I’ve been recommended these to get me going before I try and find professional kitchen experience. Are there any other ‘essentials’ that I’m missing?
This is probably the best answer here, learn how and why things work and apply that knowledge to your own future creativity
Ratio is an excellent and very practical suggestion
All of Ruhlman’s books are great
Just go get professional experience while you do this project. If you want to be a profrssional cook, you have to experience being a professional cook.
Ot takes more than book skills, and requires immense amounts of resilience, grit and determination. Id focus on building those skills while you master the basics.
Also you cant afford to cook the volume you'll cook in a basic restaurant. Get thousands of hours with a knife or a pan in your hand.
Came here to say this, and found it at top comment. I’ve been recommending this book for years.
Came to recommend this. It's such a different take but a very valid one.
I think of that perspective as the other half of seeing cooking with parallax.
Honestly anything by Michael Ruhlman is a good recommendation.
To add to others I've categorised by subject:
Theory
- The Flavour Thesaurus (Niki Segnit)
- The Cook's Companion (Stephanie Alexander)
- The Food Lab (Kenji)
Meat
- Meat (Anthony Puharich, Libby Travers)
Fish/Seafood
- Fish Butchery (Josh Niland)
- Take One Fish (Josh Niland)
- The Whole Fish (Josh Niland)
Vegetables
- Vegetables, revised (James Paterson)
Pasta
- Mastering Pasta (Marc Vetri, David Joachim)
- Flour + Water: Pasta (Thomas McNaughton, Paolo Lucchesi)
Preserving
- Noma Guide to Fermentation ( René Redzepi, David Zilber)
- Ferment (Holly Davis)
- Charcuterie (Michael Ruhlman)
- Wild Fermentation (Sandor Ellix Katz)
Pastry
- The Perfect Scoop (Lebovitz David)
- Patisserie: Master the Art of French pastry (Melanie Dupuis, Anne Cazor)
Sauces
- Sauces (James Peterson)
- Modern Sauces (Martha Holmberg)
Bread
- Tartine (Chad Robertson)
- The Larousse Book of Bread (Éric Kayser)
- Dough (Richard Bertinet)
Wine/Drink
- Wine Folly (Madeline Puckette, Justin Hammack)
Wishlist
- Modernist Bread
- Modernist Pizza
- Books about butchery
- Books about charcuterie
Excellent List chef
Indeed.
I'd add Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast to the bread list.
This right here, when I started as a bread baker reading this book during my off hours helped me understand much more in depth what I was doing during my on hours
A great baking book with some of the most dialed in recipes is The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg. There might be a thousand recipes in there, many of which have insights on the history of that pastry. The bread recipes in that book are flawless. Great place for a beginner baker to learn the essentials
Saucier's Apprentice by Sokolov if you can find a copy
I think Alton Brown’s review of The Food Lab was something like “The best cookbook since salt fat acid heat”
The Wok by Kenji is also terrific. Though my husband I joke that he generally has found a way to make lots of dishes, but generally worth it!
Great list. I have a lot of those snd will look into some others.
I would recommend Marianski’s Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages. Although Ruhlman/Polcyn’s Charcuterie is inspiring, it is also technically deficient and full of errors.
The Bread and Pastry Bibles by Berenbaum and Forkish Flour Water Salt Yeast are my go to bread books.
McGee’s On Food and Cooking is the real deal kitchen science vs Food Lab which is one of only two cool books I’ve bought and returned.
I don’t have any butchering books although I butcher both domestic and wild animals regularly. Ryan Farr wrote one but I was turned off by his Sausage Making book that has more errors than Charcuterie. Mettler’s Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game is a standard but it’s dated. The Danforth books look really good.
Awhhhh homie you just made the list for my bookshelf thank you 🙏
Josh Niland Fish God
Flavor Bible was one of my most frequently used books. If you're into bread, Crust & Crumb and The Bread Bakers Apprentice are fantastic.
I’ll scream crust and crumb from the rooftops. Wonderful reference.
