I caught the pungent odor of John Thorne's writing right away. If you dig this, he has published several books that are basically collected essays, digging into some ingredient or recipe this way (I have read Simple Cooking, Outlaw Cook, and Pot on the Fire).
One nice thing about his books is he has these sort of dreamlike fantasies about what a food is supposed to taste like, and pursues recipes based on this imagination. That means that, unlike a lot of cookbooks, just about every John Thorne recipe is amazing (his pecan pie is the best I've ever tried, because he directly tackled the problem of cloying sweetness and gummy texture).
One nice thing about his books is he has these sort of dreamlike fantasies about what a food is supposed to taste like, and pursues recipes based on this imagination. That means that, unlike a lot of cookbooks, just about every John Thorne recipe is amazing (his pecan pie is the best I've ever tried, because he directly tackled the problem of cloying sweetness and gummy texture).
Highly recommended if you care about food.