Staff Picks Category: Non-fiction

Mangoes & curry leaves : culinary travels through the great subcontinent by Jeffrey Aldford & Naomi Duguid [Book]

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The “Great Subcontinent” is the land mass that embraces Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and, most obviously, India. This handsomely produced volume, full of stunning photographs, personal, crisply descriptive text, and authentic, often simple recipes, takes the reader on a serendipitous voyage of discovery. As in their other inviting books on Asian themes, the authors, a husband-and-wife team, wander through outdoor markets, sample street food, and chat to all manner of cooks, inviting the reader to come explore with them a world of pungent spice and stunning flavor.

Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini by Elizabeth Schneider [Book]

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This extraordinary reference work (350 entries, 275 full-color photographs, 500 recipes) provides nearly everything you might want to know about an unusual vegetable (she doesn’t deal with the familiar ones)—where it comes from and where in the world it is especially treasured (not always the same place), what other names it has, what it tastes like, what to look for when you buy it, and how it can be cooked. Schneider approached chefs, cooking teachers, and native cooks for exemplary recipes, but she also gives clear basic cooking techniques so that you can just bring your find home, prepare it, and serve it with supper.

In Defense of Food : An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan [Book]

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Cites the reasons why people have become so confused about their dietary choices and discusses the importance of enjoyable moderate eating of mostly traditional plant foods.

Delights and Prejudices by James Beard. Drawings by Earl Thollander [Book]

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This American culinary icon began life on the Oregon coast, where his mother ran a high-class boarding house renowned for the quality of its food. Beard’s was not a happy childhood, but it was a feast for all the senses, since the raw ingredients were incomparable and the dishes were international in flavor and epicurean in quality. Beard would learn to transform these experiences into the basis of a long and successful career writing cookbooks, teaching at his own cooking school and, later, on his own television shows, and helping establish notable New York restaurants.

The man who ate everything by Jeffrey Steingarten [Book]

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Lulu’s Provencal table by Richard Olney [Book]

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No one writes about French cooking in English as well as Richard Olney, and this collaboration with Lulu Peyraud offers a rare delight—quality time spent in the kitchen in the company of an extraordinary Provençal cook. She chatters as she cooks, Olney listens and observes, and the result is perhaps the best description ever given of a cook who works not from recipes but from instinct, years of practice, and hands-on familiarity.

Home cooking by Laurie Colwin [Book]

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Although Laurie Colwin is best known for her novels, she was also a gifted food writer, perhaps because her novelist’s sensibility provided a lively and unusual perspective on the trials and joys of “ordinary” home cooking. To name just three of the essays—Stuffed Breast of Veal: A Bad Idea; Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir; Easy Cooking for Exhausted People—is to show that here is a writer staking out her own delightfully opinionated territory. And the recipes are as rewarding to make as the prose is to read.

An Omelette and A Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David [Book]

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This collection of essays originally published in British newspapers and magazines allows easy entry into the writing of one of the greatest food writers of all time. Her books are glorious but dense; but here she touches deftly and lightly on all manner of culinary topics, from what makes a true sardine to the pleasures of cooking French food in your own little holiday kitchen in France. There are recipes throughout, but read this book for its witty, evocative, clear-eyed prose.

Hungry planet : what the world eats by Peter Menzel and written by Faith D’Aluisio [Book]

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A photo-chronicle that visits families in twenty-four countries in every inhabited continent, each photographed amidst their weekly food purchases. The accompanying text details food-intake lists with costs noted; provides typical family recipes; and draws on this data to produce such illuminating essays as “Diabesity,” about the worldwide epidemic of obesity and diabetes.

American Food Writing : An Anthology with Classic Recipes by Molly O’Neill [Book]

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This wide-ranging collection of essays, journal entries, excerpts from novels, and selected recipes spans three centuries of American eating, in prose that is often as appetizing as its subjects. Even dedicated readers of food writing will find much here that is completely unfamiliar, and those new to the genre will put the book down with a fresh respect for and delight in our astonishing culinary largess.

Cod: A Biography of the fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky [Book]

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This book will, of course, teach you a fair amount about codfish, but it will also teach you a great deal about history. As it turns out, the history of cod fisheries and the the trade in salted cod have had an enormous impact on world events, playing a crucial role in the slave trade, the exploration of the New World, and the American Revolutionary War. Mr. Kurlansky’s writing is engaging; he will make you excited about cod.

Stuff : Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee [Book]

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This is a fascinating account of how people get to the point that their living space is unlivable because of the sheer volume of possessions they can’t manage to get rid of. The authors explore case histories and the psychological and neurological reasons behind hoarding behavior. There’s a little bit of someone you know in here.