I love flavor Bible when trying to come up with recipes and ideas, and not so much just let someone tell you how to make something. Have copious amounts of ____ ok pair it with this and this and there you go.
I remember when a workmate first showed me flavour bible, I was like wtf is this, where are the recipes. I ended up downloading it and found myself coming back to it frequently when making menus at work. For a professional chef that already knows how to create menus and dishes and knows how to cook this book is just the spark needed to get the ideas flowing and helps a lot when making menus. A really interesting concept for a book I thought. Theres a few different ones now I think. The author michael ruhlman or whatever (i forget) also has a good charcuterie book and the maple bacon recipe is amazing.
Get the books by the CIA , the professional chef , the garde manger , and baking and pastry .
Instructions unclear.... now im facilitating a Nicaraguan coup
Are you sure you’re following the recipe and trading cocaine for weapons to send to Iran rebel groups? You’ve gotta bake both coups at the same time. Otherwise your geopolitical goals destabilize and you’re left with two deflated coups.
If one Castro is dead can we substitute for another?
There are two Castros, if Fidel is dead you can definitely sub Raul. They are interchangeable as long as they are embargoed.
and you got to bake crack too for maximized financial success.
Now you can sauté a war on drugs and create a for profit prison system that targets poor black & brown people that also doubles as an inexpensive labor force. Meanwhile, Your friends get rich you get to tell kids to “just say no” and scare suburban whites with images of gang drug wars and police raids. It’s the perfect Nixon-Regan entremet.
You have to be careful mixing up your Cs and S’s; I did a few years ago trying to make a Cuban Soup, and it got messy really quick…
Username checks out.
I think mainly "The Professional Chef" is the one to go with. And among the classics, "The Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, "The New Making of a Cook" by Madeline Kamman, and "CookWise" by Shirley Corriher.
But a couple lesser known I also recommend is "Think Like A Chef" by Tom Collichio - one thing it does is take several ingredients and does several, from simple to more complicated, dishes with them, so it illustrates how to look at a basket and create a dish. The other is "Culinary Artistry" by Dornenburg and Page, which interviewed a ton of chefs and basically catalogued their thoughts on various things; I turn to it still on occasion to spark ideas - I'm offered a deal on octopus, I don't often use it, but there is "Octopus" listed and the flavors/ingredients other chefs suggest to go with it, and I'll look it over to help spark my own ideas.
Have to be specific on version. Newer editions suck.
Which edition is best ?
8th edition or earlier for pro chef, 2nd edition for baking and pastry, garde manger is 3rd edition i think. Basically any of the ones published before 2010/2011 are the best imo, the ones i listed were the ones right before that.
What happened to the later editions that made them not as good?
9th edition of the pro chef is technically mostly the same as the 8th edition as far as content but they put lots of giant pictures like a modernist book instead of just putting the content/recipes first. the earlier editions are just easier to reference imo, you don't need all the pictures and filler and stylized fonts. Earlier editions are just formatted better.
So, the earlier editions are formatted like reference material. And the later editions are formatted like blog posts.
I second this. I reference one of these probably weekly.
Thanks! Added to the wish-list :)
Jaques Pèpin's La Techinique and La Methode. They're sold together as one volume.
And The Apprentice, for real life wisdom and to combat all the shitty negativity in the food world harbored by depressed assholes like Bourdain and MPW.
such a wealth of information 👍
I haven't read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, so I can't speak to that. I have read the other three, and if you're only starting out, I would say you should read McGee, but pass on the other two. They're great historical works if you want a reference for every classical preparation and technique there is, but they're terrible to learn from. Get yourself some textbooks like the CIA books already mentioned (or their equivalents from the French Culinary Institute). If you're really looking to start with classical technique, then pick up Jacques Pépin's The Complete Technique and start there. I would also get a book dedicated to sauce-making: I like Peterson's Sauces; it covers some of the same ground as the Larousse but is a much more accessible read. Any of the TKRG books are good, but The French Laundry Cookbook is still as relevant today as when it was released (and if you want to get into pastry, you could do worse than the Bouchon Bakery book - it's not as comprehensive as a pastry textbook, but it has some more modern approaches and the same rigour as all of Keller's books). My hot take is that you should also get a solid reference work on sous vide cooking. I'm not as familiar with the more recent books on that subject, but I frequently consult Baldwin's Sous Vide for the Home Cook. (I'm assuming you can't afford Modernist Cuisine.) Happy learning!
