The best books for becoming a modern pioneer in the kitchen

In the late 1990s, Sally Fallon (now Sally Fallon Morell) and Mary Enig ignited the modern-day traditional foods movement by publishing the now immensely popular Nourishing Traditions.

This book taught us that it was okay to eat butter, lard made the best pie crusts, and if you were going to fry food, frying was best done in tallow. And that was just the beginning! The subtitle of the book says it all: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats.

This book vindicated everything my mother had taught me. Eat real food—not just vegetables—but all real food, including animal foods, and make sure that you eat from the nose to the tail and everything in between. Additionally, don't forget that you must always properly prepare food through slow cooking, culturing, fermenting, or souring to aid in proper digestion.

Oh, and while you're at it, make sure you use generous amounts of butter in pretty much everything you make. Given that my mom is still alive and well at 98 definitely attests to this way of living and eating. (Moms are always right!) My mom's words basically sum up Nourishing Traditions.

So if you are serious about creating a traditional foods kitchen, this book is for you. I would call it more than a book...it's a tome. The introduction alone is 68 pages!

For me, Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions, is the mother of the traditional foods movement, and Sandor Katz is the father of fermentation.

The first book I discovered from Sandor was Wild Fermentation. It was a modest paperback, but it was packed with information on how to make ferments! It was so popular among traditional foods cooks that Sandor released a second edition with expanded information. Still, we were hungry for more, so Sandor wrote The Art of Fermentation.

This book is a New York Times Bestseller and a James Beard Foundation award winner. Sandor covers every possible subject under the bubbly fermentation umbrella, including how to make fermented beverages, vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, and more!

For anyone interested in learning how to become a master at fermentation, this book is for you.

When I first read Tamar's original book, An Everlasting Meal, I knew I had found a kindred home-cook spirit in her. And to be honest with you, I thought that book couldn't be topped. But then she wrote The Everlasting Meal Cookbook!

This cookbook is the definitive guide on how to use up every imaginable leftover in your kitchen so that almost nothing will go to waste. Chances are, when you begin to implement Tamar's leftover recipes, you will see very little going into your kitchen garbage can. You'll gaze upon every scrap, every crumb in your kitchen in a new light.

Next thing you know, you will be taking the heel of a loaf of bread, a sliver of a parmesan rind, and a few vegetables from your crisper (that look a bit past their prime) and turning it all into a dinner that friends and family alike will be asking you to make over and over again!

I'll be honest with you. Choosing this book was a toss-up. Should I pick Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore, or Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient with Recipes, also by Jennifer McLagan?

You can clearly tell that I am a modern pioneer in the kitchen and an enthusiastic traditional foods cook by the books that I chose to read! Even though both of Jennifer's books are outstanding, I have to lean slightly more toward Bones than Fat. Why?

Bone broth is the backbone of a traditional foods kitchen. So the more I can learn about bones, the better. And the more I can learn how to make my bone broth more gelatinous and nutritious, even better. If anyone can give you a thorough education all about bones, it's Jennifer McLagan.

Any modern pioneer in the kitchen worth their weight in salt—sea salt, that is—needs to learn how to preserve food through home canning. And if you want to learn how to can pretty much any type of food, the Ball Company's Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is the best book they have released to date.

Yes, they have more modern editions, such as The All New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving, but the book I chose for my list is clearly the winner and one that should be on every traditional foods cook's kitchen bookshelf. From how to get started for the newbie to solving home canning problems at all skill levels, this book has you covered.

Plus, this book is packed with a wide variety of water bath canning recipes, including jellies and jams; a wide selection of condiments, such as salsas, relish, and chutneys; plus home canning pickles and tomatoes. And when you are ready to graduate to pressure canning, this book will guide you with a wide variety of low-acid food recipes.