Let’s eat

Though it’s said about many things, cookbooks really are gifts that keep on giving. You gift the cookbook, then the recipient gifts you delectable dishes. Do everyone’s stomach a favor and give one this year. Here are a few of this season’s best, from modern theory to reissues of classics.

Moosewood Cookbook: 40th Anniversary Edition If the global, vegetable-centric recipes in this update of a cookbook that originated as a handwritten recipe notebook from a small co-op restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., seem oddly timely, it’s because Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook had a seminal role in steering American cuisine away from the meat-and-potatoes of the 1950s. Though some recipes once rare and exotic to the American palette have since claimed a place on our plates—such as baba ghanoush, dolma and borscht—there are still plenty of surprises inside. Indonesian gado-gado and Hungarian mushroom soup are great examples of dishes in which the individual flavors of the ingredients come through—a simple approach seeing resurgence in modern kitchens.

Relæ: A Book of Ideas Less a cookbook and more a compendium of one chef’s knowledge and opinions born from years of fine dining experience, Relæ—named after Chef Christian F. Puglisi’s Copenhagen restaurant—is unflinchingly focused on every aspect of each dish. Reading through the extensively cross-referenced book is like sitting down to pick the chef’s brain on seemingly endless culinary topics, from water to Puglisi’s sources of inspiration. The included recipes are inspiring, though they may be hard to pull off in most home kitchens where ingredients such as trimoline—a form of sugar syrup—and cooking techniques such as sous-vide are less common. While you may not whip up a batch of milk, kelp and caramel for a week-night snack, Puglisi’s passion might have you booking a ticket to Denmark for a New Year’s feast.

The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals Great food runs in the Pollan family. Compiled by the mother and sisters of bestselling food author Michael Pollan, this collection of more than 100 family recipes represents California’s culinary legacy of using fresh, healthy and seasonal ingredients with knowledgeable but straightforward prep. It’s an eclectic mix, covering the classics to the imaginative. Devilishly buttery sole meunière and creamy spinach pasta alfredo with crispy pancetta are great weeknight options that feel and taste like Sunday dinner, while Esmé’s S’mores cookies could only come from the mind of a 9-year-old.

Joy the Baker Homemade Decadence Born from Joy Wilson’s Joy the Baker blog (www.JoyTheBaker.com), the more than 125 recipes here promise “irresistibly sweet, salty, gooey, sticky, fluffy, creamy, crunchy treats.” With that many adjectives on the front cover you shouldn’t be surprised at the amount of butter between the pages. The recipes live up to the title’s claim, but there’s also great creativity behind the splurging, bringing new twists to the table. Something as simple as raspberry butter—butter, honey and raspberries mixed together—can liven up breakfast pastries while breakfast nachos, apple pie with cheddar bacon crust, and blueberry goat cheese ice cream will have brunchers and sweet tooths coming back for seconds.

The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites Libby O’Connell, the History Channel’s chief historian and historic-food expert, traces America’s cuisine—and, by extension, much of the world’s modern culinary trends—by selecting individual ingredients and iconic dishes that have symbiotically shaped our nation. O’Connell takes a largely chronological approach, starting with maize and working her way up to a chili con carne prepared by a New York firehouse heavily involved in the rescue efforts following the 9/11 attacks.

O’Connell peppers the short chapters with delicious tidbits of information and trivia. Though you may be hard-pressed to find the squirrels and beaver tails that some of the pioneer recipes call for, there are enough “did-you-know?” moments to fuel a decade’s worth of small talk at a dinner party.