Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (2024)

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks The rebels, rule breakers and renegades who rule this year's Top 10 list aren't looking for a Ph.D. in Traditional Cooking. They're pleasure seekers whose books are filled with quirky facts, gorgeous pictures and ingredients deployed in unexpected places.

Special SeriesBest Books Of 2012 We're making our lists of the year's best reads.

Review

Heard on All Things Considered

By

T. Susan Chang

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks

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Nishant Choksi

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (3)

Nishant Choksi

"Just throw the whole lemon in the food processor for lemon bars."
"Don't just soak your dried beans — brine them!"
"You don't need a whole day (or two) to make a good sauce."

Some of the things this year's cookbooks said to me as I tested them were downright contrarian. But that's the brilliant thing about cooking in a global, crowdsourced, Web-fueled world: People no longer cook according to some received wisdom handed down by a guy in a white toque. They figure it out as they go along, and if they stumble on a shortcut, it's blogged and shared in no time flat.

The rebels, rule breakers and renegades who rule this year's Top 10 list aren't looking for a Ph.D. in Traditional Cooking. They're pleasure seekers whose books are filled with quirky facts, gorgeous pictures, ingredients deployed in unexpected places. They're informative, thoughtful and well packaged, and traditional only in the sense that they make classic perfect gifts.

2012 Holiday Cookbook Roundup

  • The Sprouted Kitchen

    by Sara Forte and Hugh Forte

    "Whole foods blog." Ten years ago, that phrase might have drawn blank stares. But today it's a genre: a vegetable-centric but not necessarily vegetarian approach to healthy (and slightly hedonistic) eating. As a blog and as a book, Sprouted Kitchen exemplifies the winning formula: fresh visuals, easy-enough-for-everyday recipes, a willingness to mix it up with unlikely ingredient pairings. Sara Forte is particularly attentive to texture, and there's scarcely a recipe without some nuts or seeds or crisp celery dice for crunch. She's also big on everyday luxuries, like pomegranate seeds and Marcona almonds (tossed in to great effect in a brussel leaf and baby spinach saute). Meanwhile, you can almost smell the fair-trade, single-sourced coffee in husband Hugh's sharp, saturated, high-contrast images.

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    The Sprouted Kitchen
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    Sara Forte and Hugh Forte

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  • Modern Sauces

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (5)

    by Martha Holmberg

    If the term "saucemaking" makes you think of endless hours over a pot full of bones, a sinkful of dirty sieves and another sunny weekend lost in the kitchen, you're not alone. Every year or so, it seems another new sauce book reels off the five mother sauces, in case we weren't listening the first time. But Holmberg's book is something new — a fleet book of shining potions Marie-Antoine Carême might recognize as multicultural descendants of his originals: vinaigrettes, nut sauces, fruit sauces (as well as the more traditional butter and cream varieties). Also included are generous helpings of the real-life dishes graced by these sauces. Despite her classical training, Holmberg cares more about flavor than tradition, as is finger-lickingly clear in a smashed new potato salad with warm maple-bacon vinaigrette and scallions. And though she'll show you how to make perfect scratch mayonnaise, she's OK with it if you want to use store-bought. "It's OK to cheat sometimes," Holmberg declares. Sing it, sister!

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    Modern Sauces
    Author
    Martha Holmberg

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  • The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (6)

    by Deb Perelman

    At the heart of Smitten Kitchen's success (both as book and blog) is a paradox: Deb Perelman is fussy about making good things simply. Be careful to get the right consistency in the dough, but don't bother making ridges on the gnocchi. Just throw the whole lemon in the Cuisinart for the lemon bars (but be sure you pick out the pits first!) Is there any reason you can't take out the beef and make a superfast portobello Mushroom Bourguignon? No, there is not, but make sure your mushrooms squeak in the pan. It's this level of detail in what are essentially easy, mostly new recipes that make this a good bet for both the clueless new cook and the older one who's plumb tired of complicated weeknight cooking — and most people in between.

