Celia Sack of Omnivore Books shares her favorite cookbooks

 Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books in San Francisco, first became interested in cookbooks, especially antique ones, while working at an auction house. She parlayed that interest into one of the finest cookbook stores in the United States. In an interview with indexed magazine Saveur, she tells us which cookbooks are her favorites, and what subjects she would like to see covered in more detail. 

Her list of essential reading includes cookbooks from all genres and food-related books like Bill Buford’s Heat, which she thinks everyone should read. Says Sack, “It’s great writing, and sort of the anti-Anthony Bourdain book. It’s not “I f*cked her in the walk-in,” it’s more like, ‘I learned how to hear when something was ready just by the way that it was sizzling.'” Other books that she can’t get enough of include Fuchsia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper  and Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji

Although many writers have claimed that we are in a ‘golden age’ of cookbooks, Sack doesn’t see it that way. She thinks that it will only get better, and notes that there are many countries and cuisines that have only begun to be explored. She says “We’re just starting to get into regional African food with Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, and Hibiscus by Lope Ariyo, which is about Nigerian cooking. But think about how little has been written about the foods of individual South American and Central American countries.”