Thank you! Loads of great information. You’re not the first to recommend Pepin’s the complete technique so that’s moved up my list.
Also a very good idea on learning about sous vide. I keep hearing about it but haven’t taken the plunge (lol) yet. If modernist cuisine is worth the investment then I can start saving for it but I’m still a student so that might be a while haha.
Don't buy Modernist! If it's for you, you'll buy it when your salary makes it a sound investment. Right now it's like drinking from a very expensive fire hose. You won't be able to apply most of what you learn without a whole lot of expensive tools you won't have access to for some time. With experience there's a bunch in there that you can apply to your day to day work with some creativity and applied problem solving, but it's really not worth your time right now.
There's a lot in Modernist Cuisine that's really only relevant if you're doing ultra-fine dining, but the sous vide section in volume 2 is invaluable. (Just watch out for the errata.) I've never really done a comparison with the equivalent material in their At Home book, but that might be worth looking at as a discount option.
the thomas keller book Under Pressure is also good for sous vide foundations.
I bought a used copy of the technique online number of years ago. I had to laugh because it was shipped to me from Wisconsin - when I open the book the original receipt from the 1970s was still in it and it was originally sold in a department store around the corner from my house in Atlanta. Small world.
Really good book, but I use almost nothing from it.
Some excellent suggestions. Would add J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab. Also, you can do better than the Bouchan Bakery; try Rose Levy Bernanbaum’s The Baking Bible.
Sauces by James Peterson. My personal bible.
Joy of cooking by Irma rombauer. Not a very technical book but gives a good overview of your quintessential American home cooking. My mom called it the “housewife handbook”.
This is the rec I was looking for. If OP gets a feel for cooking something from this book, then they can add formal training on top of it.
Flavor Bible
Culinary Artistry is a good one. Same authors also did Flavor Bible. Very good books to have on hand.
This is an overlooked classic!
Kitchen Confidential
I scrolled too long to find this. Yes it’s a bit outdated but it’s still needed.. I keep a copy in my kitchen.
i view it as historical at this point
I mean the vibe is still there in many kitchens. But in many cases it should not be glorified lol
exactly. like George Santayana famously stated “those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
And those that can remember the past are condemned to watch others repeat it.
It's a good set of cautionary tales and helpful for recognizing problems that might otherwise be boiling frog situations, hard to see from inside the context.
I agree with this completely. I remember the story of “ feed the bitch”. I probably read that story giggling stoned 7-8 times
Ingredient by Ali Bouzari was a GAMECHANGER for me. It does a great job of explaining the changes that take place on a molecular level in cooking processes. It also helps explain conditions that are ideal for those processes.
Any Josh Niland book is a must. He has genuinely revolutionized the way (most) chefs look at fish.
Origin by Ben Shewry! For the recipes and techniques for sure, but more so because it’s a great guide on how to pull influence and inspiration from things in your life.
Nose to Tail Eating by Ferguson Henderson: a really fantastic crash course on old school cookery and the importance of utilizing every part of every ingredient.
Letters to a Young Chef by Daniel Boulud: Very little actual ~cooking~ information, but some really important lessons to learn here.
Reading will make you 10x better. Yes you will learn at work, but read anything you can get your hands on. Cheers!
Thank you! That’s quite a list but glowing reviews
I’m glad you think reading as much as possible is worthwhile. I keep hearing that I should just get a job and learn in practice but I’m still at university and can’t commit for a while yet. Best to improve my knowledge and get as much practice in my house-shared kitchen as I can in the meantime
To be honest, I wouldn't be reading books to prepare you to get a job in a kitchen. Just go.
