Sue Dyson and Roger McShane

An immensely important series that clearly set out in pictures and words how to tackle even the most complex of recipes. Clear, precise, ell-written text with well-tested recipes. Still important fifty years after publication.

Shizuo Tsuji is a polymath with interests in Japanese cooking, classical music and travel. But his real skill is the ability to precisely describe a dish and the techniques required to prepare that dish even though it might take many pages. This is the ultimate guide to one of the world's great cuisines.

The Cook's Companion is a thorough, detailed and masterful guide to ingredients and how to cook them. The recipes are impeccably researched and simply explained.

Paul Bertolli is a former chef at the legendary Chez Panisse, but this book concentrates on his Italian background with precise and detailed explanations that hep the reader understand the fundamentals of everything from preparing mushrooms, to the art of pasta making through to one of the best guides ever for the preparation of charcuterie.

La Cuisine du Comté de Nice is a classic book from the highly opiniated former Mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin setting out exactly what the wonderful cuisine of the Nice area is and how it should be prepared. He details the exact ingredients for a Niçoise Salad and dismisses any variation from his formula. It is rare to see such a precise catalogue of a specific cuisine as that which is documented in this small, but important book.

We regard this book as a forerunner for the detailed work now being carried out by Fuchsia Dunlop is documenting regional Chinese cuisine. Lin Yutang is a distinguished Chinese artist. His wife (Tsuifeng Lin) and daughter (Hsiang Ju Lin) have used his artistic skills to decorate this important book on Chinese cuisine. This is much more than a recipe book, providing a sound cultural context for the lovely recipes presented in this compelling survey of Chinese cuisine.

This is a typical Colman Andrews book - thoroughly researched, erudite, insightful and compelling to read. Whether he is describing the origins or techniques for making allioli or arròs negre or tripa a la Catalana the same thoroughness and judgement is brought to bear.

This is a classic Italian cookbook that is written with passion, humility, irreverence and humour. The recipes are well worth trying even though the book was written in the late nineteenth century. We strongly believe that we can all learn a lot from history. This is just as important in cooking as it is in all other areas of human endeavour. Therefore we like to turn to the classic cookbooks to seek out the background to the recipes of today. The more we delve into it, the more this classic Italian offering inveigles itself into our consciousness.

Margaret Shaida has written an important, seminal work on the cooking of Iran. She married an Iranian and went to live in that country for 25 years. It was here that she learned Persian cooking techniques from her extended family. She also became obsessed with the Tehran markets and the beautiful produce they offered. The book represents one of the best surveys of this important cuisine that we have read. Shaida includes much information on the cultural history of Persia (Iran) as well as many insights into the techniques required for reproducing the recipes in the home kitchen.

The title of this book sums up the approach of the author to the food of Mexico. She rightly sees it as many different cuisines with their own identity. The book is a compendium of Diana Kennedy's three major works The Cuisines of Mexico, The Tortilla Book, and Mexican Regional Cooking. Kennedy writes with authority and an obvious love for the country, the people and the food.