Top 10 food & drink cookbooks to nourish your soul
Healthy living warning: this feature will suddenly increase your appetite
Text: Joel T
Whether you’re looking to cook balanced meals at home or want to gift a book for that food-obsessed friend, we’ve compiled a list of local and international cookbooks about food, drink, cooking and recipes from around the world. These books are the latest on the shelves and cover everything from plant-based easy meal prep to mindful eating, and even favourite Singapore dishes you can whip up for your Auntie. They also make excellent Christmas presents, too ...
1. Naturally Nourished Cookbook: Healthy, Delicious Meals Made with Everyday Ingredients Hardcover by Sarah Britton
Holistic Nutritionist and Chef Sarah Britton shares 100 healthy and tasty vegetarian recipes that can be made with ingredients purchasable from your nearby Cold Storage or FairPrice. Sarah makes it easy for readers to go fully plant-based with her streamlined recipes and easy substitutions to make the dishes vegan or gluten-free.
Cost: From SGD 54 via Amazon
2. Half Baked Harvest Super Simple: More Than 125 Recipes for Instant, Overnight, Meal-Prepped, and Easy Comfort Foods: A Cookbook by Tieghan Gerard
Even a kitchen klutz can be a home chef with Tieghan’s cookbook. This healthy tome compiles her recipes for stress-free and hassle-free meals featuring quicker, more manageable options including one-pot meals, night-before meal prep, and slow cooker recipes. With companies now easing WFH arrangements, you can start preparing your own lunch for the office.
Cost: From SGD 35 via Book Depository
3. Forks Over Knives: Flavor!: Delicious, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Recipes to Cook Every Day by Darshana
The chef and documentary maker of Forks Over Knives, Darshana Thacker shares how to take whole-food kitchen to the next level with Forks Over Knives. This wildly creative offering treats health-conscious eaters and foodies to Darshana’s easy-to-prepare, whole-food and plant-based concoctions designed to introduce home-chefs to spice blends and ethnic cooking traditions from around the globe.
Cost: From SGD 50 via Book Depository
4. Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall, Gail Hudson
While cooking is important, we can all be more mindful about how and what we eat. In her provocative book, world-renowned scientist Jane Goodall urges us to reflect on the food we produce and consume. She encourages us to create positive change by offering strategies that we can all employ to foster a sustainable society (while still enjoying our dinner).
Cost: From SGD 37 via Amazon
5. Gordon Ramsay's Good Food Fast: 30-minute home-cooked meals transformed by Michelin-starred expertise by Gordon Ramsay
What’s a list of cookbooks without Gordon Ramsay? The global superstar chef is known for creating the very best food — be it fine dining or fast food, Gordon’s the man. His cookbook for beginners is a cheat sheet of sorts, containing 100 tried and tested recipes that take 30 minutes or less while using readily available ingredients. Perfect for the time-pressed home cook who doesn't want to compromise on taste or flavour.
Cost: From SGD 59 via Amazon
6. The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World by Amanda Little
With the world’s population burgeoning global crop production faces threats due to climate change, there’s an impending need to reinvent the global food system so as to feed people sustainably in the years to come. This book shares award-winning environmental journalist Amanda Little’s journey as she searches for answers to the question of what the future of sustainable food entails.
Cost: From SGD 29 via Amazon
7. You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another by Chris Ying
Through nineteen introspective and fascinating essays, Chris Ying sheds light on how immigration underpins the culture of good food. As a Singaporean, food is the one thing that unites us and is the perfect emblem of our cultural crossroads making this relatable book of short stories a must read book. There are no recipes here, but rather an exploration into the ways in which cooking and eating bridges the gaps in cultural and political divisions, and the way we view and treat food.
Cost: From SGD 24 via Book Depository
8. Clean Soups: Simple, Nourishing Recipes for Health and Vitality by Rebecca Katz
The power of a nourishing soup to renew and restore the soul is often overlooked, but bestselling author Rebecca Katz shines a spotlight on this humble dish and its healing effect on the body. Rebecca takes you through how to create delicious options from scratch and use soups to naturally detox. With a range of traditional to modern recipes, Clean Soups demonstrates how a modest hot bowl can impact your life.
Cost: From SGD 26 via Amazon
9. Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food by Rachel Herz
Neuroscientist Rachel Herz explores the psychology of eating and delves deep into the sensory, psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological factors that influence our dining habits. The book explains and distils complex academic studies on factors that influence food consumption, for example, did you know that bringing reusable bags to the supermarket actually encourages us to buy more treats? Rachel also provides handy tips on how to improve our own relationship with what we eat.
Cost: From SGD 19 via Amazon
10. How to Cook Everything Singaporean by Denise Fletcher
When you’re next craving a Singaporean dish, we recommend salivating over the pages of this. Learn how to cook signature local dishes thanks to over 1000 recipes compiled by Denise Fletcher, executive chef at Quentin's Bar and Restaurant, Sentosa. This encyclopaedic compendium shares her secrets to cooking familiar home recipes and hawker dishes. It also contains recipe contributions from some of Singapore’s most prominent chefs including Bjorn Shen, Violet Oon and Willin Low.
Cost: From SGD 75 via Epigram Bookshop