I've trained every flavour of newbie under the sun. I can say with confidence that the chances of someone working out has nearly nothing to do with food knowledge and almost everything to do with the other stuff. Trainability, experience, communication skills, availability, etc.
The best thing you can possibly do for yourself is just start now.
If I got two resumes right now, one guy worked dish all summer and the other guy read 7 thick culinary texts over the summer, I'm taking the dishwasher every time.
Harold Mcgee's on food and cooking is a great culinary science primer. Food lovers companion is a great reference, basically a dictionary of food terms, I give one to all new hires.
Culinary Artistry(an encyclopedia of flavor pairing), Bakewise, The Art of fermentation, Garde Manger (by the CIA), The art and Science of Food Pairing. There are a lot of great books written by chefs, but those often tend to stray from 'essential'.
Idk if it's already been mentioned but, The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg was one of my favorites to have on standby at work and at home. Just gives you what ingredients work well together. Made it super easy to be "outside the box" when developing menus or specials.
America's test kitchen cookbook.
That thing's like a bible for us, and we have two shelves full of cookbooks
The Bread Maker's Apprentice is a great book on bread, and taught me a lot about baking, and is fairly comprehensive.
Replace LaRousse and Escoffier with Jacques Pepin if you really want to French it up as a beginner.
Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell.
White Heat, by Marco Pierre White.
Honest to god answer. Who ever is telling you to read a book before getting into this field is completely full of themselves. I would extremely recommend you work a couple years understand the basics and culture of kitchen and then start expanding into traditional technique. Most places use shortcuts and new ways to redefine the way food is made nowadays! Much love
I'd go with French Laundry, although it's a bit dated now. It's an amazing book and still relevant
You might struggle with escoffier
Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell.
Good one
All the books listed above are great guides how to create food but to create a chef, there's 2 books I give out to my chefs.
*the soul of a chef by Ruhlman. He's not a chef but he knows us better than any non chef on the planet. He articulated well the things that make us tick.
- Letters to a young chef by Daniel Boulud This is the best book I've ever read to inspire young chefs in our industry. Hands down. It's his story but it's also just amazing career advice for those who are thinking about getting in the industry.
If you have never worked in a professional kitchen before this may sound odd but grab a basic Spanish language book. Something like Lonely Planet. Learn basic kitchen terms in Spanish. Some of the best dishes coming out of some of the best restaurants in the United States are being prepared by some badass cooks whose native language is Spanish. I learned TONS from a prep cook who was Mexican and I can’t imagine what more I could have learned had I been able to communicate better with him.
The Flavor Bible is an insane book that will help you understand what goes together. Definitely worth getting
If I understand correctly, you like to cook but you want to start cooking professionally in a real kitchen? I recommend Letter to a Young Chef by Boulud and Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain
Have you tried divorce and depression? You’re going to need to read up on that shit before you get started down this road.
Joy of Cooking. True
Ratios by Michael Ruhlman is on point. I hope I spelled his last name correctly.
This is the only book I ever reccomend
These aren't all very helpful to an inexperienced cook. Especially Larousse and Escoffier, they're completely outdated, and also a huge part of the eurocentric bias that's colonized food in the west. Things not done with a French bias are perceived as wrong or lesser, and that's both categorically untrue and counter to making food better and more interesting. On Food and Cooking is pretty useful but you'll also learn a lot of things through it that won't be applicable in a lot of kitchens, and if you're not working for a facts based and science minded chef, you'll be told a lot of it is wrong or a pretentious way of looking at cooking. I like On Food and Cooking a great deal, but it's definitely made me "the food nerd" for both good and bad at most spots in my career. Samin Nosrat's book is great and a great way for the layperson to begin learning how we taste and season and should be good for anybody looking to learn more about food.
Interesting take. Thanks.
I’m from the UK and French cooking is definitely still dominant compared to the US.
