By “top”, I mean “What’s been my kitchen inspiration this year?” The cookbooks that I enjoy (and cook from) most are the ones that teach me something, or that make me think differently; that challenge, while dishing up recipes that I really, really want to cook.
Food is the best way to get under the skin of a culture. It’s about so much more than what you choose to put on your plate: how you feed and nourish your mind, and how you can connect with those around you, near or far. Here’s a totally opinionated (though, I like to think, well-considered) list of the best books for cooks with a hunger for food and culture.
(And, in case you missed them, here are my top picks from earlier this year.)
Between Two Waters
This book just blew me away. Pam Brunton is chef of Inver restaurant on Loch Fyne and holds an MSc in food policy from City University. She’s worked for the Soil Association and Sustain, and has studied philosophy at uni. It’s a potent mix, and she knows of what she writes – and, boy, can she write. Her prose is beautiful, her research well honed, and she explores a myriad themes, tracing the Enlightenment and the roots of capitalism, through to empire and its effects on Scottish (and wider) society and the food system at large.
“For over 200 years, stolen human lives stoked capitalism’s growth, and there are monuments to this brutality in our recipe books and food culture,” she writes. “They’re rippled through Scots’ famed baking heritage and sweet tooth: black bun, Dundee cake, shortbread, tablet; the cup of tea that goes with it all”.
What is the meaning of tradition, she asks, and how does it relate to identity? What counts as ‘normal’ Scottish food, and what defines ‘modern’ Scottish cooking? Yet it’s hopeful and positive, run through with warmth, humanity, and the belief that food – good food, that is – and eating well can be a powerful force for good.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Black pepper oil. For background on this recipe, listen to Episode 7 of Dr Anna Sulan Masing’s thoroughly brilliant ‘Taste of Place’ podcast. You will want to listen to the rest of the episodes, guaranteed.
KIN: Caribbean recipes for the modern kitchen
I’ve not yet met Marie Mitchell in person but hers is a kitchen I’d like to spend time in. London-born, with Caribbean roots, Mitchell writes with clarity and conviction – a considered voice allied to a beautiful writing style. Mitchell is a chef and the founder of Island Social Club, a supper club that restaurant critic and writer Jimi Famurewa described as “determinedly authentic island food contemporised on its own terms”. Hotly anticipated before its release, Mitchell’s debut book more than lives up to expectations.
KIN is one of several excellent books on Caribbean food that have been published in recent years that are helping to change (pre)conceptions about Caribbean cuisine. Along with a healthy serving of recipes from across the Caribbean, Mitchell connects themes of identity, family, migration/immigration, community and connection.
Mitchell isn’t one to shy away from uncomfortable topics, from colonialism and enslavement to the need for reparative justice. She writes, “You might be wondering what all this has to do with a cookbook. I can confidently say: everything. Food is political, but it’s also history, and one of the purest expressions of it.” Elucidating, challenging where it needs to be, and a bloody good read.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Buss Up Shut Roti – because, as Mitchell says, “there’s something so beautiful about breaking bread with people”. Listen to Marie Mitchell talk bread and more on this episode of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour (from 33’33”).
Bethlehem: a celebration of Palestinian food
Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan’s Bethlehem is a book out of time. It was researched, written and on its way to being printed before the tragic events of 7 October unleashed a brutal new chapter in the Middle East. Since then, divisions have deepened, and the death toll has risen – and the stories of the people and places that Kattan writes about have become even more poignant.
Kattan, who runs Akub restaurant in London’s Notting Hill, was born and bred in the West Bank city. “Cooking is how I tell Bethlehem’s story,” he writes. Interwoven with some 60 recipes are portraits of bakers, spice purveyors and food producers from across the territory, people whose skills and traditions form the bedrock of Palestinian cuisine, from olive oil to salt.
In an interview with Middle East Monitor soon after the book’s publication in May, Kattan said, “I’m very conscious that I’m talking about food as my people starve.” He has been vocal in calling for an end to the political and humanitarian crisis in Gaza through his own social media and working with #CookForPalestine, including events at his restaurant Akub.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE This Christmas, I’ll be making his recipe for Teta Julia’s Christmas Cake.
London Feeds Itself
This is a bit of a cheat. The book was originally published in 2022, but an updated, expanded edition was launched in March of 2024, so I feel fully vindicated in including it here. This a book that I recommend to anyone who wants a clear-eyed view of what’s brewing in the social clubs, shopping centres, vineyards, community centres, work canteens – and, yes, restaurants – across the capital, from Soho to the deepest suburbs.
Edited by Jonathan Nunn of Vittles fame, it includes established and newer food writers, all of whom write with a strong voice, frequently with a fresh perspective and, often, a refreshing dose of irreverence to add sauce to proceedings. Even if you’re a long-established Londoner, this book will open your eyes to the Big Smoke’s under-charted culinary riches.
