![]() In other words, Momofuku is the ultimate chef book: excellent writing about a supremely talented and influential chef, and recipes for almost any skill level. There are also remarkably easy recipes here: a whole section on quick pickles, for example, or a riff on a caprese salad made of cherry tomatoes, silken tofu, and shiso leaves, a type of Japanese herb. Maybe not the intensive ramen recipe, but the bo ssäm, which is within reach for most enthusiastic home cooks. The Joy of Cooking is great for when you need to know how to make meatloaf, say, but every once in awhile you really want to throw down and make an impressive meal. We also wanted to include a book with show-off recipes. We have David Chang to thank for America's ramen-mania, for example. Recipes that seemed novel when it was published in 2009 now seem commonplace. It's not hard to argue that David Chang and Momofuku have had more influence on American food in this nascent century than any other entity, and it's visible in Momofuku. Thankfully, New York City chef David Chang and food writer Peter Meehan wrote a book that is as usable as it is influential. There's so much home cooks can learn from chef and restaurant books, even if they never end up using the recipes. When we set out to write this list, we knew we wanted to include a chef book. Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi The biscuits are deservedly famous, and her pancakes are a common favorite.īUY IT: The Taste of Country Cooking, $20 on Amazon The Fresh Take on Vegetables As winning as her writing is-this is one of several volumes on this list that is just as good to read as it is to cook with-if you ask Lewis acolytes what they love about her, it will almost certainly be a baked good. For reference, Alice Water's pioneering temple to seasonal cooking, Chez Panisse, had just opened a few years earlier, in 1971. Accordingly, her classic book The Taste of Country Cooking is organized into menus by season, which was practically unheard of when it came out in 1976. Lewis grew up in Freetown, Virginia, a tiny farming community established by freed slaves that revolved around the ebbs and flows of the growing seasons. But as much as The Taste of Country Cooking can be seen as an artifact of a vanishing cuisine, Lewis was also remarkably ahead of her time. Her work preserves Southern food culture, African-American food culture, and a way of American life that has all but disappeared. ![]() Maybe even make them together.īefore Southern food was trendy, before seemingly every restaurant across the country put pimento cheese on their menu and country ham became as prized as Prosciutto di Parma, there was Edna Lewis. Since it's spring, check out the section on simple asparagus preparations or make a Filet de Poisson Poché au Vin Blanc-a super-simple poached fish in white wine. But if you've been too intimidated to try out Child's masterwork, do know that not every recipe requires killing live lobsters or preparing complicated terrines. Mastering the Art of French Cooking is infamously full of complicated recipes the entire plot of the 2009 film Julie and Julia hinges on this fact. After this book came out, everyone was suddenly rushing to put boeuf Bourguignon on the table at their next dinner party. Before this book came out, French food was something that only happened in fancy (read: expensive) restaurants and, well, in France. In addition to introducing the world to late national treasure Julia Child, it also opened American eyes to authentic French cuisine and sparked a national interest in gourmet cooking. It is hard to overstate the impact Mastering the Art of French Cooking had on home cooking when it first came out in 1961. These are all four fork books if we run a four fork cookbook review, it means we think a book worthy of joining their ranks. As such, our newly-launched monthly cookbook reviews will use them as a guide. We consider these books to be standard-bearers.Luckily, we'll get a chance to address those gaps as we expand the Epi Canon in the future with the Epi Baking Canon, the Epi International Canon, the Epi Beginner's Canon, and more. Bread and cocktails don't get as much attention as they deserve, and any number of international cuisines are missing entirely. We included these after receiving overwhelming feedback from readers, and we think you'll be glad we did. Several of the books on this final list were not on the longlist we published earlier this week.Apologies to our international readership. This list focuses on the needs of the typical American home cook.Go forth and peruse the longlist for an extended list of recommendations. These books may be on our ultimate cookbook shelf, but we're not saying other books are no good.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |