The most recommended books on American cuisine

Capitalizing on the charming landmark “Cross Creek” novel about her fish-out-of-water life in central Florida’s backwoods in the 1920s, Rawlings shares recipes using ingredients she harvested from her primitive surroundings.

There isn’t much call in the Instacart and UberEats era for entertaining dinner guests with Pot Roast of Bear, Lamb Kidneys with Sherry, or Alligator-Tail Steak. The days of serving Jellied Tongue have long passed, thankfully. Rawlings and her Cross Creek neighbors ate those dishes by necessity more than choice.

You devour what the land provides, whether it’s by shovel, by hook, or by gun. When the world gives you loquats, you make Loquat Jelly.

Until 2000, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (1881) was considered the first cookbook authored by a Black American. It was then that historians chanced upon an incredibly lucky finding: a copy of A Domestic Cookbook at the bottom of a box. As far as we know, there’s only ONE copy left of this little 39-page collection of recipes, which was first published in 1866.

Historians and researchers have delved deep into the mystery of author Malinda Russell, but we barely know more than she tells us in her introduction -- a life story laid out in stark, gripping first-person over just two short pages. As a business owner who specialized in pastry, Russell’s book has upended assumptions about 19th-century Black women and African American cuisine. In such a slim volume, she still includes 70+ kinds of cake and comments that “a great many ladies have wished to… show more.

Guitierrez forged a hybrid cookbook around the blending of Southern and Latin American ingredients and cooking techniques.

In the process she gives readers a glimpse into the twentieth century South of increasing ethnic and cultural identity. Like many recent cookbooks, hers is as much memoir as cooking guide.

She relates her memories of living part of the year in Guatemala and part of each year in North Carolina. She claims that southern food found her soul and she discovered a southern belle within herself.

Gutierrez has taught thousands of people how to cook, and she uses her educational skills to highlight the surprising affinities between the foodways of Latin and southern regions, including diverse ethnic roots in each tradition and many shared basic ingredients.

Filled with 150 innovative recipes that show the delights to the palate of blending two notable cuisines into one new, contemporary southern one.

Reed is a leading scholar of southern culture, and he brings his considerable knowledge of the region to bear in a slim book loaded with stories and recipes about barbecue.

Since early settlement of the South, southerners have held barbecues to mark homecomings, holidays, reunions, and political campaigns.

In a lively and witty style, Reed traces the story of southern barbecue from its root in the sixteenth-century Caribbean, showing how the slow, smoky cooking of meat established itself in the coastal South and then spread inland.

He discusses how choices of meat, sauces, and cooking methods vary from one place to another in the region, reflecting local environments, farming practices, and ethnic traditions.

He suggests that barbecue in the South, in its diverse expressions, is the closest thing we have in the United States to Europe’s traditions of wines and cheeses, as one finds mustard sauce in South Carolina and… show more.

I would be remiss if I didn't have a "food" book from my list. While I have read and liked many such books, Adler's is the top gem. 

As I read her book, I pictured us in my kitchen conversing about how we had modified a recipe to save time, money, or both. We compared notes on the lost art of thrift in the kitchen; how to turn bread heels, beans, and bones into tasty components of a meal. 

Adler shows us that we can be cooks on our terms, in our own kitchens, delightfully free of pretense and convention. May this book free your mind and inspire you to get creative in the kitchen to discover what's possible!

One of our all-time favorite books. Nathan Turner loves California, and we love how he translates that love to us, transporting even those of us who have lived here all of our lives to a new level of appreciation for our beautiful state. A combination of food, family, design, and adventure, it is an ode to our state — a love letter that is an absolute joy.

I’ve dined at the restaurant Lemonade in Venice Beach several times and was thrilled when I discovered they had a cookbook.

LA is defined by exceptionally fresh produce year-round and a diverse culinary scene thanks to immigrants from all over the world. Lemonade reflects that beautifully! I used many of the recipes in this book when cooking for the Patagonia women’s surf team and was thrilled with how much people loved them and how easy they were to scale up to feed a crowd.

Narrowing it down to my favorites was tough, but I can’t get enough of the Avocado, Cherry Tomato, Pine Nut, and Lime Vinaigrette; the Black Kale, Shiitake, and Kumquat Vinaigrette; or the Red Miso Beef. And of course, they have a full lemonade chapter with interesting, virgin concoctions including my favorite, the Green Apple Jalapeno lemonade.

Josef Centeno honors the food he grew up with in San Antonio. The book is named for his great-grandmother, “Ama´” and the influence of both his family, and his life as the chef of Los Angeles’s Bar Ama permeate the book. “Reimagined” is the word Josef uses to describe his recipes, and I think it’s a perfect descriptor for his particular vision.

Chef Centeno’s taste leans towards acidic, with lots of citrus and vinegars. Words like pickled and vinaigrette appear often in recipe titles and there is no shortage of chiles and salsas. I learn something every time I make a new recipe from this book, which is something I aspire to have my own cookbooks to do for others.

Most people identify either as cooks or bakers, and I can see why—it certainly takes a different mindset to bake bread or a cake. Baking is a far more precise science, which is one of the reasons I’m very picky about what baking recipes I trust. It’s one of the reasons I love having Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book in my arsenal. I have always been a big fan of the magazine, where the writers prepare countless versions of the same recipe, changing ingredients, methods, and other factors to arrive at the most perfect version. This cookbook follows the same format, covering savory recipes like tarts, quiches, pizzas, and rolls, in addition to every classic sweet recipe you could want. It was this book that ended my long search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie… the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie is a refinement of the classic Toll House Cookie. I’m glad… show more.

Longing for the food from home yet finding her quest unobtainable to fulfil, Lisa Fain, a 7th generation Texan, took matters into her own hands and began exploring ways to recreate Tex-Mex dishes in her NYC apartment. From this process a cookbook was born. The Homesick Texan is for every armchair traveler who wants to recreate a little bit of Texas, not matter where they may be at the moment.