With The Fat Duck Cookbook (Bloomsbury, $50), Heston Blumenthal brings his culinary alchemy home. Like his cooking, Blumenthal’s book defies classification: a history of his Michelin three-star restaurant, a stunning art collection, a scientific how-to on molecular gastronomy. While the recipes may intimidate all but the most serious of home cooks, the blend of narrative and science invites the reader into his world. The perfect gift for cookbook collectors and true food-lovers everywhere.
Packaged together for the first time, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking Boxed Set: Volumes 1 & 2 (Knopf, $89.95) is Julia Child’s masterful contribution to American understanding of French cuisine. Volume 1, first published in 1961, revolutionized domestic kitchens by showing in simple, step-by-step instructions that French food could be enjoyed at home. It includes 524 recipes, ranging from simple to complicated. Volume 2, published in 1970, builds upon the original with additional recipes, including chapters on baking and charcuterie. Along with co-authors Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, Julia Child wrote more than a cookbook when she compiled her culinary experience in these volumes—she created a monument that has stood the test of time.
The first nonfiction book by the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals (Little, Brown, $25.99), is part memoir, part reportage, and all personal, Foer takes us behind the curtain, exposing some of the hardest truths about the American food industry. As a father facing the question of deciding what his children should eat, Foer weaves food traditions, pop culture, and diet myths into a deeply affecting story of how we all should eat. Like The Jungle and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Eating Animals speaks with an honesty and creativity all its own.