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    The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
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    Deb Perelman

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  • The Science of Good Cooking

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (7)

    by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    If you're going to buy just one of the many books put out every year by the editors at Cook's Illustrated, this is it. True, a number of the recipes have appeared in previous "best of" compilations and in the magazine itself. No matter — The Science of Good Cooking is a one-volume kitchen seminar, addressing in one smart chapter after another the sometimes surprising whys behind a cook's best practices: "Create Layers for a Breading that Sticks," "Starch Helps Cheese Melt Nicely." Did you know that if you steam vegetables before roasting, they'll become both tender and caramelized? (Try it in roasted cauliflower with sherry vinegar-honey sauce and almonds.) You get the myth, the theory, the science and the proof, all rigorously interrogated as only America's Test Kitchen can do. Do you have to cook beans four different ways to find out which one yields the tenderest skins? Not if someone else already has!

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    The Science Of Good Cooking
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    Cook's Illustrated Magazine

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  • Susan Feniger's Street Food

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (8)

    by Susan Feniger, Kajsa Alger, Liz Lachman and Jennifer May

    Warning: This is a Messy Kitchen Book. It's full of fried things that will soil your backsplash, tomatoey things that will spot your apron, and sauces that will end up unidentified in Tupperware in the fridge. You might find yourself screaming when you later take out your contacts with a chile-laced fingertip. But one taste of the Singapore crab cakes with red chile sauce ought to make it clear why you should plunge right in anyway. This is food from all over the world that's so bone-suckingly good you will stop at nothing to have or make more. After a week, the book's pages will be filthy, which will only make them a better match for your bespattered kitchen.

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    Susan Feniger's Street Food
    Author
    Susan Feniger, Kajsa Alger, Liz Lachman and Jennifer May

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  • Hiroko's American Kitchen

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (9)

    by Hiroko Shimbo and Frances Janisch

    It's been harder for Japanese cookbooks to jump to the mainstream than other Asian cookbooks, maybe because some of the ingredients — shiso leaves, burdock, sushi-grade tuna — are harder to source, maybe because the cultural emphasis on beautiful presentation scares rushed home cooks away. But this book goes more than halfway to making Japanese flavors accessible to American home kitchens. It's organized around six main sauces, each one featuring in several fairly straightforward recipes. Although there's the extra step of making the sauce, that's it for the fuss quotient. Shimbo's recipes are full of refreshing surprises, like the grapefruit and dried apricot in a Collard Greens Salad with "BBC" (mirin, soy, wine) Tahini sauce — and just about every ingredient can be found in a well-stocked supermarket.

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    Hiroko's American Kitchen
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    Hiroko Shimbo and Frances Janisch

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  • Jerusalem

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (10)

    by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

    Ottolenghi and Tamimi grew up on opposite sides of Jerusalem — one on the Jewish side, one on the Muslim side — often eating different versions of the same food, made with the same ingredients, called by different names. Cholent becomes maqluba; couscous, or ptitim, becomes maftoul; and everybody eats a ton of chickpeas. The two are not sticklers for authenticity. They insist, in defiance of grandmothers on all sides, that nobody owns the best hummus — or the best falafel, the best knaidlach, or the best koftas or tabbouleh, all of which jostle each other in tasty fellowship in this gorgeous volume. That open-minded view underlies a basic kitchen truth: When good food belongs to everyone, no one is the loser.

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    Title
    Jerusalem
    Author
    Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

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  • Canal House Cooks Every Day

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (11)

    by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer

    If you eat with your eyes, Canal House should keep you satisfied for weeks. Contrarian foodies Hirsheimer and Hamilton broke boundaries with their gorgeous food quarterly, simmering with eye candy and full of seasonal comforts. In their book they dispense with conventions like meal categories (Appetizers, Main Courses), or ingredient categories (Poultry, Vegetables). Instead they choose to take it month by month, lavishing a half-dozen recipes at a time on strawberries in May or chanterelles in September. Even their simplest ideas, like chicken broth with spinach and little meatballs, reveal a meticulous passion on the plate and on the palate. One caveat: If you are trying to overcome an antique-china addiction, steer well clear of this book.

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    Canal House Cooks Every Day
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    Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer

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  • The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (12)

    by Tom Douglas

    Maybe you bought the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook last year, stopped at "freeze-dried blueberry powder," and haven't cracked it since? Dahlia Bakery welcomes jaded bakers back to the oven the old-fashioned way: with muffins and scones and cupcakes and pastries. Here, the forms remain the same, but the content has leapt forward — a sorbet of pinot noir and raspberry, a cornmeal rosemary cake, carrot muffins with brown butter and currants. There are even step-by-step photographs for the tricky bits, featuring Dahlia's smiling young crew piping frosting on cookies, folding apple dumplings, effortlessly icing a platonically perfect cake.

