We’re at that time of the year when we are deluged with “best of” lists. In my world, that means lists of the top cookbooks of 2024. Every year, I probably read cover-to-cover a minimum of 100 cookbooks of all types. There are manuals, encyclopedias, niche ones, those you’ll use daily, and others you want for inspiration. But this year, in addition to the recipe collections, there were several books where the recipes were almost beside the point. It was the stories of cultural and historical importance that really spoke to me.
If the list below isn’t long enough for you, here are more guides from Good Food:
Good Food’s Favorite Cookbooks of 2024
The Good Food Gift Guide (My suggestions are mostly books)
Mayylu! By Hana El-Hibri
This book was hand-delivered to me by the son of the author. And I'm so glad he did. It's such an unusual book. In 2009, Hana El-Hibri trekked through the Lebanon Mountain Trail. She spent a month being welcomed into home after home, experiencing hospitality and a cuisine of specialties that are generations old, but that most people have never heard.
Zaatari, Culinary Traditions of the World’s Largest Syrian Refugee Camp by L. Karen Fisher
In Northern Jordan, not far from the Southern Syrian border, sits a 1300-acre village of 83,000 souls. The main shopping street is populated with around 1,000 shops offering diverse services, including restaurants, boutiques, electronic stores, and food venues. The way this community came about, however, isn't the story of most similarly sized towns. Zaatari is the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world. Karen E. Fisher first arrived there in 2015 to work with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. She and her team of refugee women tell the story of Zaatari through the food in this extraordinary cookbook.
The League of Kitchens Cookbook: Brilliant Tips, Secret Methods & Favorite Family Recipes from Around the World by Lisa Kyung Gross and the Women of The League of Kitchens Cooking School
Imagine superhero cooks who are immigrant women waiting in their homes to teach us their best dishes. That’s The League of Kitchens, a New York-based cooking school currently featuring 14 instructors. Every page of this book has a story I want to hear and a dish I want to make like, Uzbek mung bean soup and Afghan milk pudding.
Bethlehem by Fadi Kattan
Chef Kattan’s mission over the past several years has been to document and share with the world large: Palestinian foods, traditions, and the work of home cooks. His roots are in the West Bank. As I delved into it and got to know the people and places he describes, it became more and more apparent how precious a document the book has now become.
Everything Is All Very Nice: Selected Writings from Elysian by David Thorne
For that restaurant worker in your life or someone obsessed with The Bear, this slim volume is made up of poems from local chef David Thorne. They were originally embedded in emails that went out regularly from his restaurant Elysian to diners, fans, and haters. From my introduction: "Food is a medium through which some of us find home, figure stuff out and find connection. David Thorne, the cook and the poet, shows that process to us through his work. For me, he finds the essential that lives in this insane moment of struggle and hedonistic pleasure, of not enough food and enough money to literally buy it all."
Nature's Candy: Timeless and Inventive Recipes for Creating and Baking with Candied Fruit by Camila Wynne
This is a deep dive into making truly luxurious, delicious, jewel-like confections from fruit that has no relation to what most people have experienced as candied fruit. I may never go through the candying processes detailed in this book, but it’s so gorgeous and informative that I still want it on my shelf. And the recipes for using the fruit are enticing and inventive.
Wafu Cooking: Everyday Recipes With Japanese Style by Sonoko Sakai
Sonoko is an LA gem who combines immense intelligence and a playful sensibility to a collection of recipes that “captures the cultural exchange between Japan and the rest of the world in dishes that have come to Japan from abroad and been ‘wafu-ed’ to suit local tastes, and in Japanese dishes that are reimagined through an American lens.”
The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home by Nicola Nice
For the woman in your life who loves making cocktails, the author focuses on hostesses who shaped cocktail history. It’s a fascinating book with drink recipes of course.
Sift: The Elements of Great Baking by Nicola Lamb
There were so many baking books this year, but this one really stuck out for me. As the title suggests, the author goes deep into each important element of baking: flour, sugar, butter, etc., teaching us what they bring to a bake, and giving us the knowledge to conquer fears and bake from a place of deeper knowledge.
Credit: Penguin Random House.
Our South: Black Food through My Lens by Ashleigh Shanti
Shanti takes us through the five regions closest to her heart, beginning with a glimpse of mountain life in the Backcountry through recipes like Fish Camp hush puppies and quail spiked with black pepper. A swing over to the coastal Lowcountry fills your plate with smoky grilled oysters and benne seed–topped crab toasts. Seasonal produce shines in the Midlands, where bountiful stone fruits enrich dishes from shortcakes to salads. Lowlands nod to the diversity of food cultures that meet in the region, where Shanti grew up eating noodle dishes like Virginia yock, alongside Southern classics like Brunswick stew. The book culminates in Homeland, with foods that share what it’s like to cook — and live — as a Black Southern chef now.