The Very Best Cookbooks of 2012

As the year ends, it’s time to bring the best of 2012 forward into 2013.  And that, of course, includes cookbooks.

So here are the outstanding 2012 cookbooks that chefs worldwide have reviewed and declared a must addition to any culinary library.

FEVIKEN

Chef Magnus Nilsson serves a mere 12 covers in a tiny restaurant located on an expansive northern Swedish estate yet he is esteemed by chefs worldwide.

In large, this is due to his promotion of New Nordic Cuisine, which is stunning simple but never simplistic.

The cuisine presented focuses on seasonal ingredients as well as embraces the use of preserved vegetables and aged beef during the cold winter months.

Chef Magnus generously shares his insightful philosophy of food and life, which may well guide future culinary trends worldwide. Well done! 

JERUSALEM

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi have also created an outstanding cookbook.

The book’s striking photographs capture the bold colors and contrasts of each Mid-Eastern dish. But do not think the dishes listed can only be created if exotic ingredients are available.

In fact, the famed restaurant of the same name, where each dish is served, is located in London.

Perhaps even more inspiring is the fact that the owners are both Israeli and Palestinian and work peacefully together.

Fantastic! Let us hope their cooperation and mutual creativity is a sign of things to come.

HUBERT KELLER’S SOUVENIRS

Memoirs written by chefs can sometimes be a disappointment, as they often relate generalized culinary experiences, rather than perceptive insights into the heart of the Industry.

Such is NOT the case with Chef Hubert Keller’s new book, Souvenirs: Stories and Recipes from My Life. His book contains an amazing 330 pages that provide an intimate glimpse of his extraordinary culinary life, that began when he was age 16 in Alsace, France at his father’s pastry shop, as well as 120 personal recipes with 300 supportive photographs.

Truly worth having, this book makes you want dine at his world renowned Fleur de Lys in San Francisco and then meet Chef Keller, who has set a new standard for culinary journal cookbooks. Congratulations!

THE FOOD OF SPAIN

Claudia Roden is far more that a mere recipe writer. Historian and critic Simon Schama has proclaimed her "No more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker." 

High praise that.

In The Food of Spain, she interweaves hundreds of recipes from across Spain with parallel folk tales, proverbs, stories, poetry, and local history to provide a guide to not only delicious food but also to the diverse population and merging cultures that produced it.

Considered by many as the first new classic on Spanish cuisine to be written in the last 50 years, this is one book to be sure to purchase and then enjoy, and enjoy, and enjoy! A true culinary classic..

ASTRANCE: A COOK’S BOOK

Chef Pascal Barbot’s title says it all but presented in his own unique style via “narrative recipes”. In 50 recipes, he describes how and where he found the inspiration for his recipes, how he finds his products, how he uses, prepares and cooks them at his famed 25 seat restaurant, L’Astrance, in Paris.

Additionally, the "narrative recipes" are completed by texts by Chihiro Masui, who gives her tasting impressions as an introduction for the dishes presented in the book. Chef Barbot also reveals the secrets of his basic recipes in a 64-page separate booklet (including sauces, condiments, pastries!) in the deluxe version of the cookbook. 

His eager guests come from around the world, often reserving their tables many months in advance, to experience dining at L’Astrance, where ten original dishes are served each and every night.

This stunning book provides a glimpse of that world so creative that book dealers can’t keep the book in stock. Order your copy NOW! An astounding text.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2012