Your favorite cookbooks and suggestions?

First tell me some of your favorite cookbooks/chefs and why. Then if you can think of any books to fill in my blanks below that would be awesome! And any link to good websites or forum about various cuisines would also be awesome.



I collect cookbooks that have history and context along with good recipes. Since they are so expensieve I do not like wasting money on fad cookbooks or celeb books (mainly Food Network). I really like books by chef's who are leaders in their field of cuisine best. So here is are few chef's/cuisines I already have



For general cooking and techniques I turn to America's Test Kitchen. I have many of their books and love them all. But here are my ten favorites that I own ATK aside.



Authentic Mexican - Rick Bayless

Lidia's Italian Table/Lidia's Italy - Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

Cooking With Claudine - Jacques Pepin

Julia Child - The Way To Cook %26amp; The Art Of French Cooking

Vegetarian Everyday - Deborah Madison

Chez Panisse Fruits - Alice Waters

The Chinese Kitchen - Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Joyce Goldstein - Kitchen Conversations %26amp; The Mediterranean Kitchen

The Tassajara Bread Book - Edward Espe Brown

Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries, and Shakes - Bobby Flay



What all these chef's do in their books is give background history of the food or recipe and they are experts in their field of cuisine. They also manage to make it all fairly no fuss for the home cook meaning the either don't use a lot of hard to find items or they provide alternatives. In other words there is more to read than just recipes.



I must confess I have Mark Bittman's 'How to Cook Everything' and I find the it is too much and too big. It feels like he is trying to do too much instead of mastering one thing really well. I have cooked from it but the dishes are fine but it just feels to pretentious and the sort of depth of knowledge on specific cuisines I expect from from my chefs.



Now some of my missing cuisines



BBQ:

Greece:

Spain:

Brazil:

Sushi:

Indian:

Japan (non sushi):

Mediterranean:

Caribbean/Cuban:

Persian/Middle East:

Hawaiian:

Southern:

New Orleans:

Korean:Your favorite cookbooks and suggestions?
I also collect cookbooks. If you like history along with your recipes I would suggest the following cookbooks:

The Williamsburg Art of Cookery--Helen Bullock--1966

The Shaker Cook Book--Caroline B. Piercy--1953

The Modern Family CookBook--Meta Given--1953 ( color photograghs of the food and explanation of cooking terms)

The American Frugal Housewife--Lydia Marie Child--(Published before 1865) reprints are available on the internet for a few dollars.

Bicentennial Heritage Recipes--Beta Sigma Phi International--1976Your favorite cookbooks and suggestions?
For New Orleans cuisine see Paul Prudhomme or Emeril Legasse



For southern, check out Paula Dean



I do not know what they publish, I just watch them on their cooking shows.