78 Books Like At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen

I believe 2 things without a shred of doubt: all humans are creative and anyone can cook. Samin Nosrat adds the critical finale: “…and make it delicious.”

Everyone can benefit from this book, especially those who appreciate good, well-executed dishes but don’t quite understand what makes them so irresistible. As someone who didn’t do much better than fail at high school and college science, Nosrat makes incredibly complex concepts simple and doable! Not to mention, it’s delightfully illustrated.

The infographics, tables, and flowcharts make the content engaging and accessible. It is a cookbook, indispensable kitchen reference, and testament to the power of creative collaboration. Here is evidence that cooking is an art and a science. 

Who doesn’t love a cookbook that includes A Thermos of Hot Virginia Country-Style Beef Consommé as the first item on a picnic list?

The Taste of Country Cooking is a cookbook and narrative of life in Freetown, Virginia where Lewis grew up. I feel comforted and assured reading Lewis’ stories and recipes. Here is an expert relating a way of life where eating is seasonal, healthful, and communal.

Recipes are directions on how to prepare and serve food, sure, they’re also medicinal formulas (lemonade is technically medicinal!), ethnobotanical records, and historical documents intimately tied to how humans all over the world live lives. I am a sucker for cookbooks tied to seasons, foodways, and history.

Lewis’ recipes are presented seasonally and organized into menus linked to events: Emancipation Day Dinner, A Cool Evening Supper, Morning-After-Hog-Butchering Breakfast. Food is what we eat but also who we are.

Wild Flavors follows Chef Didi Emmons over a year on farmer Eva Sommaripa’s farm 80 miles southeast of Boston.

Working as a line cook at Prune, Chef Gabrielle Hamilton gave me unforgettably simple advice as I struggled week after week to prepare a family meal on the fly: “you learn to cook by following recipes.” Duh! Five years later I followed recipes and learned to cook. I enrolled in herbal study at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Brookline, MA.

I cooked out of Wild Flavors throughout my apprenticeship. Many of the plants we studied that year appeared in Wild Flavors in thoughtful, seasonal recipes that brought medicinal plants out of the classroom and into my kitchen, where they came to life.

Recipes like Chickweed Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, sound familiar but feature unconventional, medicinal plant ingredients hiding in plain site in the fields and forests surrounding Eva’s Garden.

Dr. Annie Fenn is a board-certified ob-gyn and chef who focused her work on degenerative brain disease after her mother’s dementia diagnosis.

I worked as part of the food styling team on this book in Idaho and Wyoming cooking and eating from Annie’s garden and local farmer’s markets. Her Italian-American heritage shines throughout her book, organized by foods with neuroprotective properties, most of them plants. Each of the 100 recipes are brain healthy, flavorful, and deeply satiating.

The book is educational and hopeful: she sites study after study that found the number one dementia-reducing behavior is a brain-healthy dietary pattern. As an herbalist and someone who recently lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s, I know compliance is key.

We are all more likely to eat a brain health diet if it’s flavorful, satiating, and adaptable to our social lives and familial traditions. Annie is… show more.

This book cracked me up. Bill Heavey met with people all over the United States and went on crazy foodie adventures with them in order to better understand pockets of unique eats and subsistence. This is not a restaurant visits book. This is a go fishing, backwoods, hunt-or-be-hunted book.

I have two favorite stories in this book. The first is of a woman who forages along the Potomac for Paw Paw fruit. Her attitude toward finding wild food is hilarious and matter-of-fact. The second is of a man who fishes the Bayous of the south and takes Heavey for a wild ride.

Ok, you got me: this isn't a drinks book. But if you're interested in drinks, properly interested, I mean, above and beyond a fondness for getting drunk, then you're interested in flavour.

This book sets my mind racing about the combinations I could conjure up between drink, garnish, and snack. Just imagine, you open a page at random, and there's Segnit's pairing of caraway and poppy seed. Delicious! How much more so might it be next to a nice glass of Madeira, or perhaps something that's sat for a while in a sherry cask taking on all those flavours?

Another one: sesame and shiso. Ok. I know some gins flavoured with shiso. This could work. I flick through this book, and a million new paths open before me, leading me on to tasty treats.

Amy Chaplin’s love for plants and respect for the natural world is infectious but never dogmatic – and I think it’s possible to not even notice the absence of grains, refined sugar, and dairy in the recipes here. Full of beautifully photographed and incredibly appetizing everyday food — porridges and breads, nut-and seed milks and butters, soups, muffins, cakes, and more – her approach to cooking with whole foods has made me taste more carefully, think more creatively, and cook more resourcefully. Admittedly, it’s less of a quick-and-easy type of book – good, thoughtful cooking does take time and foresight – but it’s indispensable nonetheless, a gift to those of us seeking to dig deeper and learn more about plant-based cooking.

This cookbook is one that I grab constantly as the healthy way to prepare dishes with a Latin twist is such a great way to jazz up any meal. What folks may not know is that so many superfoods come from Latin America, and they're very much incorporated into their dishes.

It is very easy for even the novice home cook and one I highly recommend. 

I have a love/hate relationship with permaculture. I adore the concept...and when I put most authors' assertions into practice, I find that I get a much lower yield than doing things the old way. That's why I enjoy books like this one from gardeners who walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Warning: You will be sorely tempted to buy ducks. Resist, resist!

I refer to this book constantly during the giant pumpkin growing season as it is the most detailed and comprehensive guide available. It covers the science of growing giant pumpkins and emphasizes an organic approach.

The book includes details often not found in other giant pumpkin growing books, such as greenhouse plans, a description of the soil food web, and pumpkin lifting methods. It features hundreds of beautiful photos of pumpkin plant parts and champion giant pumpkins. For those wishing to grow a true giant, this is a must-read.