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    The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook
    Author
    Tom Douglas

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  • Simply Sensational Cookies

    Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (13)

    by Nancy Baggett

    It seems like only yesterday home bakers were sobbing into their mixers trying to make the perfect macaron and wishing they had just made a bake-sale brownie instead. Simply Sensational Cookies falls somewhere between the two extremes. It's a big, generous compendium of completely doable recipes that range, according to Baggett, from Fairly Easy to Extra Easy. There's certainly classics like rugelach and jam thumbprints. But there are also deceptively sophisticated-tasting newcomers like lavender-lemon meltaways or cranberry, orange, and sage cookies. The yields are dead-on accurate (no small thing in a cookie book), so you can easily factor in a dozen just for the cook.

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    Simply Sensational Cookies
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    Nancy Baggett

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For More 2012 Cookbook Recommendations

The Best Cookbooks From Years Past

Best Books Of 2011

2011's Best Cookbooks: Revenge Of The Kitchen Nerds

Best Books Of 2010

2010's Best Cookbooks: Real-Life Labors Of Love

Best Books Of 2009

The 10 Best Cookbooks Of 2009

Special SeriesBest Books Of 2012 We're making our lists of the year's best reads.
Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks (2024)

FAQs

What is the oldest cookbook still in print? ›

The first recorded cookbook that is still in print today is Of Culinary Matters (originally, De Re Coquinaria), written by Apicius, in fourth century AD Rome. It contains more than 500 recipes, including many with Indian spices.

Is there still a market for cookbooks? ›

“It's always a strong category,” said Kristen McLean, book industry analyst for market research company The NPD Group. “They are the fourth largest category of nonfiction that we sell here in the United States.” Sales fluctuate a little year to year, but they're generally stable — around 20 million or so.

What is the first cookbook in history? ›

The first recorded cookbook is said to be four clay tablets from 1700 BC in Ancient Mesopotamia, but by the 1300s, cookbooks were a norm for kings and nobles.

What is the oldest surviving printed book in the world? ›

A Buddhist holy text, the Diamond Sūtra is considered to be the oldest surviving dated printed book in the world. Found in a walled up cave in China along with other printed materials, the book is made up of Chinese characters printed on a scroll of grey printed paper, wrapped along a wooden pole.

Is there a market for old cookbooks? ›

Investment value: Old cookbooks are sometimes collected as a "financial investment," Sawyer said. The value of a cookbook can go up over time, especially if it's considered rare, has historical significance and is in good condition.

Are cookbooks worth keeping? ›

A cookbook might teach you how to diagnose and correct your technique. Take, for example, the cookbook “Salt Fat Acid Heat,” which breaks down cooking into the basic elements. Once you understand the way certain elements work together, you can walk away a better cook. Using cookbooks can also simply be a delight.

Does anyone buy cookbooks anymore? ›

People buy them for the recipes, but they also buy them for the artwork, photos, and personal stories. According to a survey by the International Association of Culinary Professionals: Most people buy two or three cookbooks each year, and 12% of buyers buy four or more.

Who made the first American cookbook? ›

American Cookery, the very first American cookbook, was written by Amelia Simmons (more on this mysterious woman later). In it, she promised local food and a kind of socioculinary equality. The title page stated that the recipes were "adapted to this country and all grades of life."

What is the oldest surviving book of recipes? ›

The oldest cookbook in the world is the Yale Culinary Tablets. These three stone slabs dating back to Mesopotamia circa 1700 B.C. represent the oldest known recipe-making in world history.

What was the first cooked meal ever? ›

A recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of ancient cooking: the leftovers of a fish dinner from 780,000 years ago. Cooking helped change our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution and gave us bigger brains.

What is the oldest books still in print? ›

The oldest extant printed book is a work of the Diamond Sutra and dates back to 868 CE, during the Tang Dynasty.

How old is the Betty Crocker Picture cookbook? ›

First published on September 8, 1950, with an initial print run of 950,000 copies, as Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, the first edition sold for $2.95, with a $3.95 deluxe edition available.

When was the first American cookbook made? ›

American Cookery, published by the “orphan” Amelia Simmons in 1796, was the first cookbook by an American to be published in the United States. Its 47 pages (in the first edition) contained fine recipes for roasts—stuffed goose, stuffed leg of veal, roast lamb. There were stews, too, and all manner of pies.

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