Staff Picks
Food Writing (and Watching)
- Bryan B.
- Thursday, December 17, 2020
Collection
These passionate works are not just about the foods, but the science behind them as well as the lives of the people who create, consume, and make their living through it.
Best American Food Writing 2018
Published in 2018
In this inaugural edition in a new series, Ruth Reichl [collects] pieces originally published in a wide range of venues ... There are odes to dining scenes, like Karen Brooks's two-fisted defense of Portland, Ore., as a great pizza city ... as well as profiles of foodie celebs like Mary H.K. Choi's ... take on ... Christina Tosi and Kushbu Shah's pilgrimage to Ree Drummond's remote Oklahoma eatery. Politics are a constant, with Jane Black's ... 'Revenge of the Lunch Lady' contemplating the policy and culinary implications of free lunch programs in the Trump administration, while Shane Mitchell in 'Who Owns Uncle Ben?' delves into the racial history of rice in America"--Publisher's Weekly, 08/27/2018.
The Best American Food Writing 2019
Published in 2019
The twenty-five works in this volume will inspire you to pick up a knife and start chopping, but also to think critically about what you're eating and how it came to your plate, while still leaving you clamoring for seconds.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Published in 2012
The 85-year-old Jiro Ono is considered by many to be the world's greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of a 10-seat sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious 3-star Michelin review, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimages, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat at Jiro's sushi bar.
Hungry Monkey
A Food-loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater
Published in 2010
Former restaurant critic and stay-at-home father Matthew Amster-Burton shares his battle to feed his daughter Iris, describing the daily battles to get Iris to eat a balanced, nutritious meal, the joys he felt as he rediscovered favorite foods with her, and the highs and lows of raising an adventurous eater.
The Art of Eating
Published in 2004
More than 50 years after M.F.K. Fisher logged her musings and memories on food, love, and life, her nuanced stories still entertain and enlighten. If you haven't yet read Fisher's work, you will thoroughly enjoy discovering its variety, richness, and honesty. If it has been a while since you last delved into her writing, you will be captivated once again. - Cover.
Milk!
Published in 2018
Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt ; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible, and then, when genetic mutation made some of us lactose-tolerant, milk itself. Before the industrial revolution, it was common for families to keep dairy cows and produce their own milk. But during the nineteenth century mass production and urbanization made milk safety a leading issue of the day, with milk-borne illnesses a common cause of death. Pasteurization slowly became a legislative matter. And today milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement, and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurization. Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.
The Food Lab
Better Home Cooking Through Science
Published in 2015
"As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered [how to pan-fry a steak with a charred crust and an interior that's perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge when you cut into it] and more. In [this book], Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don't work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new--but simple--techniques"--Amazon.com.
Every Night is Pizza Night
Published in 2020
Convinced that pizza is the best food, Pipo will eat nothing else until her fed-up parents send her on a quest to prove that no dishes in their multicultural neighborhood are better.
On Food and Cooking
The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Published in 2004
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment. On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques. Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are: Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food quality, the great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients, tips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfully, the particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasure, and our evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foods. On Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
Published in 2017
Whether you've never picked up a knife or you're an accomplished chef, there are only four basic factors that determine how good your food will taste. Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat are the four cardinal directions of cooking, and they will guide you as you choose which ingredients to use and how to cook them, and they will tell you why last minute adjustments will ensure that food tastes exactly as it should. This book will change the way you think about cooking and eating, and help you find your bearings in any kitchen, with any ingredients, while cooking any meal. -- adapted from introduction.
Notes from a Young Black Chef
A Memoir
Published in 2019
By the time he was 27 years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened - and closed - one of the most talked-about restaurants in America. He had launched his own catering company with $20,000 that he made from selling candy on the subway, yet he'd been told he would never make it on television because his cooking wasn't "Southern" enough. In this inspiring memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age. Growing up in the Bronx, as a boy, Onwuachi was sent to rural Nigeria by his mother to "learn respect". However, the hard-won knowledge gained in Africa was not enough to keep him from the temptation and easy money of the streets when he returned home. But through food, he broke out of a dangerous downward spiral, embarking on a new beginning at the bottom of the culinary food chain as a chef onboard a Deepwater Horizon cleanup ship, before going on to train in the kitchens of some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country and appearing as a contestant on Top Chef. Onwuachi's love of food and cooking remained a constant throughout, even when he found the road to success riddled with potholes. As a young chef, he was forced to grapple with just how unwelcoming the world of fine dining can be for people of color, and his first restaurant, the culmination of years of planning, shuttered just months after opening. A powerful, heartfelt, and shockingly honest story of chasing your dreams - even when they don't turn out as you expected - Notes from a Young Black Chef is one man's pursuit of his passions, despite the odds. --Amazon
Down and out in Paris and London
Published in 2014
Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, it documents his 'first contact with poverty'. Here, he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses of last resort, working as a dishwasher in Paris's vile 'Hôtel X', surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps, a star-gazing pavement artist and a starving Russian ex-army captain. Exposing a shocking, previously-hidden world to his readers, Orwell gave a human face to the statistics of poverty for the first time - and in doing so, found his voice as a writer.
Jerusalem
A Cookbook
Published in 2012
"A collection of 120 recipes exploring the flavors of Jerusalem from the New York Times bestselling author of Plenty, one of the most lauded cookbooks of 2011. In Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi re-teams with his friend (and the co-owner of his restaurants) Sami Tamimi. Together they explore the vibrant cuisine of their home city--with its diverse Muslim, Jewish, Arab, Christian, and Armenian communities. Both men were born in Jerusalem in the same year--Tamimi on the Arab east side and Ottolenghi in the Jewish west. This cookbook offers recipes from their unique cross-cultural perspectives including Charred Baby Okra with Tomato and Preserved Lemon, Braised Lamb Meatballs with Sour Cherries, and Clementine and Almond Cake. With five bustling restaurants in London and two stellar cookbooks, Ottolenghi is one of the most respected chefs in the world; Jerusalem is his most personal, original, and beautiful cookbook yet"-- Provided by publisher.
Cooked
A Natural History of Transformation
Published in 2013
"Fire, water, air, earth--our most trusted food expert recounts the story of his culinary education In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements--fire, water, air, and earth--to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan's effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse-trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius "fermentos" (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us. The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume huge quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life. "-- Provided by publisher.
The Omnivore's Dilemma
A Natural History of Four Meals
Published in 2006
Offers insight into food consumption in the twenty-first century, explaining how an abundance of unlimited food varieties reveals the responsibilities of consumers to protect their health and the environment.
The Flavor Thesaurus
A Compendium of Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for the Creative Cook
Published in 2010
A career flavor scientist who has worked with such companies as Lindt, Coca-Cola, and Cadbury organizes food flavors into 160 basic ingredients, explaining how to combine flavors for countless results, in a reference that also shares practical tips and whimsical observations.
The Man Who Ate Everything
And Other Gastronomic Feats, Disputes, and Pleasurable Pursuits
Published in 1997
The Cooking Gene
A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South
Published in 2017
"A memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces the paths of the author's ancestors (black and white) through the crucible of slavery to show its effects on our food today"-- Provided by publisher.