I’ve had so many good recommendations, I think I can leave Escoffier and Larousse to collect dust for a while longer.
The escoffier book definitely had that kind of vibe I felt like I was looking through a history book it was still really cool though and I kind of want to buy it
it's not all completely outdated but I definitely kind of agree there was some stuff in there that I was like what the fuck even is this lmao like a big long fork used for lard
Chef Paul prudhomme, “ Louisiana kitchen” gives the best French basics of all cookbooks.
Flavor Bible and Ratio come in handy.
This leveled up my Sourdough game exponentially.
The flavour thesaurus
Only one of those is helpful. McGee is a great resource.
Modernist Cuisine
Silence of the lambs
I've read those four books, and yes, they're essential.
I'll add the following:
The Les Halles Cookbook, Anthony Bourdain. It's the only cookbook which isn't dry as dirt. A fun-to-read cookbook with solid French recipes.
Goosefat and Garlic -- Jeanne Strang. Another French cookbook. Everything being done here is once again trendy.
Modernist Cuisine -- Myrhvold et al. If you can afford it, it's worth reading. You probably won't work in a kitchen which has a laboratory centrifuge. Probably. But if you do, this is your book. I like ALL of the "Modernist" series -- bread, pizza, etc.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking -- Julia Child. Kind of dated in the same way Escoffier is kind of dated. But worth reading for the same reason Escoffier is worth reading.
And I have a few dozen Asian cookbooks, mostly focusing on dim sum and sushi.
Food Lab
The CIA Cookbook.
Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking
The New Professional Chef is a great book
I’d skip Larousse and Escoffier if you’re just building your collection. I’d add the Food Lab and Ratio, as others have suggested. On Food and Cooking might be a little heady for some, The Curious Cook by same author might be more approachable.
Things besides cookbooks.
SETTING THE TABLE - DANNY MEYER
One of the best books on hospitality as a whole. Good to know front of the house and back of the house, this gives you the front. Danny Meyer is behind eleven Madison park, hiring Tom colicchio, Shake Shack, doing it big in NY , etc.
Also for a different perspective from front of the house/ownership that’s not as overly nice as Danny.
Restaurant Man - Joe Bastianich
For inspiration to almost kill yourself getting three stars, embodying “can’t stop won’t and total commitment work attitude. It’s really intense. He stops caring about anything but the food, loses his wife and doesn’t ever see his kid. Gets really really bad cancer, chemo therapy, loses his sense of taste right when he needs it the most, has to train others to taste for him while chasing a third Michelin star.
Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas.
Also to hype you up, the requisite Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential
Danny Meyers book is outstanding, every chef should read it. A great resource for the whole kitchen
Any cookbook with a really dirty page
Shirley o’corriher KitchenWise or BakeWise (superior to salt fat acid heat IMO)
The Flavor Bible
the art and science of food pairing
Personally I recommend all the hairy biker books for simplicity. Yes I know they aren't 'chef's books but those guys know how to gather a good recipe and cook. We just lost one half to cancer but so good.
Also anything by Michel roux both snr and jnr
The book on the right got the BTS logo on it
Do you like playing with food, experimenting, and working out what does and doesn't work for you without following a recipe? Have you been mucking around in the kitchen since you could reach the workbench. Do you sit with the old Nona's, Pedro's, Chang Wuh's at gatherings getting their secrets or invites to production/curing events. If so, the books will help, but you already have the focus, so get out their and get messy. 😉
The History of Food - Toussaint-Samat
Bouchon Bakery - Thomas Keller
RAW - Charlie Trotter & Roxanne Klein
Food lab if you like evidence based cooking.
Kitchen Confidential my friend
Culinary Artistry, it’s great at showing you what items pair with what. It’s always the one book I give to my cooks.
Flavor Bible is the only book you NEED
Kenyi López-Alt books
Go cook, book knowledge is fine but you're gonna be shit with just that. The illiterate dishie will cook circles around you.
