Book ideas for Christmas 2024
A round-up of this year's best cookbooks
Blimey. The end of the year is rushing towards us, isn’t it … which means it’s time for my annual cookbook roundup.
Not a ‘best’ or ‘top ten’ list. Those things are flawed. More a review of the year’s crop, with some personal favourites highlighted. Hopefully you will (a) enjoy reading it; and (b) use it as a prompt to check-out and perhaps pick-up some books you’d seen but forgotten, and others that you hadn’t known until now. Indeed, if you’re in the market for giving (or receiving) cookbooks as Christmas gifts, then use this as a guide.
It’s UK focused. But hey, we make good books (and the best covers), and most are out and available in North America, Australasia and other regions (or will be soon).
Has it been a vintage year? Some belters, definitely. Although, to my mind, things tailed-off in the autumn after a strong spring and summer. See what you think.
Finally, a warning: LOTS of words follow, so your email provider might clip the message. Tap the link when they do that, or read it in browser (link top right) or the Substack app. Also, you’ll need to make yourself a brew, pull up a comfortable chair, and get your credit card out.
As with my Supplemental and Tomato Pasta columns, this one’s free for all to read. Please do share with others you think might be interested.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you can access previous years’ roundups (to 2016) scraped from rocketandsquash.com. Simply scroll to the bottom of the ever lengthening Archive. It’s interesting to look back as there are plenty of strong recommendations that stand the test of time (a good cookbook is not just for Christmas).
Also worth noting that if you upgrade to paid, you get unrestricted access to multiple additional recipes per month via the In The Centre, On The Side and Good Things columns. Plus cookbook giveaways. And good karma — I couldn’t spend time on this newsletter without you.
Sweet things
We start, unusually, at the end. Despite the enduring success of Bake Off plus lust on socials and in croissant queues for all things sugary and leavened, baking, pastry and dessert books are a notoriously hard thing to get right — both content-wise and (especially) commercially. Often they’re a rehash of classics we’ve already got, or alternatively a collection of unnecessary twists. But 2024 has produced a number of keepers.
From the many sweet cookbooks I’ve seen this year,
’s I’ll Bring Dessert struck a notable balance between aspirational yet achievable recipes, and a genuinely good and useful concept — easily transportable, crowd-pleasing desserts and bakes, which are all intriguing yet familiar and covetable. Also have a look at ’s Small Batch Cookies being the fourth (and last?) in a series of smart and highly cookable One Tin / Small Batch baking guides.Taboon: Sweet and Savoury Delights from the Lebanese Bakery is timely. I was struck by the introduction, in which the author Hisham Assaad describes how his family had fled from Palestine to Lebanon during the 1948 Nakba, and has existed in refugee camps since then. Has or had? The book landed on my doorstep on a morning following intense bombing in Southern Lebanon. On the face of it, Taboon celebrates the taboon - an oven - as the centre of a community, plus the act of breaking bread together. But Assaad also wrote the book as way of preserving and presenting the cuisine, recipes and stories of his heritage, and the neighbourhoods he grew up in. More pertinent a record now than he could have imagined.
The biggest shoutout goes to SIFT, by
, which is undoubtedly among the most impressive cookbooks this year — one that is original and certain to outlast its promotional period, picking up plenty of cocoa powder and butter stains on the way. If you’re a Substack regular, then you’ll surely know Nicola’s Kitchen Projects newsletter, with its thorough (dare I say geeky?) dives into specific pastry-related skills, ingredients and sweet dishes. SIFT is its accomplished pal. Part technical resource, part lip-smacking prescriptive ideas (think Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), the first third is a detailed but highly useable reference guide, breaking down the essentials of baking, so you can fully understand the ‘why’ bakes work (or not). The remainder offers an extensive range of recipes, covering pretty much every base your sweet teeth will need. Some simple. Some weekend projects. All appropriately detailed and thoughtful, yet also succinct. It’s a remarkable effort, particularly well-suited to truly keen home cooks, bakers and pastry chefs.Feasting and feeding
If you tend to ignore cookbooks much of the time, but occasionally pull out a stack in search of bright sparks and feast planning, then I reckon the following could/should be added to your collection.
