Books like Taste by Kate Colquhoun

Anthony Bourdain tells the candid, behind‑the‑pan stories of his rise from dishwasher to celebrated chef, mixing culinary insight with personal anecdotes.

Bill Buford chronicles his three‑year apprenticeship under chef Mario Batali at the New York restaurant Babbo, detailing the trials of learning professional cooking, from butchery in Italy to hand‑made pasta in Tuscany.

The Flavor Bible is a definitive culinary reference that teaches chefs and home cooks how to season ingredients for maximum flavor, drawing on the expertise of leading chefs and offering thousands of ingredient pairings.

Richard Wrangham argues that the adoption of cooking was the pivotal force in human evolution, shaping our biology, social structures, and modern dietary habits.

Journalist and food critic Jeffrey Steingarten tackles his culinary fears— from kimchi to blue‑faced foods—while sampling global dishes, experimenting with baking, and defending savory staples in a humorous, food‑centric memoir.

A revealing look at the American way of eating through the experiences of low-income workers.

Explore how eating habits and table manners have evolved from ancient times to today, tracing the origins of chairs, forks, and chopsticks in this accessible history guide.

This remarkable book, the sequel to the author's Revolution at the Table (1988), analyses changes in the American diet and nutritional ideas from 1930 to the present. Much more than a study of eating habits, Paradox of Plenty is a sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of cultural change that deserves a wide audience among economic historians, political historians, women's historians, medical historians, and social historians. One of Levenstein's many perceptive insights is that the history of eating is inextricably tied up with a broader political economy and culture. With admirable balance, he carefully disentangles the roles of food producers and processors, home economists, faddists, nutritionists, and political pressure groups in shaping broader cultural ideas of nutrition and taste. As in his earlier book, the author shows how food experts repeatedly recommended major changes in diet on the basis of flimsy evidence. The book will prove to be a valuable source of information on regulation of the food industry; changes in food distribution, processing, packaging, and preservation; and consumption patterns and food budgets among various ethnic and socio-economic groups. Carefully attentive to social class, Paradox of Plenty shows how food became a less important marker of social distinction between the 1930s and the 1960s, only to assume renewed symbolic importance in the 1970s and 1980s. Similarly sensitive to gender issues, the book charts the changing the role of food preparation in assessments of women's success as wives and mothers, the growing mania for slimness, and the impact of the increasing number of working mothers on American dining habits. The book's title, a variant on David Potter's People of Plenty, underscores two of Levenstein's central themes: persistent public concern over the extent of hunger and malnutrition in the midst of agricultural abundance and periodic American obsessions with dieting and obesity. The Depression highlighted both of these themes: the 1930s not only witnessed a growing political debate about the causes of and cures for malnutrition; it also saw a growing cultural obsession among the middle class with weight loss and vitamins. The book's core is a systematic examination of how major events of the twentieth century intersected with changing eating habits and ideas about food. The Depression, for example, encouraged a renewed emphasis on home cooking and an uncomplicated, straightforward cuisine. World War II spurred a heightened concern with poor nutrition. The early post-war era witnessed heightened fears of additives, pesticides, cholesterol, and saturated fats. Especially enlightening is Levenstein's, discussion of the growing cultural interest in health and organic foods during the 1960s and 1970s and the ways this was linked to broader countercultural values.