Shopping lists galore

Collecting holiday-book roundups

By Culinate staff

December 13, 2011

It’s the season when every food-publishing outlet (including Culinate, natch) issues a list of the year’s Best Food Books.

As always, some books stand taller than the rest, making appearances on multiple lists; these titles include Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain, Paula Wolfert’s The Food of Morocco, Lisa Fain’s The Homesick Texan Cookbook, Nigel Slater’s Tender, Greg Atkinson’s At the Kitchen Table, Jacques Pépin’s Essential Pépin, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, Romney Steele’s Plum Gorgeous, John Besh’s My Family Table, Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir Blood, Bones & Butter, and Barry Estabrook’s investigative Tomatoland.

If you like to crowd-source your gifts, check out the lists from print publications (the New York Times, the Seattle Times, the San Francisco Chronicle) and online opinionators (the Huffington Post, the Mother Jones blog, Cooking With Amy, 5 Second Rule, and even a blog, Character Approved, from the USA television network). There are, of course, many more lists out there; these are just a few.