Hi Hello!
It’s been a HOT minute since I sent out a Substack to your inbox. The past month and some have been nothing short of a hot mess with a couple of big life shifts since my last post.
This Substack has been a great source of creative freedom and joy since it started in March. But when I compromised on my strict posting schedule because of a rather quick and unpredictable uptick in freelance work, getting back into the saddle was much harder than I would like to admit.
I am often deeply riddled with unreachable perfectionism and unrealistically high standards for myself. Perhaps a trait that was groomed in me through my immigrant parents. Perhaps something that was picked up in demanding kitchens along the way. Probably a mix of both.
A sob story for another time. I apologize for the hiatus, but we BACK and ready to rumble.
One of the big life shifts is that I just moved to Crown Heights with a couple of good friends and when I was moving to my new spot I was faced with my yearly ritual panic and shame-fest of “how the fuck did I accumulate all this crap”. I really didn’t think I owned much, but as I started packing up, I realized I had enough kitchen equipment and cookbooks to fill a small U-haul.
One box full of just deli containers. 3-4 small boxes of grains, spices, salts, etc. Another 1-2 boxes of liquids, oils, and other concoctions. Two large boxes of cookbooks. A few massive boxes for sauce pots, stock pots, sauté pans, woks, a Vitamix, food processor, a vacuum sealer, a dehydrator, iSi whippers, chinois, etc etc etc etc. All this and not to mention grills, pizza ovens, prep tables, shelves, and whatever other kitchen clutter I’ve accumulated over the years.
I got a lot of shit. I’ve parted from plenty of equipment but… my cookbooks will always come with me.
Today I’ve got a big list of cookbooks that you or your loved one who spends time in their kitchen should have at home.
The world of cookbooks is immense. There’s a book about anything and everything. Nowadays cookbooks seem to have to balance carefully between aesthetic coffee table design books and practical guides with the intent of imparting knowledge.
Some of the most beautiful cookbooks from the highest caliber of fine dining chefs are completely impractical for home cooking and some of the most practical and useful books don’t have a single photo embedded into the pages.
The way I approach cookbooks is how I approach most books. Every author has a unique point of view and every book has its hidden nuggets of wisdom buried within the pages. Often times I’ll read a book and once I feel like I’ve found the nuggets that the author hid, I put the book away.
Cookbooks are more than just for recipes. The best cookbooks provide three things: context, recipes, and inspiration. When these three aspects successfully transfer wisdom to the reader, it’s a good cookbook.
With Google and Tiktok, recipes for every possible dish can be easily found. But cookbooks make you work for them. You can get to the recipes, but you need to finger through the pages to find them. And to me, the best cookbooks are the ones that are packed with context. Where did the recipe come from? How did the chef come up with this recipe? Why did the chef put this in here? What gives this chef and their recipe credibility?
And personally, my favorite aspect of restaurant chef cookbooks is that you get to read about it and understand the logic behind it, but then if you get to go to the restaurant itself and try it from the chef’s team themself, it all comes together. Trying the endive salad with walnuts and ubriaco rosso, ricotta dumplings with mushrooms and pecorino sardo, and fried arroz negro with squid and romesco at Estela for the first time after reading through the cookbook for years was a moment for me.
It’s good to have a lot of cookbooks. A perfect cookbook doesn’t exist. Sometimes you need to read through one to understand another. This list will work from cookbooks that focus on fundamentals that every home cook will benefit from reading through to books that are best enjoyed for inspiration and art.*
*These links are for reference. Buy them from Amazon if you wish, but most local bookstores will have these books for you to purchase.
These two books are great for the 123s of fundamental cooking.
This is a best seller for good reason. Samin Nosrat approaches her recipes by helping the reader understand that cooking through your palette is the way to go. A dish is a finished product of multiple flavor-building blocks that work cohesively, and Nosrat explains that well.
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science
Kenji López-Alt is my Obi-Wan Kenobi. He started the Food Lab column on Serious Eats and I have used his recipes religiously. Kenji explains recipes and why food tastes the way they do through science. Instead of saying “pancakes are fluffy because of baking powder and whipped egg whites”. He goes into how baking powder is sodium bicarbonate that reacts with water and produces carbon dioxide when they meet, ergo making bubbles.
This book has so many thorough explanations of why food cooks and tastes the way they do through science. Highly recommend.
The Noma Guide to Fermentation
David Zilber is a badass. This is one of my favorite cookbooks. Zilber and Rene René Redzepi do a deep dive into every kind of fermentation you can think of and make it accessible for home cooks.
These two are solid entry points into French cuisine and technique.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Julia Child’s books are essential for good home French food. Packed with more old-school recipes than you’ll need. A great reference.
The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery.
Escoffier is one of the old French chefs that helped establish French cuisine as one of the most respected in the world. The book is dense and a bit dry, but tons of helpful recipes.
Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking
Maangchi is the 2nd mother to every Korean American that cooks. I always reference her site when I want to cook Korean food.
This cookbook helped me out during my pop-up in September. Lots of deep-cut Thai recipes that go beyond our favorite Thai take-out dishes.
This book gets some mixed reviews, but I’ve enjoyed it. It’s a great reference book if you want to get into fish butchery and has good recipes to go with them.
Mukoita 1 Cutting Techniques: Fish
This book is a much more serious book for fish butchery. I don’t own this one (yet). But have used it several times in different restaurants. Extremely thorough and helpful when it comes to Japanese fish butchery.
Gift this to someone and they better cook for you for a very long time. This set is crazy. One of the most thorough and interesting series of cookbooks. Incredibly in-depth and is one of the bibles of molecular gastronomy.
These cookbooks come from well-respected restaurants around the world.
Chef Enrique Olvera of Pujol in Mexico City made this book. Beautiful and though a bit dated, he includes recipes that range from high-end dishes served at Pujol, to dishes that are more rustic that can be made at home.
Seems to be sold out online, but I have definitely seen copies at Strand and other bookstores.
Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown: Recipes and Stories from the Birthplace of Chinese American Food
Chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco wrote this book and does a great job of highlighting Chinese American cuisine.
Chef Ignacio Mattos opened and runs Estela, Altro Paradiso, Lodi, and Corner Bar in NYC. I’ve had this book for a while and I still reference it. Solid recipes and I appreciate his ethos around how he cooks.
Monk: Light and Shadow on the Philosopher’s Path
I stumbled onto this cookbook by Yoshihiro Imai when I was browsing through Strand and this has become one of my favorites as of late. Beautifully shot, recipes are complex yet interesting, and great perspective.
Chef Corey Lee is a god among men. Incredibly beautiful book. You’re probably never going to cook anything out of this one, but it’s been an important book for me and can be for a lot of readers.
I’ve scoured a few bookstores across the city to try to find this with no luck. Chef Bertrand Grébaut has opened a few legendary restaurants in Paris and I have heard nothing but good things about this book.
There are obviously so many more cookbooks out there that are worth investing in; not to mention the countless vintage ones scattered around. These are just a few that I think everyone should look into. I’ll compile another list of books to share again.
Thanks for taking the time to read today and thanks for your patience!
-Edmond