Coolest Photos in a Cookbook

[weinoo]

Sure, there are a lot of cookbooks with great food and cooking technique photos. NOMA comes to mind, as does the seminal Modernist Cuisine set of books. I often pull out a volume or two, just to show a friend the photos.

But lately, I've been thumbing and rethumbing through the relatively new Marcus Samuelsson book, New American Table. The non-food shots are great.

Do you have any cookbooks you look through specifically for the photography?

[AAQuesada]

I've been wanting to eat his food for a while, Have you made anything from it yet?

I'll nominate 2 books that I don't actually own but think have great pics: Thai Street Food by David Thompson and Oaxaca al Gusto by Diana Kennedy.

[weinoo]

I've been wanting to eat his food for a while, Have you made anything from it yet?

Nah - I just look at the pictures .

Thai Street Food is a good one, too.

[Chris Hennes]

I'll nominate 2 books that I don't actually own but think have great pics: Thai Street Food by David Thompson and Oaxaca al Gusto by Diana Kennedy.

Interesting choice to include Oaxaca al Gusto here... I own it, and to be honest I think most of the photography is quite poor by the standards of today's cookbooks. Kennedy is a great cook and a great cookbook writer, but IMO not a great photographer.

[Alcuin]

There are some beautiful photos in Grace Young's Breath of a Wok. Some great pictures of woks (natch) and ingredients, but the pictures of people cooking, making a wok, showing off their wok/food, etc are even better. The pictures really show off one of the book's core ideas, the forging of connections between people through food and tradition.

[rotuts]

I very much agree with you on "Breath" its one of my favorite books both to look at and use.

ive seasoned 3 woks based on these ideas.

Love the flames coming out of those ultra-hot wok ranges.

[sheepish]

The El Bulli books. They don't even bother including recipes to interrupt the pictures. Recipes come on CD. At least they do in the '1998-2002' edition.

[DanM]

Morimoto's book is pure food porn.

Edited January 31, 2012 by DanM (log)

[AAQuesada]

Hmmm, maybe I enjoy the content of the pictures and how they relate the food and the culture rather than the technical aspects of the pictures.

[Chris Hennes]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I liked the book, I just thought the photos were clearly amateur efforts.

[dhyasama]

White Heat

Marco is bad ass and so is this book. Very rock and roll.

[chefhenry]

I've barely begun to scratch the surface, but Notes from a Kitchen is one book that is certainly up there in the beauty of the photography. Definitely not a cookbook, but a book about chefs and their passion/obsession the artwork/photography almost overshadows the printed word.

[thirtyoneknots]

The Saveur Cooks Authentic __________ series, particularly the Italian one. Shame that the series seems to have petered out after only three volumes.