It has become a tradition. Before Christmas, whether it snows or not, there is an avalanche of cookbooks in bookstores. And it must be recognized that not all of them are gifts. Here is our second selection of five books that deserve a place under the tree.
The sea to drink and eat
This encyclopedia is as generous and gourmet as Mediterranean cuisine can be! One thousand three hundred recipes covering twenty-four countries, descriptions of emblematic products and gastronomic celebrations – from tabbouleh to the Rose Festival –, literary excerpts, watercolor illustrations… This huge book succeeds in an impossible bet: to do the circumnavigation of the Mediterranean. Its author, Mireille Sanchez, had already delivered an impressive sum on chicken cuisine around the world: The Traveling Chicken (BPI, 2019). She again took seven years of research, of travel, to restore the best of her culinary experiences. If this very (very) big book is not easy to handle in the kitchen, its summary and its recipe indexes (by product, by country) make it a sure ally for the stoves.
Mediterraneanby Mireille Sanchez (La Martinière, 1,088 pages, 55 euros).
Food, land of reflections
“Food is a magnifying glass to understand our ways of living together and of experiencing the world”, proclaims Emilie Laystary in the preamble to her book. Throughout the forty or so intelligent chronicles that emanate from this book – adapted from the successful podcast “Bouffons” (New Listening) and beautifully illustrated by the artist Robabée –, the independent journalist pursues a quest that is both noble and erudite: that of approaching food as a social fact in its own right. Inspired by food studies, this academic approach that Americans take to food, Emilie Laystary gives the floor to a host of speakers (historians, anthropologists, chefs and philosophers) and cooks in turn with them the major culinary issues of our time: climate change , food sovereignty, the search for good food or the diversity of identity foods. A book to snack on between two meals… to fill up on gray matter.
Small treatise on food. What our plates reveal about usby Emilie Laystary, from the podcast “Bouffons” (Marabout, 192 pages, 22.90 euros).
Nothing is thrown away, everything is cooked
Christmas being synonymous with waste at all levels, here is a book that could be useful under the tree: seventy recipes for using up leftovers. Peeled kimchi, morning after couscous hummus, sweet praline from the bottom of a can of corn flakes, onion soup at the end of its life, withered rosemary water… do you like it? Be aware that despite their not necessarily engaging name, the dishes have a real gastronomic ambition. This “tiramisu with stale croissants” looks great, as does the “stuffed pasta with leftover vegetable pot-au-feu” (with making the dough included). We owe this book to Anthony Denon, starred chef who worked for Jean-François Piège and Alain Ducasse, who centers his work at the Hotel Burgundy (Paris) around plants, organic and zero waste. “Frank recipes that will fuel your desire to cook everyday ingredients without throwing anything away, because nothing is thrown away, everything can be cooked!” »he summarizes with accuracy.
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