Just get cooking. You have 3000 pages of info already and are asking for more. Youre not reading these in one weekend.
I already see you coming back here discussing knife brands and stones cause you cant figure out which of your 4 chef knives if your favorite.
edit: if you actually want a job just watch some youtube basics videos and practice that. Youll be much more agreeable to an employer if you can physically perform basic duties rather than a clueless bookworm who knows the theory of molecular gastronomy but has never picked up a knife. Plus, as someone self taught (I used the cia books) there were lots of moments when I was working where I was explained something or saw something and had several "OH THATS how its suppossed to be". Taking instructions from a book vs seeing a video of someone do it and showing final results is a different way to learn, and im clearly implying the video version is better. Also learn kitchen management somewhere. No cookbook is going to teach you about labor and food costs. Which are skills actually used in professional settings not so much knowing how escoffier made a six hour brown sauce.
There were changes from the first to second edition of On Food and Cooking. Both editions are worth it.
Practical Cookery.
On food and Cooking
Book of yields & flavor Bible come to mind.
I have all of these. They're fricken awesome. Practical professional cookery is a great place to start for basics
Im a home cook not a professional chef - but Lateral Cooking by Niki Segnit was a good read for me.
I also enjoyed the French Laundry and Bouchon Bakery books. Salt, Acid, Fat Heat was good, as was the Science of Cooking for an understanding of interactions etc
Culinary institute of America books, and the flavour thesaurus and the flavour bible. Escoffier is our dated and you're never gonna read it, it was suggested to me as a commis chef think I've opened it twice
Escoffier is an amazing book and a joy to read.
I was actually reading through the escoffier book the other day at the bookstore it's really cool
Culinary Artistry and Flavor Matrix are both great for understanding modern cooking, but really only applicable for an exec or someone who is actually going to be crafting menus / dishes. You can read those once you're on the line or whatever, and you'll probably get even more out of them then.
Sauces, by James Peterson
The flavor bible is a great reference. The Joy of Cooking is also a classic that I think everyone should enjoy
Ratios by Michael Ruhlman is a good one.
French laundry cookbook is a great advanced resource
The Sauce Bible: A Guide to the Saucier's Craft by David Larousse.
Anything by Heston blumenthal
You're missing Kitchen confidential. Kitchen work environment may not be the same as the book these days but it's an important read. And after that maybe take a look at Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, bones and butter: the inadvertant education of a reluctant chef. These books are not about recipes or techniques but about the life you are choosing. Good luck.
On Food
The Joy of Cooking
Room For Dessert taught me wonders about innovation and all
The flavour bible has really helped me a lot with finding flavour combinations through my first year at culinary school
Flavorama by Arielle Johnson is a recent release but it’s epic. Maybe even more useful than Salt Fat Acid Heat if you’re interested in the science behind flavor.
“Grande livre de Cuisine” by Alain Ducasse
The Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen A. Page.
It's basically a book of lists comprising every ingredients flavor pairings. Once you know the technique of cooking you can use this book to conjure up anything you can imagine.
The professional chef is a must.
Get a job as a dishie. Ask to be trained. Pay your dues, or go to school.
The Belly of Paris
You out hitting the street with those rattle cans? -another chef that writes
So many killer references in this thread. Have fun OP
The Complete Robuchon. No frills just classic recipes and techniques made fairly accessible.
Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique, On food and Cooking by Herold McGee
La Technique and also La Method by Jaques Pepin
The Meat Hook meat book ..and the Flavor Bible
These are TOMES. And they're fantastic and there's lots of great recommendations on here. Go work at a dishpit somewhere for a bit before you go any further though.
Lessons on service from Charlie Trotter
https://www.amazon.com/Kissed-Weiner-My-Own-ebook/dp/B01L6ED4OM/ - it has a focus on sausage and cured meats, but that's something that you don't generally get elsewhere
Food lab by kenji Lopez of serious eats. Great recipes as well as the science and understanding of why you do what you do.
