20 books like A Treatise on Adulteration of Food, and Culinary Poisons, Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Tea, Oil

This book combines the best in travel writing with history, art, and food. Attlee takes the readers through Italy, from Lake Garda’s lemon houses and the gardens of Tuscan villas to the scented bergamot groves in Calabria to a marmalade kitchen in Sicily. Along the way, we learn about the “garden poem,” a genre of poetry practiced in the 10th and 11th centuries by Islamic poets living in Sicily. The book also includes recipes for a chocolate tart from Capri, a lamb stew from a 13th-century Arabic cookbook, candied peels, and drinks using the abundant variety of citrus available in Italy. It’s a book for all the senses, a great read for gardeners during the winter months.

If you like wine, you need to read this book. Winemaking goes back at least 8,000 years, but only in recent times has so much of its production been determined by the application of science, and the taste of the wines we drink dictated by wine critics, appellation tasting committees, and global markets. This book celebrates the innovators who are trying to make wines that are more natural, fuller in character, and more exciting. Their approach also has potential benefits for human health and our environment, and reading this book has sent me off on wonderful journeys through the south of France trying to find such oddities as orange wine (no, orange wine is not made from oranges!)

As an Englishman living in France, this short story resonates with me on so many levels in a topsy-turvy sort of way. Babette is a foreigner (French) living in a foreign land (Norway), and the key part of this foreignness is the contrast between the piety of the two spinsters who employ Babette as their cook, and her supposedly hedonistic French approach to food and life, including a murky past in which she may have been an arsonist during the Commune of Paris. In truth, Babette is an artist who expresses herself through her cooking, and when she wins the lottery, she spends all the money on a single dinner for her hosts instead of buying a ticket home to France.

This book is only available in French, but I include it because it provides such an impressive overview of a period when French cooking began to establish itself as Europe’s pre-eminent cuisine. I referred to it frequently during my own research into French gastronomy. In a few short pages we learn about the emergence of the first celebrity chefs and food critics, the evolution of how food was served in polite society in France and other parts of Europe, and the way in which new ingredients such as maize and potatoes became staples of the peasant diet. There is also a section on Napoleon’s own culinary preferences, which reveals more about the tastes of the common soldier than the general.

One of my favorite things is being able to take a basic or classic recipe and tweak it here and there to create something entirely new. That’s the spirit behind Pure Dessert.

Olive oil and sherry pound cake? Yes please. Cocoa nib and buckwheat butter cookies? I am all over that. I love that this book focuses on a flavor theme, and then plays around with different ways to bring that to life. The recipes are deliciously crafted, but also just a great inspiration for creating my own.

I had always believed that a great booze book didn’t need to just be pages of pretty pictures and cocktail recipes—I knew there were booze stories that could make for compelling, novel-like narratives as well. Thad Vogler’s 2017 work was the first to actually prove my theories correct, however.

His journey to both visit the sources—Cuba! Oaxaca! Cognac!—and meet the producers of such vaunted spirits as rum, mezcal, and cognac, all while philosophizing about what artisan spirits production actually means, resonated with me like no other booze before.

Vogler’s humor and bawdy tone also showed me a drinks-related book need not be a dry read—booze is fun, after all!

Beers of the world is as the title suggests, an introduction to the many types of beer to be had in the world. The book begins with a brief history and a guide to beer ingredients. From there, it’s a trip around the world. Did you know the US is the largest producer of malt or that the Incas of Latin America brewed with maize? Just a few interesting facts found in this guide.

You know how, when you read a book that’s so clever, funny, and perfectly written you want to actually get to know the author? That’s what happened to me when I read this book. Even though I didn’t know him, I knew he’d be the kind of person that you hoped to run into at the bar—a generous man with a great sense of humor, a bright outlook, and plenty of great stories.  

We did eventually come to be friends in real life, too. It turned out that we’re practically neighbors and both enjoy the occasional glass of gin. True story.

I signed up for my first pub crawl and I purchased this book in preparation. Minus my one trip to Ireland where we received a complimentary beer after touring the Guinness plant, my beer drinking had been limited to the occasional drink with dinner. This book introduced me to what to look for when choosing a beer. What ingredients give each beer its taste and color? The difference between lagers, ales, stouts, and porters, to name a few beer types. Ales, I have found, are my favorite. Golden ales make my palate sing. I now know the reason I like what I like, and this book helped me gain that knowledge.

Garrett’s book takes a deeper dive into the world of brewing and beer pairing. He takes you with him as he explores some of the great brewing cities, the breweries, the brewers, and their beloved beers. He gives detailed descriptions of specific beers and the foods that they are typically paired with and why. Knowledge makes things interesting, but getting to know the people behind the beers is even more interesting. Be prepared to get thirsty and hungry as you virtually share these joys of the table and tap.