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did things for no other reason than that they had been trained to do so. McGee changed that by explaining ingredients and methodologies via science. His sequel, The Curious Cook, is a companion piece that takes a close look at specific issues, from poaching to the perfect sorbet, which no one but McGee would ever have the patience to quantify. At nearly 700 recipe-free pages, this is not an easy read, but it is an indispensable one for any cook who wants to know “why.”

Gastronomic Me, M.F.K. Fisher

The first time I saw Fisher’s photo on the back of her wartime treasury How to Eat a Wolf, I fell into a heavy crush. She could cook and eat and write—and she looked like Grace Kelly. Boy, do I wish I could have shared just one meal with this woman and then sat around to talk about it. Not only was Fisher the first modern food writer, she was a woman, not a chef, which makes her writing even better. Her work reads as if it were written yesterday afternoon. Nobody before or since has written as thoughtfully about eggs.

The Joy of Cooking (1962-1975 editions), Irma S. Rombauer

The only book on earth that tells you how to make marshmallows and skin a squirrel.

The New Food Lover’s Companion, Sharon Tyler Herbst

The subtitle says it all: Comprehensive Definitions of Nearly 6,000 Food, Drink, and Culinary Terms. I keep mine in a cool little zippered carrying case designed for Bibles and I take it everywhere. Although I like to act like I know everything, it actually does.

The Food Chronology, James Trager

Name a year, and Trager has charted its food-relevant events, broken down into classifications such as science, politics, economics, energy, medicine, religion, and so on. There are several great books on food history, but most of them spin their pages on analysis. Trager just says what happened, when, and to whom, and what. A food history Jack Webb would have loved.

The Visual Food Encyclopedia, edited by Serge D’Amico and François Fortin

In addition to thorough histories and technical information, this weighty tome sports more than 1,200 entries with excellent color illustrations. When you need to know what spirulina looks like, you’ll have the answer right on your bookshelf.

The Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith

This was my first cookbook. I don’t care what he does or did in his personal life. Everything in here worked back then and still does.

The New Southern Cook, John Martin Taylor

I don’t usually buy cookbooks, especially regional ones, but this came to me as a gift. Once I tried a recipe, I cooked everything in it. Taylor has both knowledge and respect for Southern cooking, but he isn’t afraid to take modern approaches. The recipes are dead-on and never fail.

The Time-Life Good Cook Series, Richard Olney, editor

This multivolume series from the 1970s covers everything from classic desserts to salads to sauces. Whenever I don’t understand a procedure involving a classic dish (a common occurrence), I go to these books. They feature extremely accurate and easy-to-follow photo-steps to teach basic procedures, which are followed up with zillions of recipes. This series has been out of print for a while now, but thanks to the Internet you can find them used.

The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson

Those who do not cook their history are doomed to repeat it, which isn’t always a bad thing.

Fish and Shellfish, James Peterson

For my money the best seafood book around. Peterson is a teacher rather than a chef, and I appreciate the difference.

Just before Dark, Jim Harrison

The guy who wrote Legends of the Fall and Wolf is also a helluva food writer in a Hemingway kind of vein. His tastes run rich (foie gras, sweetbreads, half-rotted pheasants), but he writes about these foods with such gusto, such machismo that you want to go out and buy a couple of chest freezers and fill them with stuff you killed. Harrison used to write a column in Esquire called “The Raw and the Cooked,” and it was there I first read a review of Thorne’s Outlaw Cook.

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