And maybe she'll even let you borrow one.
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Cookbooks are so much more than step-by-step guides to dinner; they are windows into new cultures and experiences, the culinary equivalent of armchair travel. With a well-stocked pantry you can take your belly to every possible corner of the globe, with every conceivable dietary requirement catered for while you’re at it.
A beautiful new cookbook can restore the flagging spirits of a homecook who has grown tired of their own repertoire; it can inspire new creative adventures; and it can bind us closer together, for in order to cook up a Tigrayan banquet you need the bellies to eat it. We’ve gathered the most exciting new cookbooks to hit the shelves in time for Mother’s Day, because if you’ve got a mum in your life who loves to learn, travel, cook, eat, and entertain, surely those are qualities you want to be encouraging, especially when it means more snacks for you.
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The First Nations Food Companion: How to buy, grow, cook and eat Australian Indigenous Ingredients by Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan, Booktopia, $38.75
Coulthard and Sullivan have considered every possible obstacle to people engaging with Australian Indigenous ingredients and created an easy access point to get you over the threshold. There’s an ingredient guide for those who like simple building blocks of knowledge. There’s a flavour wheel for visual learners. You could dive straight into the recipes, sourcing the ingredients from the helpful list of vendors they provide, or if you prefer gardening to cooking, you could start growing your own with their guidance. This book removes all impediments to incorporating the incredible bounty of this country’s native produce into your daily cooking.
Tekebash and Saba: Recipes from the Horn of Africa by Saba Alemayoh, Booktopia, $35.25
This is not just a book of recipes from Alemayoh’s mother’s homeland in the northern Ethiopian state of Tigray, but a memoir of her life there, disrupted by civil war that propelled her on a migrant’s journey, to Sudan and then Melbourne. This book is a gentle, personal anthropological exercise in identity building and the preservation of a culture that is still under attack. It is informative, but explanations are delivered warmly, like a friend taking you on a tour of their hometown when you come to visit. And for the adventurous cook, it is an exciting opportunity to expand your repertoire with injera, the soft, bubbly, fermented flat bread used to scoop up stews in all forms, usually spiced with dilik, a highly fragrant chilli paste.
Alex Elliot-Howery and Jaimee Edwards are perfecting the modern day “loaves and fishes” act by harnessing the resourcefulness of bygone eras and applying it to the tastes and sensibilities of modern cookery. If your mum gets a mixed fruit and veg box delivered but always ends up with a collection of wilted, unloved produce at the end of each week, this hefty tome has the answer in a helpful alphabetical format. In just north of 500 pages, Elliot-Howery and Edwards unlock the potential in every last ingredient tucked away in your kitchen, from kohlrabi to left over tomato paste and cooked rice. They’ve even got some excellent ideas for what to do with that final third of a container of sour cream that always gets left to go green in the back of the fridge after taco night.
Salt of the Earth: Secrets and Stories from a Greek Kitchen by Carolina Doriti, Booktopia, $42.25
This is a European getaway in a little over 100 pages, written with the knowledge and genuine affection that only comes from growing up in the culture you’re writing about. Doriti takes a macro look at Greek cuisine, tracing its evolution from the Ancient Greeks to the advent of the ‘Mediterranean Diet’ in the 50s and through to today. The recipes are divided into the 5 core pillars of Greek cuisine: olives, honey, grains, grape and seeds, which anchor a vast diversity of recipes to a surprisingly simple base pantry of items.
Love is a complex emotion that lives at the core of many of our actions. And not just the nice ones – no child enjoys vaccinations, but they won’t enjoy measles more. Skye McAlpine’s book encourages us to take the feeling of love, be it the platonic devotion to our oldest friends, or the spicy desire for our lover, and turn it into action. Specifically, the act of making something delicious, comforting, nourishing, or enticing to show people we love them. Maybe it’s a creamy saffron chicken pie, or a coconut, chocolate and cherry cake? Or maybe you just want to show yourself some love by staying home and making ice cream with Mars Bar sauce. Many people call cooking a labour of love, but McAlpine is here to remind us that the labour is the love, because love is an action, not just a feeling.
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