Marcella Cucina
Marcella Hazan's tour de force is not just the book of the year, but one of the books of the decade, with a two-page afterword that is as succinct and profound a statement about great cooking as anyone has ever written. Awesome. Published by Macmillan, price £25.
The Book of Jewish Food
A major work of scholarship as well as a major culinary work, Claudia Roden's masterly survey of Sephardic and Ashkenazi cooking is meticulous and absorbing. Published by Viking, price £20.
Honey From a Weed
A new edition of a wholly wise, illuminating and profound work, detailing Patience Gray's life in different parts of the Mediterranean. In the foreword, John Thorne describes the book as "astonishing", which is just what it is. Published by Prospect Books, price £12.99
Pizza Defined
I must declare an interest here, for I wrote the foreword to Bernadette O'Shea's book and my wife edited and published it, but my proximity to the work has served only to increase my admiration for the author's tenacious, wholly unique and unflinchingly focused vision of modern Irish food and cooking. Published by Estragon Press, price £11.99
The Potato Year
Where Bernadette O'Shea concentrates on pizzas and flat breads, Lucy Madden takes up the cudgel on behalf of the noble tuber, with brilliant results. Distinguished by great wit and some tenderly precise prose, this is a treasure. Published by Milu Press, price £9.99
Everyday Gourmet
Gerry Galvin's book is so practical and friendly that it should be compulsory issue for every schoolchild in the country, for there is no better, more logical introduction to the pleasures of the kitchen and the table. Published by O'Brien, price £6.99
The Dean and DeLuca Cookbook
David Rosengarten's masterly work succeeds effortlessly in its aim to be a food bible for the times we live in: there are so many exciting and vividly articulated ideas crammed into this book that one scarcely knows where to begin. Published by Ebury Press, price £25
Annie Bell's Vegetable Book
A hymn of affection for veggies and essential reading for vegetarians, Annie Bell's book is a joyful discourse by one of the most entertaining and enlightening cookery writers of our times. Published by Michael Joseph, price £15.
Conrad Gallagher's New Irish Cooking
"Recipes from Dublin's Peacock Alley" is the subtitle of Gallagher's book, and his wildly ambitious restaurant creations are lovingly laid out for the delectation of serious cooks and culinary dreamers. Published by A & A Farmar, price £19.99.
A Year at Ballymaloe Cookery School
Although many of the recipes have already appeared in previous books, the glossy and glamorous A Year At Ballymaloe Cookery School is the most accurate record yet of Darina Allen's culinary voice, and her ambitious, devoted and determined metier. Published by Gill & Macmillan, price £19.99
The Sugar Club Cookbook
Fine, zippy ideas from Peter Gordon, a Kiwi who cooks in London. The world is currently awash with bad books on "fusion" cooking, which makes Peter Gordon's knowing and considered work an even more valuable antidote to all that nonsense. Published by Hodder & Stoughton, price £20.
Josceline Dimbleby's Complete Cookbook A collection of 15 years of cookery journalism, this is an index of Ms Dimbleby's dedication to inventive and delicious cooking, with all her inimitable trademarks. Published by Harper Collin, price £20.