The Balkan Kitchen
It’s complicated. That sums up the cooking – and, indeed, the history – of this multilayered region. British-Macedonian author Irina Janakievska was born in Skopje, in what was at the time Yugoslavia. After emigrating, eventually to Britain, after the ‘Yugoslav dream’ unravelled and the country disintegrated, Janakievska studied at LSE and became a corporate lawyer. She retrained at Leiths School of Food and Wine – a career change that was sparked in 2011 by reading one of her grandmother’s treasured cookbooks after her unexpected death. Cooking, she writes, became a way of dealing with grief, or ‘taga’, “a sorrow, a yearning, a love for a person, a time, a place”.
The book does an admirably forensic job of unwinding the interlaced strands of the cuisines of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia. About one third of the recipes are based on family dishes, the remainder inspired by her lengthy research. And a lot of research went into this book, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Jane Grigson Award for new food and drink writers.
There’s a lot of fermenting, as you might guess, plate-loads of dumplings, hearty soups, and a wealth of sweet and savoury breads (as well as an intriguing essay on the origin story of the börek/burek). Janakievska paints an appetising picture of a multi-faceted regional cuisine, and this book has inspired me to get to know the food of this part of the world a whole lot better.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Alexander’s cake, a walnut praline cake with chocolate and apricots. This is the recipe that sparked the idea for The Balkan Kitchen. Her grandmother had made the cake to celebrate Irina’s birth and is one that she says “tastes of love, longing and memories”.
Sebze
All summer long, as my allotment overflowed with chard, tomatoes and beans of all shapes and colours that demanded to be eaten almost immediately, this book from Özlem Warren was the one that I turned to for recipe inspiration. It’s fitting that ‘sebze’ roughly translates as ‘vegetables’ – veggies of all type are given the royal treatment here.
Armloads of chard, spiked with feta and dill, went into a recipe for kabakli kol böregi – a pie made with filo pastry that’s coiled into a cake tin. The recipe worked perfectly and not a trace remained when dinner was done. This autumn I made Warren’s rice pilaf with chestnuts, apricots and herbs, and the soup recipes will keep me warm all winter. This is good, proper Turkish home cooking of the sort you don't usually find in restaurants, and Özlem’s an unbeatable guide to the cuisine.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Özlem’s kabakli kol böregi is a must-try.
Ottolenghi Comfort
The very first Ottolenghi book, published back in 2008 and called, simply enough, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, is one that regularly tops my ‘wouldn’t-part-with’ list. Of all the Ottolenghi books published subsequently, it’s the one that I cook from most (I’ve made the roasted aubergine with saffron yoghurt more times than I can count), with Falastin, written with Sami Tamimi, coming a close second. I’ve added Comfort to that list: it’s a keeper.
Recipes, from the Ottolenghi development team, are relatively simple. I love the range, and the fact that the team is able to go off-piste without going totally OTT: witness the likes of shawarma meatloaf with caramelised onion. The book arrived in late summer and I got slightly hooked on baked polenta with green harissa and courgette (I subbed in tromboncini squash, of which I had an overabundance), and butter beans with roast cherry tomatoes (another bumper harvest).
Now that the cold has bitten, it’s the hearty, one-pan savoury bakes and slow-roast casseroles that I’m craving. And, with Helen Goh on board, the sweet dishes are tempting. As I said: a keeper.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Malty figgy pudding. It’s ready to chuck in the oven in about a quarter of an hour of prep – and it could be the thing to serve to any Christmas pudding avoiders in your household this season.
Agak Agak: everyday recipes from Singapore
One of the ways I judge a book is by the number of yellow Post-it’s the book has stuck to its pages marking the recipes I want to cook. This book from Shu Han Lee comes near the top of the Post-it league, with scores of the things calling my attention to the likes of hot-smoked mackerel and ginger congee; roast pumpkin masak lemak; Perenakan prawn and pineapple curry; 8-hour ox cheek rendang…
The name, Lee explains, is “a colloquial term that loosely translates to ‘estimate’”. “Agak agak doesn’t exist only as a quirky, casual bit of Singlish. It’s a way of thinking that comes to life in particular in the kitchen ... a way of cooking with intent and intuition...”
The recipes I’ve tried are deceptively simple and packed with punchy flavours. I have a deep-rooted dread of deep, dark winter, so I’m going to keep this book close and cook from it to transport myself (or my palate at least) to warmer climes.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Fish sauce omelette. This has become my go-to quick recipe when time is short and I want something umami-rich, quick and satisfying.
Mediterra
The Mediterranean is not terra incognita for food lovers, but Ben Tish’s latest book takes readers beyond the usual ports of call. Spain, France, Italy and Greece figure large, of course, but there are also recipes from Croatia and Slovenia, the eastern Med – Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt – as well as Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
This is a recipe book first and foremost, a showcase of this region’s culinary diversity, all wrapped up in a beautifully photographed package – and the recipes are commendably ‘uncheffy’, a too-rare occurrence when a chef writes a cookbook. It’s become one of my default options when imagination fails and I’m after something that I know will satisfy.
RECOMMENDED RECIPE Winter pasta with beef cheeks, red wine and wild mushroom ragout – a Croatian dish that has ‘winter comfort’ written all over it.
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