Meera Sodha’s cookbooks never fail. Actually, it’s more positive than that: they’re a constant source of imaginative (and thoroughly tested) ideas. Her latest, Dinner, may well be her best, running as it does through low effort, high reward dishes for feeding those you love. Typically (but not always) East and South East Asian in flavour profile, there is really a lot in here you’ll want to cook — I jumped into the aubergine donburi, then marmite risotto with crispy chilli butter roast tomatoes, and can’t wait to try haggis keema with tattie rotis. There’s baked butter paneer, fennel and dill dal, a superb chapter on eggs … it goes on. V good.
Another big name book is Comfort, by Team Ottolenghi. In recognising that ‘comfort food’ food means different things to different people, this book and its recipes appropriately covers a lot of ground — indeed it might be the group’s most eclectic selection of flavours and recipes, going far beyond tahini and za’atar. Which if you’ve a global palate means there’s a really quite remarkable number tempting things to cook. Flavour-packed and trustworthy, this’d be a great gift.
Angela Clutton’s Seasoning bucks the current trend for slightly brash books, with a gentle and considered stroll through the seasons — and in particular seasonally available ingredients. There’s much in here to please cooks who grow or shop at greengrocers, and want inspiration for things that they can’t always get hold of. A British bent, but also worldly.
Two of my favourite cookbooks by this year’s debut authors sit in this ‘feeder’ category.
’s Tucking In is exactly what I was hoping for from her: fun, real, convivial recipes. It’s straightforward yet mouthwatering cooking, with ideas that’ll please both the cook (in terms of effort) and the eater (in terms of flavour). Lots of good pasta for weeknights, plenty of interesting things for beyond (I like the spicy porchetta with fresh, sharp and fish saucy salad).I think
’s Good Time Cooking is excellent, too. The sub-title is ‘show-stopping menus for easy entertaining’, which neatly sums-up the scope of the book. Here the author has done ALL of the thinking for you, with twenty different dinner party menus, each populated with excellent ideas (some classic, some Rosie twists, all accomplished and trustworthy), each with a time plan. There are loads of likely occasions — something for all gatherings, whether last minute, for two, for many more, festive or romantic. Obviously you could pick and mix between the menus as well.Week night eats and family food
As mentioned last week, MOB’s latest book ONE has plenty of one pan ideas that would efficiently expand your weeknight repertoire.
More pans involved but no less useful is Jess Dennison’s self-published Midweek Recipes cookbook, which’ll have you cooking like an Edinburgh café owner in no time (i.e. in effortlessly idyllic, comforting fashion).
And one of my absolute favourites of the year is Kitty Coles’ Make More With Less, which hosts some really beautiful ideas (chicken schnitzel with curry mayo, sweetcorn aioli, a very good and highly adaptable cake for all occasions), all grouped around different base ingredients — cooked beans; cooked potatoes; roast chicken; home made may; crispy breadcrumbs. Lovely stuff.
For weeknight winners you should also consider Georgina Hayden’s Greekish and Meliz Berg’s Dinner Tonight.
Georgie’s is grounded in Greek-Cypriot cuisine (via North London living), with the ‘one-pan pastitsio’ being an excellent way into the book — i.e. a classic, family-pleasing Cypriot dish that’s traditionally time consuming, but here is stripped back and remodelled for the busy family cook. There’s loads, it’s busy and mouthwatering, and each dish will make you at least feel like the sun is shining (try the sticky honey prawns).
Meliz’s Dinner Tonight is jam-packed with Turkish-Cypriot-British food. Everything is flavourful but also practical and realistic, with the Mid-Week, Friday Fakeaway and Slow Cooking sections stacked full of tempting gems. You and your family would be pretty happy (and full) if you cooked your way through this over the coming months and beyond.
Cooking by region
Look, all the books in this section should also be in the ‘family food’ bit as well. I’m just breaking things up, with a focus on a few cookbooks that are also specific to certain cuisines.
