Books like The new food lover's companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst

The Art of Fermentation is a definitive guide that translates the science, history, and practical techniques of fermentation into clear, step‑by‑step instructions for beginners and experts alike.

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.

In this updated and greatly enlarged edition of her Book of Middle Eastern Food, Claudia Roden re-creates a classic. The book was originally published here in 1972 and was hailed by James Beard as "a landmark in the field of cookery"; this new version represents the accumulation of the author's thirty years of further extensive travel throughout the ever-changing landscape of the Middle East, gathering recipes and stories.Now Ms. Roden gives us more than 800 recipes, including the aromatic variations that accent a dish and define the country of origin: fried garlic and cumin and coriander from Egypt, cinnamon and allspice from Turkey, sumac and tamarind from Syria and Lebanon, pomegranate syrup from Iran, preserved lemon and harissa from North Africa. She has worked out simpler approaches to traditional dishes, using healthier ingredients and time-saving methods without ever sacrificing any of the extraordinary flavor, freshness, and texture that distinguish the cooking of this part of the world.Throughout these pages she draws on all four of the region's major cooking styles: - The refined haute cuisine of Iran, based on rice exquisitely prepared and embellished with a range of meats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts - Arab cooking from Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan--at its finest today, and a good source for vegetable and bulgur wheat dishes - The legendary Turkish cuisine, with its kebabs, wheat and rice dishes, yogurt salads, savory pies, and syrupy pastries - North African cooking, particularly the splendid fare of Morocco, with its heady mix of hot and sweet, orchestrated to perfection in its couscous dishes and taginesFrom the tantalizing mezze--those succulent bites of filled fillo crescents and cigars, chopped salads, and stuffed morsels, as well as tahina, chickpeas, and eggplant in their many guises--to the skewered meats and savory stews and hearty grain and vegetable dishes, here is a rich array of the cooking that Americans embrace today. No longer considered exotic--all the essential ingredients are now available in supermarkets, and the more rare can be obtained through mail order sources (readily available on the Internet)--the foods of the Middle East are a boon to the home cook looking for healthy, inexpensive, flavorful, and wonderfully satisfying dishes, both for everyday eating and for special occasions.From the Hardcover edition.

"Throughout time, people have chosen to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet for a variety of reasons, from ethics to economy to personal and planetary well-being. Experts now suggest a new reason for doing so: maximizing flavor - which is too often masked by meat-based stocks or butter and cream. The Vegetarian Flavor Bible is an essential guide to culinary creativity, based on insights from dozens of leading American chefs, representing such acclaimed restaurants as Crossroads and M.A.K.E. in Los Angeles; Candle 79, Dirt Candy, and Kajitsu in New York City, Green Zebra in Chicago, Greens and Millennium in San Francisco, Natural Selection and Portobello in Portland, Plum Bistro in Seattle, and Vedge in Philadelphia,"--Amazon.com

An encyclopedic reference covering 2,650 food-related entries – from ingredients and cooking terms to cultural habits, traditions, and chef biographies – compiled over twenty years by Alan Davidson.