These are the top culinary reads of the year, from a celebration of Middle Eastern food to an immersive tour of Paris’s 20 arrondissements.
How I Cook by Ben Lippett
Ben Lippett – the author of this superbly practical cookbook – “reminds me of the early Nigel Slater”, said Rose Prince in The Spectator. His recipes sound simple – sausage and sage pappardelle, chocolate mousse – but they’re always clever and well explained. A food influencer, Lippett has a “blokeish gen-Z prose style”, said Bee Wilson in The Guardian. I wasn’t sure, at first, if I was the target audience. But as my copy, now covered in Post-it Notes, attests, I “became a true believer”.
Lugma by Noor Murad
This first solo book by a former member of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen is a “vibrant, wholehearted celebration of the food of the Middle East” said Mark Diacono in Delicious. From coffee, cardamom and chipotle-rubbed lamb chops to burnt aubergines with fenugreek sauce, tahini and fried shallots, Murad’s recipes are highly appealing. With its title meaning bite or mouthful in Arabic, “Lugma” is “immersive and transporting”, said Chris Morocco on Bon Appétit.
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All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh
This book is that rare thing, said Harriet Fitch Little in the Financial Times: a work that “pays serious attention to the pop-culture side of food”. In charmingly written essays, Tandoh explores how “the internet remade recipe writing”, and “why bubble tea went global”. Her writing blends an appealing “chumminess” with “intellectual acuity and cultural literacy”, said Sarah Moss in The Observer. The result is a “joyous blend of curiosity, intelligence and generosity”.
Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens
Winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Award for debut food writers, this book offers a culinary tour of Paris’s 20 arrondissements, said Harriet Fitch Little. Each chapter centres on a “representative dish” from one: “cordon bleu-style ratatouille in the 15th, Breton crêpes in the 14th, bánh mì in the 13th”. An ode to the city’s food and people, “Moveable Feasts” is “thoroughly entertaining (and seriously hunger-inducing)”, said Ceci Browning in The Times.
The Christmas Companion by Skye McAlpine
This “sumptuous” festive cookbook features lots of great treats the time-rich could make, but it’s “the vegetable section that stuns”, said Rose Prince. If you struggle to get beyond sprouts and red cabbage, McAlpine will inspire you with her beetroot, maple syrup, feta and walnut salad, or her savoy cabbage with pancetta, chestnuts and gorgonzola. “Think of it as a Delia-style bible”, said Tony Turnbull in The Times, “with extra party planning and more sparkle”.
Indian Kitchens by Roopa Gulati
Gulati’s books are always “rich and rewarding”, said Mark Diacono, “and her latest is no exception”. Based on her travels through six Indian regions, it contains more than 100 recipes, both her own and those of “12 home cooks” she encounters along the way. Gulati “conjures up a world in which people think nothing of rolling their own flatbreads and making their own yoghurt”, said Bee Wilson. The result is a “remarkable” portrait of the “reality of everyday kitchen life in India”.
Boustany by Sami Tamimi
A celebration of Palestinian food, by one of the founders of Ottolenghi, this book is full of inviting vegetarian recipes, said Mark Diacono – from red lentil, dried mint and lemon soup to pan-baked tahini, halva and coffee brownies. “Boustany” was “born out of the homesickness” Tamimi experienced during lockdown, said Tony Turnbull. Now, of course, the book has a “far greater resonance”. It’s a work of “soul and yearning” that’s also bursting with “delicious things to eat”.
Baking & the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh
This book, by psychologist-cum-baker Goh, is full of “precise yet creative recipes”, said Bee Wilson. “The Shoo Fly buns are the currant buns of dreams”; “I wanted to make the chocolate financiers with rosemary and hazelnuts so much that I bought a financier tin specially”. I’d go for the caramelised cinnamon doughnut cake or the “Lao Gan Ma” cheese biscuits, said Rose Prince: “both are amazingly good”.
Padella by Tim Siadatan
As the “perma-queues outside his restaurant in London, Padella, show only too well”, Tim Siadatan “knows what people want”, said Tony Turnbull. And in this superb book, the “master” pasta-maker reveals the tricks and techniques that make his dishes, such as tagliarini with crab and chilli, or lasagne made with slow-cooked veal shin, so irresistible. “I might skip the calf’s brain with morels and rosemary butter, but it shows what a completist Siadatan is.”