Find a used copy of the newest edition of "the professional chef" you can find. Doesn't have to be the newest. It's a CIA text book that teaches you how to do basically everything. Has some solid bulk recipes in there too. I mention used because it is a textbook and is priced like one, not like a cookbook. But you can find used ones pretty easily.
I wish I could be a chef but I'm stuck in IT stuff. At this moment I'm Barely alive studying and working this IT job. Those books looks good to read I'm just simply jealous
Anything by kenji alt lopez imo!
Whoa that copy of SFAH looks so cool
La Technique by Jaques Pepin
Flour Water Salt Yeast is an amazing book if you want to get into making breads.
If you’re doing any charcuterie, get Ruhlman’s book.
The Flavor Bible
The Silver Spoon is to Italian food what Larousse is to French.
Larousse and the Escoffier cookbook are no longer really relevant for most American cooks. They can be great as part of a structured course or to learn culinary history, but for someone who just needs to get up to speed an operational in a day-to-day kitchen, they are not going to be a good use of time.
Fanny Farmer Cookbook. (Yes it is really called that so stop being naughty UK)
Niki segnits books are great. Lateral Cooking walks you through all sorts of techniques with lots of footnotes about what happens if you e.g. add slightly more water to shortcrust etc. her flavour thesaurus is also good
The professional chef - 1st year text from CIA
The Food Lab
I'll point out McGee has done several updated versions of On Food and Cooking - and based on the topic / approach (food science) I do think the latest version is worth getting as our understanding of things has evolved.
Foooood labbbbb… and the wok
Jacques Pepin - La Technique, and Essential Pepin
Lol
Outlaw Cook is an oldie but a goodie by John Thorne. It's a great book to rejuvenate the love of cooking when burn out wants to rear it's ugly head.
That reminds me I should dig up my Thorne books and reread them.
repertoire de la cuisine. Louis Saulnier
The Chefs Companion Book of yields Setting the table by Danny Meyer On Cooking - Outliers chapter 2, the 10,000 hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell What the Dog Saw, Part 1 The Ketchup Conundrum
Culinary school
Food Lab by Kenji
The New Professional Chef (CIA's textbook)
Culinary artistry
Larousse gastronomique and flavor bible
Culinary Artistry and the Flavor Bible. I love Culinary Artistry for their flavor profile matching both normal expected ones plus unusual ones! If you have to do a stint in desserts then you want In the Sweet Kitchen which also gives you the same types of charts. Culinary is broken into seasons etc…
Kenji Lopez-Alt the food lab
Culinary Artistry or the Flavor Bible are must haves. Also read Making of a Chef, Kitchen Confidential, and a few other memoirs. Your experience won’t be theirs, but you will have similar experiences for sure.
Joy of cooking.
The Professional Chef is a good one
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. It's the Bible of food science.
Am I the only one who finds escoffier to be up his own butthole? There were chefs working for kings and queens, running restaurants and inns but this one French guy gets all the credit. Let alone all the culinary traditions in India, China Japan etc.. one dude didn't invent modern cooking and it's time we stop pretending he did...nt 2v
bro you do not need to read On Food and Cooking before working in a kitchen. The 10 hours you will spend reading molecular pasteurization theory would be better spent actually cooking. Honestly same for all of these books except salt fat acid heat. Skimming through 300 Escoffier onion tart recipes and hoping to get the skills of an actual kitchen is the equivalent of trying to become a professional writer by reading the dictionary. I don't really have a more compassionate way to say it but you'd be so much better off cooking actual food in any kitchen (for money) than reading all this stuff (for no money)
Franklin barbecue, it's a great physics book.
The first Moosewood cookbook got me started cooking a few years ago. It was a great beginner book to me.
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
Flavor Bible and Food Lover’s Companion
Fabulicious: Teresa's Italian Family Cookbook by Teresa Guidice
The Flavor Bible is an excellent resource
Depending on what your getting into charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman is another good one
Kitchen experience
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I think Ratio by Michael Ruhlman is a great read.