My bookshelf

I have a decent collection of cookbooks a wide variety of topics. That being said, I don't buy just any cookbook. I'm quite choosey. To me, a good cookbook is one that inspires me to come up with my own recipes. I like books that explain in great detail the theory behind a style of cooking, the history of a technique, the properties of an ingredient. Some of my favourite books have few, if any, illustrations. A large number of glossy photographs is not an indicator of brilliance with a cookbook. To be sure, some of the best cookbooks do have good illustrations, but similarly there are awe-inspiring cooks with none. It's the text that counts.

'If you kill an animal, it's only polite to eat the whole thing' says British chef Fergus Henderson. I couldn't agree more. Henderson, chef at British restaurant St. John, advocates working with the cheaper cuts and the offal. His two books The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook are both excellent. Anyone who reckons the British can't cook should read these books. That being said, I rarely follow the man's recipes. I find them more interesting as inspirational material. My quail recipes, for instance, are all based on his roast quail recipe.

Next up is Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking. Again, this is another inspiring book. I really like Anthony Bourdain's style--sharp writing and accessible recipes for bistro classics ranging from steak with a green peppercorn sauce to steamed mussels. While I've enjoyed most of his other works, I'm disappointed he hasn't written another cookbook.

50 Great Curries of India, Tenth Anniversary Edition is probably my favourite book on curries. I rarely follow the recipes, but use them as a basis for something of my own. The author explains the techniques essential to curry-making in a way that is accessible, but not dumbed down to the point of being useless. You'll come away from this book able to create curries that are actually respectable.

The Oxford Companion to Food 2nd Ed isn't a cookbook, as you might've guessed. It's a reference book. An encyclopaedia. It doesn't have an entry for everything you'll ever look up, but then again, no cooking encyclopaedia does. That being said, this is my favourite cooking encyclopaedia as it's all reference material. I don't buy cooking encyclopaedias to get recipes. This book is great for those of us who have a habit of picking up meat, game, poultry, seafood, vegetables and spices we happen to come across without first knowing what they are and what can be done with them.

The South African Illustrated Cookbook is my favourite, but shortest, of three South African cookbooks I own. The illustrations--yes, illustrations as opposed to photographs--are magnificent and so are the recipes. This simple, slim volume neatly sums up the diversity of South African cooking.

Pork and Sons is like a holy text to me. The pig is a noble animal. A divine beast. I'm not the first to express that sentiment and I surely won't be the last. This book, with its cute illustrations and extensive collection of recipes for every part of the pig from the loin to the foot to the blood, celebrates all that is wonderful about pig. Which is everything, of course. Has a few recipes for boar, too.

Another fascinating book is The South American Table: The Flavor and Soul of Authentic Home Cooking from Patagonia to Rio de Janeiro, with 450 Recipes. I must admit, I rarely cook the recipes in this book, but I often turn to it for ideas and because it has so much history and detail.