The C100B Guide to the Best Books of the Season

Some of the season’s best books about food and drink.

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Teo Wolf of West Vancouver has just moved to Paris, where he has landed a kitchen job at the 200-plus-seat Bib Gourmand bistro Le Dauphin, in Montparnasse. The kitchen is helmed by a culinary virtuoso and expat Montrealer named François Côté, a.k.a. Frankie Formidable. Here, fresh from a first night on the town with Frankie, our protagonist shows up for his first shift, already equipped with a kitchen nickname of his own, Teo Tranquille. 

EXCERPT

That morning, panting and sweaty and foggy from too many demi en pression with Frankie the night before, I certainly did not feel tranquil about anything. I was bleary and nervous and my hands were trembling as Frankie beckoned me to the front of the kitchen to where he was standing at the pass, calling into the dining room.

“Café pour la gueule de bois. Vite.” And when it arrived in the pass, he swivelled and handed it to me, his expression one of similar skepticism to that which the chefs patrons had shown me the day before. “You’re late,” he said, leaning in to inspect my eyes. “Don’t be late again. You ever hear of eye drops?”

He looked great himself. Those grey eyes perfectly calm and clear. His body set in place, steady as a runner’s body might be before the launch, like a coiled spring, just as the kitchen seemed similarly poised around him as the breakfast hour approached. I saw that the bakery station was going full out already, the boulangerworking with two commis as they produced sheet trays of fresh croissants and pains au chocolat and chaussons aux pommes. Over at the garde manger station, the first-shift cooks were prepping for the morning egg dishes Le Dauphin offered — the bistro classic oeufs en cocotte; oeufs américains, which were fried eggs served with brioche toast; and an in-house specialty known as oeufs de maman, named for one or another of les patrons’ mothers, or simply “ovo” as Frankie would call it from the pass.

“Where do you want me?” I said to Frankie. “Should I help with the eggs?”

I had no idea just how ridiculous this suggestion was, like an utterly green apprentice in a kitchen cranking hundreds of covers a day just plugged into a station of their choosing. I had no idea that the coffee I was unsteadily sipping was the last Frankie would ever pour for me, that this little tête-à-tête between us at seven in the morning was going to be one of a kind. This was all courtesy, a one-off for the new Canadian, friend of a friend. From that day forward, I was going to have an assigned place in the rigid structure of the brigade with someone above me, and someone above them, and a chef de partie above both of those guys, and Frankie himself sitting at the distant tip of the pyramid. Beyond the moments when the chefs patrons came back for a visit, Frankie was the supreme being in the kitchen at Le Dauphin, where there had been no executive chef since the last one, named Clémente, had stabbed himself in the throat with his filleting knife and bled to death on the tiles near the vegetable station.

“Since Gauthier’s been handling the eggs for the past 10 years,” Frankie said, “I think I’ll leave it to him.” Not unkind, but a comment made dryly, Frankie seeing something that I couldn’t then, that I had in front of me every single lesson in cooking that I would need to learn. Then he went on to explain very briefly that no new apprentice touched customer food until they’d proven themselves. Sometimes it took a month. Sometimes it took a year. House rule. 

“You’re on family meal,” he said.

Then he went to the pass as the orders began to arrive. Cocotte. Cocotte. Croissant. Deux pains. Deux ovos!

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Can a cookbook by African Americans authentically capture an entire continent of African cuisine? Chef Alexander Smalls and culinary connector Nina Oduro smartly opt to string together the personal stories and dishes of 33 renowned African chefs from five regions of the continent. Though some common threads (from peanuts to plantain, chilies to cassava) connect these distinct cuisines, recipes range wildly, from Nigerian puff puff street snacks to contemporary gomen ricotta rotolos with tomato sugo. The lens of home cooking is a deceptively modest one for presenting African cuisine: each chef’s heritage and culinary legacy is as rich as a long-simmered stew. And though ingredient lists can seem long, most of the recipes are simple and use modest produce and staples. The minimalist page design with injections of bright primary colours elevates the haute comfort-food vibe and offers home cooks a dazzling new culinary palette. –Charlene Rooke

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While its title might have you expecting a travelogue, Around the World in 80 Beers is rather a history book, and an immensely entertaining one at that. Martyn Cornell is one of the world’s leading beer historians, and also a gifted writer, as evidenced by this fascinating 243-page effort. In three pages per entry, Cornell reveals the origins, secrets and global and historical importance of 80 beers, ranging from the reasonably expected (Bass Pale Ale and Guinness Stout) to such surprising entries as Egypt’s Al Ahram Stella and Ecuador’s Quiteña Chicha Vieja. Canada rates three entries, all mass-market brands. Cornell’s writing is sufficiently engaging and each tale so thoroughly compelling that it will be enjoyed by drinkers and teetotallers alike. –Stephen Beaumont. 

