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“My husband always jokes that I never read the newspaper, and if I do, I’m only looking at the food section,” says Pati Jinich. But for the chef, writer, and TV personality, food is “how I digest the world and my life.”
Though she’s best known for her James Beard Award–winning and Emmy-nominated PBS series Pati’s Mexican Table, cookbooks remain at the center of Jinich’s career. Pati’s Mexican Table is an adaptation of her debut cookbook of the same name, and her latest book, Treasures of the Mexican Table, provides a starting point for her newest show, La Frontera, the second season of which is now streaming on PBS and Amazon Prime.
“Treasures of the Mexican Table really is a culmination of so many years of work and research into Mexico,” she says. “And in La Frontera, I jump into where Mexico and the US collide. This series is really a celebration of the food of the borderlands, and a way for people to stop seeing it with such a narrow lens of either, ‘is this the US?’ or ‘is this Mexico?’ It is its own beautiful thing and proof that through food, we can understand people better.”
Speaking via Zoom, in front of a shelves packed tight with cookbooks, Jinich took a moment to pull out a few of her well-worn favorites and explain how each one has changed the way she cooks and thinks about food.
“Food is my love language, and cookbooks are my windows to the world,” she says. “I communicate with people through writing and testing and sharing recipes. If I'm going to get to know you, I want to know what you cook, and I want to make your recipe in my home, and that solidifies my relationship with you.”
Cooking With Claudine by Jacques Pépin
“I started cooking with this book back when I was working as a political analyst and had just moved to the US. It introduced me to classic French cooking, but it’s the opposite of what you might think of as French cooking. It breaks dishes down into very simple steps with recipes that use just a handful of ingredients, and it doesn’t talk down to you. In this book, Jacques is teaching his daughter to cook, and you can feel that love and affection as a reader. It’s not condescending. It’s like, ‘Okay, we can do it.’ So you don’t have to feel embarrassed if you've never cooked steak before, or fish before. He makes the kitchen a warm, welcoming space.”
The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden
“I’m a history buff. I’m obsessed with research. Whenever I meet someone, I’m like, ‘Where are you from? Where are your parents from? Where are your grandparents from? Where are your great-great-great-great…?’ I want to go back to the roots. That’s what this book does; it digs deep and opens up new worlds and shows that Jewish cooking is not monolithic. It’s as diverse and rich as the entire world, because Jews have lived all over the world. And her recipes all work, which is the most important thing for me in terms of cookbooks. Because if you have a cookbook where one recipe works and five or six don’t, that super sucks.”
Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts by Maida Heatter
“This is the ultimate book for desserts. [Haetter’s] headnotes are very short but meaningful, and she breaks down techniques so easily and approachably, walking you through extremely complex things in a very nonthreatening way. She makes you feel like you can do anything. Her pot de crème is incredible. Her Kentucky pound cake with bourbon is insane—I typically don’t like desserts with spirits, but all of hers are so well done that I just rejoice in the liquor! Her black-and-white pound cake is also a delight. Honestly, everything from her is going to deliver. This is my favorite book of desserts of all time.”
Lidia’s Family Table by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
“You can see all my notes in this book. Her pastas, her risottos, her lasagnas are beloved in my home. Lidia’s incredible at giving cooking cues. She’s not just telling you to cook something for three to five minutes over high heat; she’s telling you what things should be smelling like, looking like, feeling like. And I think you really need that because you don’t know if the stove you’re going to cook on when you travel somewhere or visit someone will be electric or gas, or if the weather’s going to be humid or dry. She’s a master at showing you how to cook by feel.”
The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins
“This is the most reliable cookbook of all time. The recipes are like heirlooms, and it’s packed with information—how to find ingredients, wash them, dry them, store them. Here are the tools and here are the temperatures. It empowers you to use what you have, like, ‘Okay, here’s our recipe for this ingredient, but also this is how you can steam it, boil it, bake it, roast it.’ Really, I think this is the most empowering cookbook, and it doesn’t get old. I go back to it again and again and again.”