You won’t, for example, find a more useful, speedy, home cooking-suited collection of recipes than in Uyen Luu’s Quick & Easy Vietnamese, which does what it says on the tin … but with inventiveness and wit. I absolutely love, for example, the idea of haddock spring rolls served with a dipping sauce and salad bowl as a surprisingly speedy alternative to your Friday night fish and chips.
See also Karla Zazueta’s Nortena, which is packed with endearing and highly cookable Mexican family recipes (for a sample see the tacos gobernador recipe extract in this post).
And Ben Tish’s Mediterra, with a highly desirable and cookable selection of dishes from all sides of the Mediterranean basin.
And Shu Han Lee’s Agak Agak — rice, curries, noodles, simple dishes and feasts from a Singaporean home kitchen, so that vibrant mix of intense, salty and spiced dishes from one of the great fusion cuisines.
I really loved Su Scott’s Pocha, which is all food inspired by pojangmacha — street food wagons in Seoul. There are, of course, bites, passing snacks and drinks, which unless you’re already versed in the Korean store cupboard might need to be part of a bigger feast. But there are midweek meals here, too, and definitely something to suit cooks who like to immerse themselves in a set of flavours and style of eating.
Finally, Marie Michell Kin: Caribbean Recipes fro the Modern Kitchen. Depending on your background, this will either bring much comfort, or provide a necessary introduction to the food and culture of the Caribbean. Or both?! It’s a really accessible and wide-ranging, whilst also nuanced and reflective journey through this region, people and food. And so there's a mix of punchy and subtle flavours, sometimes hot and spicy, often not. Mad that ‘Indian’ food is so common on British tables, but we’re barely getting going with this cuisine. Kin would be a good place to start (see also Motherland, East Winds, West Winds and Sweet Salone, all mentioned in previous roundups).
Single and niche subjects
For reasons that might dawn on you, I’m a fan of concept cookbooks, particularly those that really dial-in to a niche subject, area or simply a single ingredient.
Michael Zee’s Zao Fan: Breakfast of China has flown somewhat under the radar. Certainly the topic appears particularly specialised, but in reality the hand-pulled noodles, dumplings, broths, rice, egg dishes, breads and more that he eruditely documents is a particularly thorough and inspiring book (he also photographed the book and provides videos too via QR codes).
Ditto Hokkaido, by Tim Anderson. Man, I love Tim’s books. The detail, the research, the design, the dishes. I hope Japan Tourism has him on a retainer, because I can’t imagine anyone who reads and cooks from his books don’t constantly check on the airmiles to see if a visit is in reach asap. This one looks at the food culture of Japan’s northernmost island (the clue is in the title), which seems at a glance to be a mix of indigenous Ainu food, plus dishes that possibly offer more immediate gratification. I haven’t spent enough time with this book yet, but will. If you’re a Japanophile, maybe you’ll do the same?
If you’re wistfully looking out at your leaf-covered and frosted-over barbecue, then you need to grab Helen Graves’ BBQ Days, BBQ Nights, as it has recipes and prompts for year round feasting. Come on, put your coat on and grab a lighter — it was a miserable summer, and you need to at least pretend to your partner that that Big Green Egg was good value.
What ingredient do you use multiple times every week, yet probably to make only two or three different things? I’ll start by saying that I’m so very jealous Sam Goldsmith thought of (and pulled off) The Tinned Tomatoes Cookbook. Totally unglamorous, totally necessary.
At the other end of the basic-to-treat shopping range, I didn’t think I needed a book solely about Steak. But then, Tim Hayward probably didn’t think he needed a cookbook about eggs. So we’ll call it a draw. His book covers, in significant depth and style, all that you need to know about the history, cuts, the cooking and the embellishing of steak. A cracking package.
On which note, I hope you’ll consider my book, Good Eggs. In it there’s quick eggspiration, which at a glance should be a step-up from the scrambled eggs on toast with baked beans that you were planning. Plus many (I reckon) very decent ideas and recipes too, alongside some essential classics. Eggs are the fastest and most nutritious convenience food, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, every day of the week. Why wouldn’t you want a whole book of them??!
