Total Pig: Flavorful Reads
By: 12/19/2007
Just in time for last-minute shopping, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favorite food books of the year. They may not be the ones everyone’s talking about, but they’re awesome.***image1***
It’s been a fantastic year for foreign cookbooks. I absolutely adore the basics (Melville House, hardcover, $29.95), a must-have volume originally published in Dutch in 2004. The diminutive book, with a black linen cover, gilded edges and food-porn photos, captures the sensual attraction we have for cooking. Full of brief recipes, definitions and techniques, it’s definitely practical, but I just love looking at it and touching it. You will, too.
By contrast, 1080 Recipes (Phaidon, hardcover, $39.95), known as Spain’s Joy of Cooking, is attractive enough, but definitely built for use. For 30 years it has been the definitive resource for Spanish cooks and we’re lucky now to have an English version. You’ll find simple, classic and time-tested recipes for artichoke hearts stuffed with Serrano ham, potato omelets and crema Catalana, among others. You’ll be drooling as you make a grocery list.
From France, by way of San Francisco, comes Chocolate and Zucchini (Broadway, paperback, $18.95), a much-awaited cookbook from French-born Clotilde Dusoulier. Dusoulier gained notoriety for the food blog (www.chocolateandzucchini.com) she began after returning to Paris from an eye-opening two years in California’s food mecca. The book’s attitude is fresh and welcoming and the recipes are totally French, but totally not frou-frou.
***image2***Also from France comes the most exciting book I’ve seen in years. In fact, when I first spied it on a bookstore shelf, I literally squealed. Pork & Sons (Phaidon, hardcover, $39.95) was written by Stéphane Reynaud, a third-generation pig butcher and the owner of a restaurant specializing in pork. Reynaud’s ardor for pork is contagious. His recipes for andouille and dandelion salad, pork belly confit and cheek with fennel and olives, are intoxicating. This book is so good, it makes me giddy.
And now for a book that made me giggle. The Food Snob’s Dictionary (Broadway, paperback, $12.95) was written by David Kamp, a contributor to Vanity Fair and GQ, who originated the series with The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary; he also wrote The United States of Arugula. The Food Snob’s Dictionary beautifully skewers food snobs while feeding their collective obsession. Ruth Reichl is described as a “prodigiously maned gastro-sensualist,� while Jean-Louis Palladin is noted for his “poodle hair, comedy mustache and Tootsie eyeglasses.� However, raw foodists (“bonkers militants�) may not find it so amusing.
Weighing in at 900 pounds (more or less), is the 540-page masterpiece Cooking (Ten Speed Press, hardcover, $40) by the king of the giant tome, James Peterson. Cooking from this book, illustrated with hundreds of step-by-step photographs (taken by Peterson!), is like getting a culinary arts degree by correspondence course. Wonky cooks who are serious about learning classic techniques will find it a constant companion.
Although it does contain recipes, My Last Supper (Bloomsbury, hardcover, $39.95) will likely spend more time on your coffee table than in the kitchen. Photographer and author Melanie Dunea (like Peterson, a double threat), asked 50 famous chefs what their last meal would be. The photographs are fabulous and the stories fascinating. Jacques Pepin says, “I cannot conceive of anything better than the greatest baguette, deep golden, nutty and crunchy, with a block of the sublime butter of Brittany…� God, I love Jacques Pepin.
Also, I love Santa Fean Mark Winne for stirring things up with his***image3*** activist-inspiring, Closing the Food Gap (Beacon, hardcover, $23.95). Winne, who for 25 years was executive director of the Hartford Food System, a hunger-fighting nonprofit in Connecticut, cleverly and patiently explains the intersections of hunger, food insecurity and poverty. Closing the Food Gap is fearless, intelligent and surprisingly funny.
OK, this is sort of a cheat because this next book isn’t technically available yet. But I’ve had an advance copy of Around the World in 80 Dinners (Morrow, paperback, $24.95) on my desk for months already, long enough to have lent it to a high school student that I’m mentoring (that’s you, Kirill!) and gotten it back. Santa Feans Bill and Cheryl Jamison have written a fun, friendly and deliciously colorful travelogue of a three-month, around-the-world eating tour. It’ll make you deliriously jealous, but you’ll love it. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon.
Finally, do you, as a Jew, ever feel misunderstood by your gentile friends? Perhaps someone you know might appreciate this thoroughly kooky madcap story, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, written by Lemony Snicket and illustrated by Lisa Brown (McSweeney’s, hardcover, $9.95) It’s about a potato pancake who encounters, well, a series of unfortunate events. An excerpt:
“I’m a latke,� said the latke. “The olive oil reminds us of the oil used to rededicate the temple following the defeat of Antiochus at the hands of the Maccabees. The oil was only supposed to last for one night but there was a miracle and it lasted for eight. Plus, frying makes my skin crispy and brown.�
“So you’re basically hashbrowns,� said the flashing colored lights.
