Vicky Hayward

My first cooking was done over a gas burner in a French campsite. This is the book that persuaded me to try my hand and I still like its easygoing everyday feel.

Does anyone capture the excitement of time spent in the kitchen quite so vividly? All Pomiane’s writing is fun, but I especially enjoy the riffs here on simple, quick cooking.

Quite apart from the in-depth recipes that make the book a classic, I turn to it for inspiration from the leisurely in-between thoughts about balancing flavours and combining dishes.

I think this is my favourite monographic cookbook: steaming is still relatively little used, but it has a great deal to offer in culinary terms. Manière explores all that in satisfying detail.

The author’s “obsessional attachment to garlic”, his wit and insider’s take on 1970s West Coast food culture, plus the short pick of recipes from Garlic Times, make this a wonderful general read.

Among accounts of Italian food Romer’s is carefully observed and the two perspectives – the author’s own and that of her neighbour - tell us much of how we learn about the cooking of other cultures.

I discovered how to make hummus and rethink non-European cuisines thanks to Claudia’s book. Today I also value the way it shows what food can mean; here we see how it holds together community in exile.

Aduriz is a chef, but he is involved in many areas of food culture and this book captures that very well. He gives just 31 recipes inspired by the life and work of Hungarian natural scientist Gyula Madarǎsz, but the level of detail for each of them, aesthetic and culinary, makes the book fascinating. Visually offbeat, understated and a pleasure to handle, this is also one of the most original illustrated cookbooks on my shelves.

Unusually for a Michelin starred chef Ruscalleda chose to write her first book about economic home cooking. It’s direct, packed with fresh seasonal ideas and it’s also a cookbook that I often find myself giving to friends.

This is my go-to source for the techniques and recipes of the Catalan repertoire, urban and rural, as written by the now retired chef of Les Set Portes in Barcelona. It’s unfussy, thorough and full of neat sleights of hand.