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I only have two cookbooks that I reference regularly (not counting the family recipe book). The first is Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat and the second is An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. (Interestingly, both the authors worked at Chez Panisse before writing their books.)

Neither is an ordinary cookbook; instead, they’re both more like how-to guides for the kitchen. Between the two, they’ve got everything you need for a good meal. 

Salt Fat Acid Heat

Salt Fat Acid Heat talks about the science of food and how adding each of the titular elements in different ways makes different meals.

You don’t just learn that you should salt your meat early before you cook it, you learn how it makes a difference in the food and why it’s important.

Knowing the “how” and “why” when cooking lets you improvise and teaches you what you need to know in order to consistently make meals that taste good by explaining what it is that makes food become meals.

Plus if you like science you’ll find it interesting — and you might recognize certain aspects, like the overview of osmosis and diffusion on page 29, from your high school biology class!

An Everlasting Meal

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace looks at the more philosophical side of cooking and the process of cooking sustainably — using every last piece of the item so nothing goes to waste.

She doesn’t call it an eco-friendly book, but Adler wrote a book about cooking in an eco-friendly way.

She also shows that eco-friendliness doesn’t have to break the bank; the subtitle of the book is “Cooking with Economy and Grace,” and it’s inspired by a Depression-era cookbook.

The prose is elegant and it’s worth reading over and over again for that alone, but the recipes are also both inventive and delicious. 

Takeaways

The two cookbooks both contain recipes, but more importantly, they tell you how to think about food and how to transform it into a meal (or two, or three). Local and in-season food is emphasized, and each discusses the ways your senses can help you in the kitchen.

Most importantly, each tells you that anyone can learn to cook good food, and that what you do with the principles inside each is up to you. There are no limits on where your culinary adventures can take you, they say, nor should there be. Armed with these two books, your imagination and the contents of your local grocery store are your only limits.

You can buy Salt Fat Acid Heat and An Everlasting Meal on Amazon. Your local bookstore will probably have Salt Fat Acid Heat too.