old daughter who has been a vegetarian for the past year and is moving into her own apartment this fall.
Just got home from the library with The Flavor Bible in hand and I can’t wait to take a look! In addition to Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, I repeatedly use Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything for general reference, and Simply In Season (http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/season/index.html) for its emphasis on bringing out the best in local, seasonal ingredients. Thanks for sharing your list!
MFK Fisher’s The Art of Eating is one of my favorite books of all time! It’s a compendium of five of her books (including one entirely about oysters) and is a stunning combination of writing about food and life and lovely recipes.
I also love:
The Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen
The Way to Cook by Julia Child
James Beard’s American Cookery
and of course The Joy of Cooking
I’ve got 3 of the 5 – Julia, Deborah and Nourishing Traditions. And I also adore Full Moon Feast. I’ll have to get the others, since we obviously seem to love the same cookbooks. I’m with you on the wine – love it (I’m actually a wine salesperson, by trade, so a bit biased) and the stevia – ick.
Just discovered your site, and think it’s great. We’re practically neighbors. I live in Fairplay. Maybe we’ll meet in person sometime.
Great list! I wanted to ask you how The China Study turned you away from being vegan? Just about my entire family converted to a semi-vegan diet after reading it a couple of years ago, myself included.
It was only after my I noticed my teeth suffering greatly a year later that I began to look for something more. I came across Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel who recomends Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Nourishing Traditions. Like you I will never go back, I like the path that I’m on now. I feel better, it’s a path going backwards in time towards better health and inner healing.
What a great discussion! I have so many cookbooks, I feel like I can’t possibly add another to my collection (and then I do and will again soon!).
My current favorites are:
-Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen (I’m on vacation and have it with me! Has allergy free recipes and great recipes for some traditional foods).
-America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
-Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
The discussion about Stevia is great. I’ve tried no less than 3 times to like the stuff and can’t do it!
I love the Flavor Bible! I got it as a gift last Christmas, and it’s been a such a great resource and inspiration. Also, I love anything by Anne Willan – she did a Look & Cook series that my Mom owned that I now have that have all sorts of fantastic dishes with step by step pictures and instructions – they’re the way I learned to cook!
I have several of the cook books you mentioned, other ones I turn to are my Mother’s Betty Crocker from the 1940′s before microwaves and when crisco was brand new ( never use it). It is a good basic cookbook. Another is The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash and the third would be Whole Foods For the Whole Family from La Leche League.
Like one of the other readers, I turn a lot to Simply in Season and Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. My son got me the Flavor Bible for Christmas, and it is fabulous for those days we want to be inventive. And, of course, Nourishing Traditions.
I have a serious cookbook addiction – 2, 6′x3′ bookshelves worth at this point. That said, I routinely reach for Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything/Everything Vegetarian and Best Recipes in the World because they are so basic and super easy to modify to our taste, pantry, and real food (if needed; most of them are pretty good to go right out of the gate). I view them more like reference books and those are the three that live in my kitchen.
I will say that I think the 3 years I spent as a vegan and then vegetarian made me a better cook. It stretched my repertoire of ingredients and techniques and made me more creative in the kitchen. Combined with my adoption of a traditional, whole-foods approach, my cooking skills and palate have expanded (and continue to expand) far beyond anything I had ever previously imagined.
I am LOL b/c I wrote my Bittman praise before I read Lily’s above! And I ditto what she said about how exploring vegan cuisines made her a better cook. One of my faves to that end is Jae Steele – Get it Ripe and Ripe from Around Here. As a whole foods vegan, she does some really thoughtful work in her cookbooks. She has taught me a lot.
Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian are must-haves in my kitchen. Organized by ingredient, I use them for those CSA moments when I have no idea how to prepare the vegetable I have been given. I also love them b/c they are more like guides than recipe books and I use them as launching pads for my own versions.
I specifically asked to take the whole Foods of the World with me when I got my own place, I’m so glad my parents got that in the 70s! I love to look at the pictures, and somtimes I’m inspired to try something exotic!
I love Alice Waters’ Fruit and Vegetable cookbooks, and anything from Mollie Katzen. Have you found any good cookbooks or informative books about foraging? I’ve been looking into it but haven’t found much.
“The Spice Merchant’s Daughter”, while not a traditional cookbook, changed everything about how I think about cooking in general and spices specifically.
I love “Feeding the whole family” by Cynthia Liar, recipes for babies, young children and their parents. It has a lot of info about cooking with whole foods and great recipes. Each recipe has a note at the bottom on how to make some food for your baby using ingredients from that recipe.
And it is a great gift book for any cook – beginner, a pro, a new mom, a pro mom, anyone. A gave about 7 books as gifts and everyone loved them.
She also has a webpage where she shows how to cook through funny videos: http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/.
I also love NT and Wild Fermentation, but those were already mentioned.
A friend of mine turned us onto NT about 6 years ago. We borrowed her copy for about a week and were totally sold on it. We started with raw milk and lacto fermented sauerkraut.Then we started playing with grains. There are many recipes in there that are old favorites for the family now, but it’s more a jumping off point than a cook book for us as well.
I have a ton of favorites, and I rotate through them on a monthly basis. Interestingly enough one I use the most is The Food of India from Williams & Sonoma of all places! I use it so much it’s falling apart (though not as abused as NT). I also love my copy of Mediterranean The Beautiful Cookbook (and France, Tuscany, and Italy). And then I found a few gems at Barnes & Noble too; Arabesque by Claudia Roden, Harvest: Recipes from an Organic Farm by Christine Stevens and The Soul of a New Cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson (before he was made popular with Starbucks). And then my husband found this on a business trip to England A Year of Family Recipes by Lesley Wild. I think with NT as a foundation on “How” to cook I use these other cookbooks (with a little Julia Child thrown in for fun) more than anything else.