On vegetables
Spring presented a raft of cookbooks centred around vegetables. Which might in days gone by have been labelled ‘cookbooks for vegetarians’. But really they’re books for everyone, and an excellent way to move the diet towards the most exciting and malleable ingredients around. Indeed, the best of these books are the ones where you forget there’s no meat or fish.
There’s lots to like in Anna Shepherd’s Love Vegetables and Theo Randall’s Verdura too. Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Cookbook has you covered for remarkably efficient vegetarian home cooking (some roasting tins, but not only). While in
’s Vegetables you get the finest prose and humour, alongside his inventive and eclectic dishes — you definitely get the benefit, here, of an author who grows as well as cooks.Özlem Warren’s Sebze is a superb stroll through highly cookable Turkish home cooking — truly an incidentally vegetarian cookbook (evocatively photographed and produced, too). Also, Claire Thomson, the queen of varied home cooking, published a corker in The Veggie Family Cook Book (if you struggle to feed a set of kids with differing dietary preferences, this is a great resource to ensure your mealtimes are varied and successful).
Probably my favourite of this excellent set of books, though, is
’ Easy Wins. Again, only the biggest meatheads would feel anything is missing, so generously is it filled with savvy flavour and textured-layered dishes. Recipes are grouped around fifteen ‘stock’ ingredients, albeit ones that bring much promise (from capers, olive oil and lemons, through tahini, and miso, to onions and peanuts), and the recipes within them really sing — most are at least a step beyond the tired and obvious, yet all eminently desirable and cookable. I think her breakouts featuring flavour swaps, tips for cooking flexibly really help. But, to be honest, would sing the praises of this book even if the only recipe in it was the cheese and pickle roast potatoes, which I now make at least once a fortnight.For foodies and restaurant fans
If buying for a reader, rather than a cook, take a look at Claire Finney’s Hungry Heart. honestly I think it’s insane that publishers persist with hardbacks for non-illustrated non-fiction. But I suppose it at least provides an opportunity for a second bite; as indeed Hungry Heart got its second release this year. Meaning now’s a good time to chew into this one, particularly if interested in a personal memoir interweaving relationships and food.
Are you / they restaurant fans with nice coffee tables? Look at Cafe Cecilia and Mangal II. As with all Phaidon books, both are BEAUTIFUL. And actually there’s more you might make at home than in many restaurant ‘cookbooks’. Still, I’d expect them to perform the role of tantalising room decoration. And in reality they’re a snapshot of a restaurant at a certain time in it’s lifespan (Mangal II explicitly so, capturing multiple periods in its long, recent and contemporary past).
I’m far beyond a reasonable word count. But also think you should take a look at:
Really Healthy by Melissa Hemsley — step away from processed foods and find your healthy, everyday solutions with some real (and real simple) cooking.
— such a clever and useful guide for using up those leftovers (although plenty of the recipes are standalone great too).Pass the Plate by Carolina Gelen — social superstar with a really interesting background. Her debut cookbook is absolutely packed with good things, sometimes drawing on her Romanian heritage, but also much of global.
Romy Gill’s India: Recipes from Home — extremely tempting meals from the Bengal and Punjab regions.
Diana Henry’s re-release of Crazy Water Pickled Lemons — good cookbooks are timeless, see?
The Happiest Diet in the World by Giulia Crouch — a smart, literary review of how to eat well (issa in the olive oil innit).
— if you’re a bung it all in slow cooker person, Catherine has you covered. Remarkably inventive.A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater — part diary snippets, part memoir, all Slater poetry.
On which note, if you’re gearing up for Christmas, the best books to both get you in the mood, and to provide you will all you need for festive bakes, treats, meals etc, are Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles and Anja Dunk’s Advent.
Et, fin. Can’t believe you made it to the end. See you again very soon. Ed
Now I realize that I may have a problem as I already own nearly 90% of these books !
You read / used a lot of new cook books this year! Wow! Is it worth me getting the Anna Jones one you mentioned if I have all her others?