It’s been a fantastic year for foreign cookbooks. I absolutely adore the basics (Melville House, hardcover, $29.95), a must-have volume originally published in Dutch in 2004. The diminutive book, with a black linen cover, gilded edges and food-porn photos, captures the sensual attraction we have for cooking. Full of brief recipes, definitions and techniques, it’s definitely practical, but I just love looking at it and touching it. You will, too.
By contrast, 1080 Recipes (Phaidon, hardcover, $39.95), known as Spain’s Joy of Cooking, is attractive enough, but definitely built for use. For 30 years it has been the definitive resource for Spanish cooks and we’re lucky now to have an English version. You’ll find simple, classic and time-tested recipes for artichoke hearts stuffed with Serrano ham, potato omelets and crema Catalana, among others. You’ll be drooling as you make a grocery list.
From France, by way of San Francisco, comes Chocolate and Zucchini (Broadway, paperback, $18.95), a much-awaited cookbook from French-born Clotilde Dusoulier. Dusoulier gained notoriety for the food blog (www.chocolateandzucchini.com) she began after returning to Paris from an eye-opening two years in California’s food mecca. The book’s attitude is fresh and welcoming and the recipes are totally French, but totally not frou-frou.
***image2***Also from France comes the most exciting book I’ve seen in years. In fact, when I first spied it on a bookstore shelf, I literally squealed. Pork & Sons (Phaidon, hardcover, $39.95) was written by Stéphane Reynaud, a third-generation pig butcher and the owner of a restaurant specializing in pork. Reynaud’s ardor for pork is contagious. His recipes for andouille and dandelion salad, pork belly confit and cheek with fennel and olives, are intoxicating. This book is so good, it makes me giddy.
And now for a book that made me giggle. The Food Snob’s Dictionary (Broadway, paperback, $12.95) was written by David Kamp, a contributor to Vanity Fair and GQ, who originated the series with The Film Snob’s Dictionary and The Rock Snob’s Dictionary; he also wrote The United States of Arugula. The Food Snob’s Dictionary beautifully skewers food snobs while feeding their collective obsession. Ruth Reichl is described as a “prodigiously maned gastro-sensualist,� while Jean-Louis Palladin is noted for his “poodle hair, comedy mustache and Tootsie eyeglasses.� However, raw foodists (“bonkers militants�) may not find it so amusing.
Weighing in at 900 pounds (more or less), is the 540-page masterpiece Cooking (Ten Speed Press, hardcover, $40) by the king of the giant tome, James Peterson. Cooking from this book, illustrated with hundreds of step-by-step photographs (taken by Peterson!), is like getting a culinary arts degree by correspondence course. Wonky cooks who are serious about learning classic techniques will find it a constant companion.
Although it does contain recipes, My Last Supper (Bloomsbury, hardcover, $39.95) will likely spend more time on your coffee table than in the kitchen. Photographer and author Melanie Dunea (like Peterson, a double threat), asked 50 famous chefs what their last meal would be. The photographs are fabulous and the stories fascinating. Jacques Pepin says, “I cannot conceive of anything better than the greatest baguette, deep golden, nutty and crunchy, with a block of the sublime butter of Brittany…� God, I love Jacques Pepin.
Also, I love Santa Fean Mark Winne for stirring things up with his***image3*** activist-inspiring, Closing the Food Gap (Beacon, hardcover, $23.95). Winne, who for 25 years was executive director of the Hartford Food System, a hunger-fighting nonprofit in Connecticut, cleverly and patiently explains the intersections of hunger, food insecurity and poverty. Closing the Food Gap is fearless, intelligent and surprisingly funny.
OK, this is sort of a cheat because this next book isn’t technically available yet. But I’ve had an advance copy of Around the World in 80 Dinners (Morrow, paperback, $24.95) on my desk for months already, long enough to have lent it to a high school student that I’m mentoring (that’s you, Kirill!) and gotten it back. Santa Feans Bill and Cheryl Jamison have written a fun, friendly and deliciously colorful travelogue of a three-month, around-the-world eating tour. It’ll make you deliriously jealous, but you’ll love it. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon.
Finally, do you, as a Jew, ever feel misunderstood by your gentile friends? Perhaps someone you know might appreciate this thoroughly kooky madcap story, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, written by Lemony Snicket and illustrated by Lisa Brown (McSweeney’s, hardcover, $9.95) It’s about a potato pancake who encounters, well, a series of unfortunate events. An excerpt:
“I’m a latke,� said the latke. “The olive oil reminds us of the oil used to rededicate the temple following the defeat of Antiochus at the hands of the Maccabees. The oil was only supposed to last for one night but there was a miracle and it lasted for eight. Plus, frying makes my skin crispy and brown.�
“So you’re basically hashbrowns,� said the flashing colored lights.
Tell me where to eat! I need your input.
Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to food@sfreporter.com.
Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to food@sfreporter.com.