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Many cookbook authors are bestowed with the descriptor “beloved,” but few deserve it as much as Chuck Hughes, TV host and owner of Montreal’s Garde Manger. His compendium of family-friendly recipes comes with a promise: These really are the recipes he goes to time and again to feed his wife, two young boys and anyone else who happens to pop over. And the recipes are delightful — simple enough but with some invention, many based on dishes from his favourite Montreal restaurants, delis and shops. Breakfast Mishkabibble is his take on the Jewish deli staple corned beef hash, by way of Snowdon Deli and Beauty’s. He covers a lot of basics — pizza dough, how to shuck oysters, how to make various sauces and condiments. Recipes cover major categories (breakfast, bread, soups, pastas, meats, vegetables, etc.) and, delightfully, he includes a whole section called Sugar Shack. “Growing up,” Hughes writes, “springtime meant cabane à sucre!” He’s captured that tradition admirably, with some lovely photos, too. This is a very sweet book in more ways than one. –Dick Snyder

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To say that the world of whisky has expanded greatly in the decade since Broom published the second edition of his masterwork is an understatement of dramatic magnitude. From 200 distilleries covered, this third edition has expanded to over 500, and from 26 countries explored, it has mushroomed to 42. And Broom has been given all of 16 extra pages in which to – ahem! – distill it all. Amazingly, he accomplishes his task quite successfully, taking what has been rightly described as the “best whisky book ever” and making it not just more inclusive, but better than ever. The traditional whisky powers are all covered, of course, Canada included — Broom describes us as “one of the most exciting whisky-making countries in the world” — but so are New Zealand and China, France and Finland, Israel and Vietnam. If there is whisky being made somewhere, Broom knows about it, has likely tasted it, and writes about it here in a clear, open-minded and thoroughly enjoyable fashion. –Stephen Beaumont

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Flipping the cobalt cover of Mangal II is like opening the door to the warm scents and family hospitality at this legendary East London Turkish restaurant. In the first half of this storytelling-heavy volume, brothers Ferhat and Sertaç Dirik trace the family’s 30-year culinary journey. That includes their father’s traditional Turkish cooking, such as his famous ezme, lamb kebabs and pide. The Transformation section traces the Dirik brothers’ post-lockdown reinvention of Mangal II as an East London hub for a newer clientele of cultural cognoscenti. Modern recipes — like TFC (Turkish fried chicken livers) and tahini tart — reflect this new direction, as well as Sertaç’s experience in Copenhagen kitchens. Images glow with the simple, vibrant plating of well-charred and colourful plates, plus plenty of documentary-style photos of steamy, fiery kitchen action. –Charlene Rooke

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The ubiquity of food media continues to grow, so much so that not even children are immune to its influence. The result in recent years has been a spate of cookbooks created especially for prepubescents who want to don a chef’s toque and create gourmet-calibre meals in the family kitchen. Together with a dozen contributors, Gabrielle Langholtz (author of 2019’s United Tastes of America: An Atlas of Food Facts & Recipes from Every State!) has crafted a gastronomic travelogue of recipes and origin stories from every continent, written in a voice that’s approachable to aspiring cooks as young as seven. Enlivened with hyper-colourful illustrations by Tània García, A World of Flavor shares 43 recipes, from shakshuka (North Africa) to chocolate truffles (France). It also provides lists of pantry staples and essential kitchen tools — all the better to ensure against the sort of explosive tantrums for which even adult chefs are infamous. –Michael White

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Rather astonishingly, when Canadian Whisky was originally published in 2012, it was the first modern book dedicated to its subject, despite Canada being one of the world’s leading whisky producers. Now, a dozen years later, Canadian whisky is bigger and better than ever, and de Kergommeaux is back with a much-expanded third edition, larger dimensionally and in page count. As in previous versions, tasting notes are included and whisky is explained at length. The heart of the book, however, is devoted to the nature of Canadian whisky — its history, particularities and producers — making this a worthy celebration of our national spirit. –Stephen Beaumont

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Max Rocha’s journey to culinary renown is as unconventional and unpretentious as the London restaurant from which this cookbook takes its name. Rocha took a leave of absence from his career in the music industry to deal with depression and found redemption in learning to make his mother’s Guinness bread. (This will be the first thing to land on your table at Café Cecilia; the bread also features in a signature ice cream.) While Rocha’s Irish heritage figures prominently in several dishes, a variety of pastas, composed salads and bistro classics such as beef tartare are also in the mix. Countless chefs claim simplicity as their guiding principle, but Rocha walks the walk: His smoked mackerel pâté requires a mere four ingredients, while a recipe for onglet and peppercorn sauce should fail to intimidate even the most novice home cook. –Michael White

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