Rachel de Thample

Simplicity is what the River Café is all about. It’s also what I love about the layout of this book: it's so clean, clear and focused. The best part, of course, is the recipes. This book is packed with gems I make, and will continue to make, over and over again. My favourite recipe from The River Café Cookbook is Asparagi con Uova. It has five ingredients: blanched asparagus, egg yolks placed at their tips, then warm butter is poured over the top, and it's finished with Parmesan, salt and pepper. It's the perfect example of how they let beautifully sourced ingredients speak for themselves.

If you decide to cut yourself off from modern life and set up a cabin the woods, bring this book with you. It'll give you everything you need to know in terms of food survival. You'll learn to forage, pickle, pluck birds, skin fish... you'll even learn how to harvest and process your own sea salt. This is one of the most endearing books I have on my bookshelves and I used it loads the year I decided to grow my own Christmas dinner. In fact, when I picked it off the shelf to write this, I found notes from the project and a saffron crocus I'd grown, beautifully pressed between it's 600 pages.

I did a preserves course with Pam a few years ago and got a signed copy of this book. Within a week of owning it, you would have thought I'd had it a lifetime. Pam is the mother of preserving and she writes in such a beautiful, friendly, gentle manner that you do feel you have your mother there, guiding you in the kitchen. Her recipes and completely fail-safe and best of all, they're hugely adaptable and she encourages you to play with the formulas. Instead of just making homemade Ribena (black current cordial) with blackberries, she urges you to try all manner of fruits. Her River Cottage Cake book is equally gorgeous. Both are two of the most used books on my shelves.

Heston has long been my culinary hero. I love all his books and all he does. You cannot dispute that he's a genius. In this, and in all of his other books, he bares all his secrets and he weaves, so beautifully cooking with science, art, literature, history, traditions, culture and more. He takes you on the full journey of discovery for each recipe. I choose this book over Historic Heston and the big Fat Duck Cookbook because there's a lot more in this book for the home cook, like how to cook the most amazing carrots ever: just carrots, salt, pepper and butter. While many of the other recipes seem long and complex, read your way through them and you’ll learn more than you would on a cookery course. Also don’t be afraid to just pick out small elements of bigger recipes. I made just one of the layers of the multi-tiered Black Forest Gateau featured in this book and it was by far the best chocolate cake I've ever had or made.

This is the first cookbook I ever owned. My mother gave it to me and her mother gave her a much earlier version upon leaving home, too. Recipes from this wonderfully retro book have fed me throughout my entire life. I used this book to make my first loaf of bread, my first quiche, my first batch of chocolate chip cookies (I've yet to find a better recipe!). I used to think Betty Crocker was a real person. My fantasy of this perfect American, 1950s domestic goddess was shattered when I discovered that Betty Crocker is in fact, a very clever brand name for a very big American food corporation. That however, has not lessened my love for this book, which is a hard-cover binder with inside pockets (where I store my mother's handwritten recipes). What I love about this book is that is gives you all the basics, and more. If you're making a cake and discover you're out of baking powder, this book will tell you how to substitute it. Baking bread that won't rise? This book will tell you why. I own hundreds of cookbooks and this one by far, is the most practical and helpful book I own. It lives on top of my fridge and is the first book I consult for the basics.

I own all the River Cottage books, including the handbooks. I was a bit torn between this first book, The River Cottage Meat book (which most good butchers have on their counters), and River Cottage Everyday (which I love for too many reasons to list). I decided on this book as it's the one I quote the most. The introduction to this book has such a powerful message: it's a manifesto for a better food future. Hugh writes about a 'food continuum,' how change isn't supposed to happen overnight but how small, gradual changes to the way you eat, approach and source food can build up to make a real difference to one's health and happiness, as well as rippling out positive effects on the wider food system. The book is not meant as a manual, nor a tome, but rather as a tool 'to kindle your enthusiasm for a number of possible projects, and provide essential information to help you get started.' It has certainly been that for me. Inspired by this book, I made my first pot of foraged nettle soup, grow sorrel, made my first ever batch of elderflower cordial. All these things are pretty mainstream now but when this book first came out, 15 years ago, they weren't.

I was 20 when I had my first curry. It was completely foreign to me until I fist came to England, in the late 1990s. I was blown away (in a good way) because it was so exotic to me, it took me a long time to build the confidence up to attempt cooking curry myself. Borrowing this book from my local library opened a whole new cooking chapter for me. It’s a student curry cookbook and all the recipes are so approachable, but also wildly delicious. What I really love is that this book isn't just about Indian curries, it offers a vast array of recipes from Indonesia to Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as simple explanations as to how each differ. For instance, coconut milk, tamarind, lemongrass and soya are the backbone of Indonesian curries, while Kashmiri curries feature a wide array of fresh herbs, sweet spices and fresh yogurt is often added for a creamy finish. As well as curries, the recipes extend to a beautiful parade of both familiar and unusual accompaniments and garnishes: Saffron and cardamom rice, Coriander and cumin-flecked roti, Banana and coconut raita...). Because of this book, I can now make curries from scratch, and from heart, without needing a recipe to follow (though, keep this book close by for constant inspiration).

I'm fascinated by food history, in particular the Middle Ages edging toward the latter part, when Henry VIII was on the throne. I picked this book up at Hampton Court, read it cover to cover on the train home and made half a dozen recipes from it for a Sunday lunch the next day and was blown away by the flavours, all the spice and wine. What makes this book so special is how Maggie Black has taken complex manuscripts from a diverse cross-section, drawing on Geoffrey Chaucer, the Goodman of Paris (a rich Parisian writing in about 1393) and John Russell, Marshal to Duke Humphrey of Gloucester up to 1447, and made their work so accessible. This is a really easy book to use and it opens the door to 'a period when British cooking was amazingly inventive' (to quote Heston Blumenthal, who endorses the book on it's cover). My favourite recipes are the Fried fig pastries, Barley bread, Braised spring greens (with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon), Pork roast with spiced wine, and Rose pudding, to name but a few...

I grew up in Texas but I didn't appreciate the food of my homeland until I left. As a child, I was always after what was beyond my reach, never fully appreciating was on my doorstep. When I first started to cook, it was always the food of different cultures that inspired me: Chinese, French, Italian… .Ranch-style beans, cornbread, chile rellenos, buttermilk biscuits with cracked pepper gravy... these were everyday foods and now, even as I write this, they seem exotic and wonderful. The food from America's deep South is now trendy in London. When I was growing up, it was just what you ate and nothing more. But when I moved away from home these foods were more than just something to eat. They define who I am and where I came from. What I love about this book and Grady Spears is that he shines light on the food of West Texas, noting what makes it so special and unique, drawing on it's roots (dishes that were made to be cooked over campfires after a long, hot day rounding up cattle), and putting it in context. Most of the other cookbooks on my list have taken me on journeys. This is the book that brings me back home.

Reaching the final book in my list of all-time favourite cookbooks has brought to light an unintended theme: all of the books I've chosen are much more than just a collection of recipes. They take you on a journey. They broaden your horizons, and some shine new light on old territories. Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish food does just this. She is one of the most thoughtful, insightful food writers. This book is the work of 15 years travelling the world, meeting people, talking, sharing, and discovering the vast complexity of Jewish cuisine and culture. It's one of the most lovingly tailored books I own. The collection of more than 800 recipes - many of them, never before documented - is interwoven with stories, reminiscences, history, jokes, childhood memories, travel adventures and more. The recipes are more than just something to cook, they're an invitation to share in a delicious culture.