I used to Google “cookbooks for chefs” or “gifts for chefs,” only to find the same results of cookbooks and gifts that would be recommended to a home cook. This is not what I was looking for. Cheffing as a profession comes with advanced tools just like most professions do. If your cousin were a pro golfer, would you gift her a 4 iron from your local sports shop? No. Just like I wouldn’t recommend buying a knife from Target for your professional chef friends or relatives. My husband is very particular and excited about the knives he uses; believe me, if he’s got room in his knife roll for a new one, he’s been dreaming and scheming about it for months. The same is true of cookbooks. He’s looking for books that are more than just a list of recipes. So today I will begin by outlining some of the things he’s looking for in cookbooks and will then provide a list of some of his favorites.
What chefs look for in cookbooks
Chefs look for many of the same things in cookbooks that I look for in fiction. They want:
A specific point of view. He’s not interested in generalist cookbooks. He likes cookbooks that focus on one type of cuisine, sure, but he also likes cookbooks that prioritize regional food, growing seasons, specific techniques, and traditions. Own voices. If he’s reading a Palestinian cookbook, he’d much prefer it was written by a Palestinian. High-quality pictures. Everyone wants great pictures in their cookbooks, but if you check out some of the incredible food design and photographs in chef cookbooks, you’ll quickly see that these are a cut above. Larders. A fancy way of saying a “cupboard,” larder cookbooks focus on what ingredients you should have on hand to create a certain type of cuisine or to complete specific types of dishes. James Beard Award winners. This is the main award for cookbooks and my husband agrees that most of the past winners are worthy of giving to your chef friends and fam. Cookbooks from restaurants. When choosing a cookbook from a restaurant, he wants more than just their recipes. He wants to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing and what they’ve tried before. He’s also interested in behind-the-scenes stories from restaurants and the daily minutiae. Note that this does not mean he’s interested in gossip. The restaurant he works for has a fantastic code of ethics that they don’t just write down — they bring those ethics into work every day and take significant strides to ensure they are being met. Many chefs are working to change restaurant culture for the better and cookbooks that dive into how individual restaurants are dealing with this are of particular interest. Cookbooks from non-restaurants. All of the above might make you think that he’s only interested in cookbooks from people who’ve successfully run restaurants. This is not the case. He’s interested in authenticity and it’s no secret that many of the best cooks are not chefs. When he buys a cookbook not associated with a restaurant, he still holds it to high standards and wants well-thought-out, detailed recipes and instructions with inspiring photos.
That’s a long list and none of the books I’m going to include below will meet all of them. But hopefully, it gives you a bit of insight into one chef’s opinions on how to find a great cookbook for a chef. I’ve also done a little cheating in the past and gifted him with a subscription to The Hardcover Cook. They send out a quarterly box in several categories, including Essentials, which is set up for cooks, but they also offer more advanced boxes, such as the Omnivore Box I’ve gotten him. What’s cool about these boxes, other than the fact that the cookbooks are chef-level, is that they come with a few hard-to-find ingredients to help make some of the recipes. And to build up that larder! I don’t know about you, but this list sure made me want to go tell my husband to make me dinner! If you’d rather, you can check out some of the most anticipated cookbooks of 2022 or learn Why We (Still) Need Cookbooks in the first place.
