From Caribbean favourites to everyday vegetarian recipes: Observer Food Monthly’s best food books of 2024
Funky
Caitlin Ruth (Blasta Books, £13)
Ruth’s upbringing, where shelves were lined with jars of preserved homegrown vegetables, inspired this colourful beginner’s guide to pickling and fermentation. Requiring no specialist equipment, there are classics – sauerkraut, kimchi, dill pickles – and wildcards such as fiery pickled sausage. Each recipe includes a suggested accompaniment. HM
Buy it for: pickle novices seeking intense flavours
Kin
Marie Mitchell (Penguin, £30)
Kin cements Mitchell’s position as one of the UK’s leading voices on Caribbean food. She’s a family chronicler, curious cultural researcher and, above all, a chef who knows what people want – honey jerk wings, saltfish fritters, pepperpot and her famed lime cheesecake. A delicious exploration of how cultural and personal identities intertwine. HO
Buy it for: a Caribbean journey, from spice blends to rum
BBQ Days, BBQ Nights
Helen Graves (Hardie Grant, £22)
In a celebration of al fresco feasting, Graves makes a compelling case to keep the coals burning all year round. Each season has a chapter: curried brown butter new potato salad in spring; tequila-macerated strawberries in summer; autumn’s smoky aubergine and maple-pickled sultanas; whole Marmitey cabbage for the winter. The peppy menus are comprehensive and interchangeable. HM
Buy it for: weatherproof pitmasters
Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class
Tony Tan (Murdoch Books, £30)
Tan is a chef, teacher and food scholar who built a school of Asian culinary excellence in rural Australia. This book is a cultural grounding reminiscent of the works of Claudia Roden or Elizabeth David. Tan starts with Malaysian classics such as char kwey taow and nasi lemak, moves further afield (India, Japan) and includes his own creations. HO
Buy it for: decades of knowledge
A Woman’s Place Is In the Kitchen
Sally Abé (Little, Brown Book Group, £22)
At the Pem in London, Sally Abé runs a kitchen largely staffed by women, but her rise to the top was anything but female dominated. Her memoir is a story of graft and tenacity, learned amid the often military brutality of professional kitchens. It is unflinching and funny, and features plenty of candid stories. RN
Buy it for: the highs and lows of life behind the pass
Cooking for People
Mike Davies (Pavilion, £30)
Famed for showstopping roasts at his London gastropub, the Camberwell Arms, Davies’ first cookbook also makes him the king of entertaining. Cooking for friends isn’t always easy, but his reassuring voice fills you with confidence. His influences sweep through Europe with osso bucco and romesco, but you can tell by his sticky toffee pudding that his heart belongs in Britain. GL
Buy it for: the ambitious host
Greekish: Everyday Recipes with Greek Roots
Georgina Hayden (Bloomsbury, £26)
A not entirely faithful take on Greek food that prioritises convenience and imagination over tradition. Who cares when the recipes are as good as Hayden’s comforting youvetsi (meat and orzo stew), hearty spanakopita risotto and indulgent baklava cheesecake. She draws on her Cypriot roots and travels across Greece to deliver clever dishes that work. KF
Buy it for: your family’s new favourite dinners
A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
Nigel Slater (4th Estate, £20)
In his notebooks Slater collects “haphazard observations” about life, crystallising its details – a mango in a Goan rainstorm, the pockmarks in a well made pancake – in quietly poetic prose. It’s not just about food; he also writes about packing light and tending his garden, but it’s the descriptions of mosslike matcha tea and brick-red tomato soup that linger. KF
Buy it for: an appreciation of gentle pleasures in dark times
Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating
Anna Jones (4th Estate, £28)
Jones has identified 12 everyday ingredients that punch well above their weight, including lemons, capers, chillies and vinegar, and structured her latest book around them. The recipes, all vegetarian, are reliably great – artichoke and butter bean paella, lemon and bay pudding – and there’s a wealth of knowledge on subjects such as salting and layering flavour. KF
Buy it for: delicious recipes that don’t cost the earth
Nights Out at Home: Recipes and Stories from 25 Years as a Restaurant Critic
Jay Rayner (Fig Tree, £22)
The Observer’s restaurant critic may be best known for his merciless skewerings, but now he is redressing the balance. Rayner is a keen home cook and here he reverse-engineers the restaurant dishes that have wowed him over the years, providing interpretations of Oslo Court’s duck à l’orange, Persian Cottage’s fesenjan and – yes – Greggs’s steak bakes. KF
Buy it for: his recipe for Baiwei’s addictive deep-fried spare ribs
