9 books like Leaves From Our Tuscan Kitchen, Or How to Cook Vegetables

This book examines the exotics imported into China during the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907) and depicts their influence on Chinese life. During the three centuries of Tang came into the land the natives of almost every nation of Asia, all bringing exotic wares either as gifts or as goods to be sold. Ivory, rare woods, drugs, diamonds, magicians, dancing girls—the author covers all classes of unusual imports, their places of origin, their lore, their effect on fashion, dwellings, diet, painting, sculpture, music, and poetry.

This book is for students of Tang culture and laymen interested in the same topic. Its author Edward Schafer was an eminent American sinologist.

John Eveyln’s book is classic. He was the first person (in English anyway) to discuss exotic vegetables, even common weeds, in terms of healthy salads. The man was literary, very smart, and he knew how to cook. I have often used his recipes and surprising enough, he is as trendy today as he was in 1699. Furthermore, this book is a talisman for real foodies. My enthusiasm for Evelyn was shared by the late English author Jane Grigson, whose book is also on my list. 

I have all of Jane Grigson’s books and to me each one is special. Jane was a personal friend and while she lived in the UK and I lived in the US we often spent hours on the telephone discussing the finer points of pawpaws or persimmons.  We also shared the same birthday. Jane discovered she had cancer and decided to meet it head-on by shifting to a plant-based diet. That is her overarching philosophy, and it pervades her books. And while her books reflect that personal journey toward healing, they are also useful because like me she was an epicure with hoe, her food writing was not an abstraction, she wrote from hands-on experience. 

Genders and Jane Grigson were kindred spirits, although Genders started out much earlier than Jane Grigson. I have all his books mainly because he deals with the unusual and enjoyed the challenge of trying something new (or in the case of rare heirlooms something old and forgotten). Genders’ books are practical guidebooks, so much so that they never go out of date. Serious cooks and gardeners keep his books close at hand because when you are stumped, just look it up in Genders: he will walk you through the problem. And not the least, he understood the meaning of freshness and flavor. He was a culinarian with a spade in hand. 

I dare you to read this book and not end up a teary, blubbering mess, in the best possible way. Kitchens of the Great Midwest is one of those stories that transported and transformed me. I never knew I needed to spend an afternoon in Minnesota learning how to prepare lutefisk, but after reading this book I can say without hesitation that my life is infinitely better for having done so. This brilliant feast of fiction centers around a young chef Eva who reconnects with her Midwest roots on her quest to find herself and her family in her food. It’s a coming-of-age story intertwined with characters, ingredients, and flavors that simmer together beautifully. 

I like to branch out into different genres, and I’ve recently started getting into Manga. This is a really wonderful series about a gay couple—one of whom loves to try out new dishes the other is always eager to try—whose relationship deepens over the meals they enjoy together. It’s something that really touched a chord in me, as someone who also uses food as a love language.

The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide is full of surprises. Author Linda Runyon lived semi-primitively without plumbing or electricity for thirteen years and foraged for the majority of her food. As a vegetarian she was truly dependent on wild edible plants for survival and sustenance. I was taught that real survival required plants rich in carbohydrates, oils, and calories, but Runyon showed that it is possible to survive and thrive by turning salad plants into real food, such as drying and grinding wild clovers and grasses into flour. There is protein in these plants, like beans and grains, and Runyon proved that you can really live off of them. One hour spent reading Runyon's book changed my view of what's edible and how to truly live off wild edible plants. 

The Silence is a psychological thriller with several layers. There are two timelines: present day, where the main character, Abby is a doctor, married with two daughters, and a ‘Then’ storyline set in the early 1990s when young Abby has been sent to Italy to stay with relatives in an old village house, following her mother’s suicide. Book clubs will be talking until midnight about multiple themes in this novel which include suicide and murder, what unsupervised children get up to, marital tension, blackmail, and the pressures of being a politician in a world of social media. Johnson is a talented author who deserves to be better known.

This was a cookbook written by chef Michael Barry to tie in with a BBC series known as Food and Drink published long before I appeared on the series as a competition winner to cook an impressive dish. It was gifted to me by a close friend who wrote on the inside, ‘Something to aspire to’ and it most certainly has inspired me in my approach to writing. This handy paperback reflects the time people were still quite traditional in their culinary ways but has a simple approach to creating English classics such as Chicken Liver Pate, Leeks in White Sauce and Raspberry Fool.