The Cookbooks We Loved in 1998

Our regular cookbook reviewer, Anne Mendelson, along with Food’s Charles Perry, Barbara Hansen, Russ Parsons and Laurie Ochoa, picked the cookbooks they loved best in 1998. The books are listed in alphabetical order.

“Chocolate” by Nick Malgieri (HarperCollins, $35). Do we really need another book about chocolate? Malgieri is a great teacher and that is what makes this one stand out.

“The Classic Chinese Cookbook” by Mai Leung (Council Oak Books, $26.95). An underappreciated volume filled with excellent Chinese recipes from one of America’s Chinese cookbook author pioneers.

“The Complete Meat Cookbook” Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly (Houghton Mifflin, $35). Almost everything you ever wanted to know about buying and cooking meat with hearty, uninhibited recipes. It’s the definitive cookbook for the new meat world order in which pork is leaner and the old rules often don’t apply.

“The Food and Life of Oaxaca” by Zarela Martinez (MacMillan, $32.50). A labor of love about one of the most distinctive cuisines of Mexico, one that has been growing in popularity here. Laid out in stark black and white to suggest the black pottery of Oaxaca, it is a fresh, in-depth look at the region’s cuisine, with an especially strong section on Oaxaca’s amazing sauces.

“How To Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman (MacMillan, $25). If you’ve only got one cookbook to give to a beginning or intermediate cook, this is the one. Techniques are clearly explained and the recipes are sophisticated without being trendy.

“Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home With a Four-Star Chef” by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman (Broadway Books, $35). Restaurant recipes always use too many ingredients and too many steps, right? Here’s one that doesn’t. This is food that is surprising in both it’s simplicity and good flavors.

“Lebanese Cuisine” by Anissa Helou (Griffin Trade Paperback, $14.95). Helou is in love with her tradition but has strong, culinarily sophisticated opinions about it, which lead her to a distinctive personal interpretation of Lebanese food.

“Lobster at Home” by Jasper White (Scribner, $30). Even those who never have lobster at home--or anyplace other than a Maine lobster shack--may reconsider under the influence of White, who makes it sound like perfectly practical fare for people with holes in their socks.

“Marcella Cucina” by Marcella Hazan (HarperCollins, $35). A very personal book from the cookbook legend, with no attempt to include all the often-categorized “classic” Italian dishes. But the areas included are covered with such thoroughgoing intelligence that a complete beginner could make a decent show as an Italian home cook on the strength of this material alone.

“Mediterranean Grains and Greens” by Paula Wolfert (HarperCollins, $27.50). Yes, we all know grains and greens are good for you, but the main thing is that Wolfert is such a genius at finding good, unusual recipes. This is Wolfert at her most accessible, with the passion and obsession that pushed her into America’s cooking elite firmly intact.

“My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey With More Than 300 Recipes” by Diana Kennedy (Clarkson Potter $32.50). Kennedy is right to say “culinary odyssey” rather than “cookbook.” Not that cooking is slighted in this most adventurous of her books, but what you really remember is a sojourner trying (through food) to bear witness to Mexico and the Mexican people out of many decades’ memories.

“Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania” by Arthur Schwartz (HarperCollins $27.50). How did America get so far into the Italian food craze without a single work on a region so crucial in shaping the Italian American culinary identity? Never mind. Now we have one that’s illuminating, inviting, funny, thoughtful and unabashedly personal.

“The New Making of a Cook: The Art, Techniques and Science of Good Cooking” by Madeleine Kamman (Morrow, $40). The indispensable book for serious cooks. Kamman, a brilliant teacher, gets to the heart of why food tastes and cooks the way it does.

“The Perfect Recipe” by Pam Anderson (Houghton Mifflin, $27). Sure you think your fried chicken is the best. But how many others have you tried? Anderson, executive editor at Cook’s Illustrated, sorted through almost every possible alternative before coming up with hers.

“The Pie and Pastry Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Scribner, $35). You can find other pastry books that will tell you how to make pies that are good enough to get by. Beranbaum is never satisfied with anything less than the ultimate.

“Seductions of Rice: A Cookbook” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan $35). An absorbing album of photographs, recollections, recipes and ideas brought back from many parts of the world--mostly places where rice is the staff of life, though plenty of nonrice dishes are included.

“Soup: A Way of Life” by Barbara Kafka (Artisan, $35). Good recipes and good reading about the world’s best-loved comfort food from one of America’s most rigorous cookbook authors.

“The Sultan’s Table: A Turkish Cookbook” by Ozcan Ozan (Periplus Editions, $29.95). Improbably splashy-looking. But the contents, a glorious selection of Turkish dishes translated into lucid recipes, deserve to make a splash as well. Try the Wedding Soup if you want to know what life-giving food is.

“Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” by Deborah Madison (Broadway Books, $40). Madison was among the first to prove that vegetarian cooking isn’t all sprouts and deprivation. Her so-called “Joy of Cooking” for vegetarians is encyclopedic in scope, with 1,400 recipes and detailed sections on ingredients and cooking methods.