Looking into the bestselling cookbooks of 2012
By Mark Rotella
|
Feb 08, 2013
One name comes up over and over again in
discussions of the future of cookbooks: Ottolenghi. Israeli chef Yotam
Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem (Ten Speed, 2012) is drawing attention
to Middle Eastern cooking both here and in the U.K. (where Ottolenghi
has four restaurants).
Kate Heddings, deputy food editor of Food & Wine and executive editor of the magazine’s cookbooks, such as America’s Greatest New Cooks
(Feb.), says Middle Eastern seems to be the hot new cuisine. She
foresees growing popularity for Jewish and Persian food and points to
the success of Clarkson Potter’s The Mile End Cookbook (2012) and anticipation for Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House That Herring Built
(Schocken, Mar.) by Mark Russ Federman, former owner of the eponymous
appetizer store on New York’s Lower East Side. In May, Interlink hopes
to capitalize on the burgeoning Middle Eastern trend with Barbara Abdeni
Massaad’s Man’oushé: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakery, about the pizza-like national pie of Lebanon.