Acquisitions over the last few months to feed my addiction.
I bought The Big Book of King Cake (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) after listening to an episode of Evan Kleiman's Good Food podcast/radio show that included an interview with author Matt Haines about this book, which came out in 2021 and the more recent children's storybook, The Little Book of King Cake (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). You can listen to the interview at this link.
This isn't a cookbook - just one recipe, I think - and big enough to be a coffee table book so it would be a nice gift for someone who's a fan of this culture. It arrived just before Mardi Gras and I've enjoyed dipping into it to read a section and look at the photos. And Amazon's "Look Inside" feature offers enough of a sample to read about a few of the classic New Orleans bakery king cakes.
The next two, Parsi and Masa are both 2022 releases. There's a topic on cooking from Parsi here: Cooking from "Parsi: From Persia to Bombay: Recipes & Tales from the Ancient Culture". Gabrielle Hamilton's Prune came out in 2014. I borrowed it from the library a few times but hadn't pulled the trigger to buy it. All three of these were on Now Serving's "shopworn" list and offered at a discount.
Pulp is the only 2023 book that I had on my pre-order list. Its focus is on fruits, specifically those grown in the US midwest and it joins Ruffage (vegetables) and Grist (grains & legumes) in Abra Berens' trilogy of cookbooks. For each fruit, she offers several prep methods (raw, roasted, grilled, poached, stewed, baked, preserved) with both a sweet and savory recipe for each method. Instead of condiments, as in Ruffage and Grist, there's a "Baker's Toolkit" up front with recipes for breads, batters, doughs, crusts, toppings, etc. that are used later in the book. I'm looking forward to playing with this one as the fruits come into season.
Chef/restauranteur Peter Hoffman's memoir, What's Good?: A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients came out in 2021, over a decade after his restaurant, Savoy, closed in 2011. I think there's a recipe or two in each ingredient chapter but this is essentially a memoir rather than a cookbook. Looks like it will be fun to read a chapter or so at a time.
Next up is the smallest book, James Read's Of Cabbages & Kimchi: A Practical Guide to the World of Fermented Food and I admit to buying it almost entirely because I was captivated by Marija Tiurina's fanciful illustrations. These photos of the dust jacket will give you an idea of them:
The author is former journalist turned founder of Kim Kong Kimchi in the UK. After an introduction, there are chapters for sauerkraut, kimchi, soy sauce, hot sauce, vinegar, kefir, kvass, tepache & ginger beer, kombucha and yogurt. Each chapter begins with some entertainingly written background info, followed by recipes for making each ferment, troubleshooting and recipes for using the finished products.
No photos, just the drawings. The print is relatively small. I don't find this problematic but I know others may. Here's an inside photo to give a sense of the print size:
Here’s a link to an author interview that I enjoyed.
I ordered this book from Blackwell's. Amazon has a kindle version in the UK but not in the US or Canada at this time.
And the last book in my shelfie is Gordon Shepherd's Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters is another oldie, from 2011, for a little science-y reading.
