(Part 3) Best international cookbooks according to redditors
We found 1,883 Reddit comments discussing the best international cookbooks. We ranked the 750 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
![Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61mY5um5j7L.jpg)
![Vietnamese Home Cooking: [A Cookbook]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51b9Rru7AYL.jpg)
it's not turkish only, but claudia roden's arabesque is excellent.
Well, it's not limited to China. It covers 16 asian countries but it is very authentic.
I've owned this book for about 15 years and couldn't live without it.
Charmain Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook
This is an amazing book of recipes: https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-India-Journey-Through-Cooking/dp/1101874864
not veg, but have reduced a lot.
Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery if they like Indian food. My parents own this, as does my sister and I. I'll buy my kids a copy when they leave home.
The Silver Spoon and/or The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking if they're into Italian. Jamie's Italy if they're looking for something more approachable or casual.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is apparently very good, I own it, but I've not read it yet.
I recently donated away about 100 cookbooks I had collected over the years (I organize virtually everything digitally now) but I kept these 5:
Child et al, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (well-used, next to the stove)
Hazan, Essentials of Italian Cooking (carried to Italy and used there twice)
Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking (such a good read)
Rombauer. An older than I am edition (with how-to-skin-a-squirrel recipes) of the Joy of Cooking (falling apart, kept for sentimental reasons)
Fox, On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen (for the porn)
Delih Smith's cookery course takes you from boiling an egg to Christmas dinner. She is like royalty among UK chefs.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0563362499?cache=03c8641b604c6aaa6e40eb9a4b2b346f&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1412539261&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1
Asia's a big, ancient place. Even within each nation there are unique styles of regional and ethnic fare.
With that in mind, I'd love to see some recommendations here for awesome Indian, Filipino, Hmong, Uzbek, etc. cookbooks.
Japanese
Lets get beyond sushi and hibatchi.
Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art is a great starting point. If you want to get technical you should check out Ando's Washoku or Hachisu's Preserving the Japanese Way.
If you want to start simple, Hachisu also has a great book on Japanese Farm Food. Ono and Salat have written a great noodle slurping opus in Japanese Soul Cooking.
Chinese
What we've come to think of as Chinese food in the US is a natural part of human appropriation of food styles, but with all due respect to Trader Vic's, crab rangoon and other buffet staples really aren't the real deal. Food in China is extremely regional. You don't have to go very deep to see the vast differentiation in spicy Schezwan recipes and Cantonese Dim Sum culture.
For your reading pleasure:
Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.
Breath of the Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson.
Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees by Kian Lam Kho and Jody Horton.
All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China by Carolyn Phillips.
Some people might freak out that I'm placing Erway's The Food of Taiwan under the Chinese category, but I'm not going to get into a political debate here. Taiwan has had a lot of different culinary influences due to migration / occupation and that is really the take away here.
Go forth, make bao.
Korean
Korea is having it's moment right now and if you want the classics, Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's Growing up in a Korean Kitchen is a good baseline. It has all the greatest hits.
You also can't cook Korean food without kimchi. The only book I've read is Lauryn Chun's The Kimchi Cookbook which is kind of underwhelming considering the hundreds of styles of Kimchi that have been documented. The process of making kimchi (kimjang) even has a UNESCO world heritage designation. With that in mind, I think it's only a matter of time before we see a English book on the subject that has depth.
Given the cuisine's popularity, there are several other cookbooks on Korean food that have recently been published within the last year or so, I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet, so I won't recommend them here.
Thai
David Thompson's Thai Food and Thai Street Food are both excellent. /u/Empath1999 's recommendation of Andy Ricker's Pok Pok is excellent but it focuses on Northern Thai cuisine, so if you want to venture into central and southern Thai fare, Thompson's the other farang of note.
Vietnamese
Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen provides a nice survey to Vietnamese cooking. Charles Phan also has a couple of cookbooks that are quite good but I'm sure that there are zealots out there who would bemoan authenticity in either Vietnamese Home Cooking or The Slanted Door, but seriously, who gives a shit, the dude has Beard Awards under his belt for fuck's sake.
TL;DR OP means well but its long past time to bury "Asian" as a catch-all for such a large and diverse part of a continent, no?
You might try books published by Wei-Chuan Publishing, they have several bilingual, English-Chinese, editions. Chinese Cuisine features dishes from several regions, and Chinese Snacks has many of the goodies you find on the street or at a dim sum restaurant.
Spice and Spirit: It's not fancy but it had a tremendous breadth of Jewish (mostly Ashkenazi) recipes. Recipes are generally straight forward and very few haven't worked out
Ahhhh, my condolences, how tragic!
I'm something of a cookbook minimalist, and keep my personal collection pretty concise; I'm quick to give away books if they've been on my shelf too long without much use. I used to be a cookbook hoarder, but I don't have the space for it anymore, lol.
The cookbooks I have on the shelf rn are Season, The Palestinian Table, Arabesque, Afro-Vegan, Donabe, and several Japanese-language cookbooks.
For dessert-related things, I have Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique, SUQAR, and the Flavor Thesaurus.
Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America - An encyclopedia for Latin America foods and cuisine
I cook mostly Asian food, although I'm not Asian. Here are several cookbooks I couldn't live without...
Real Thai (McDermott)
I have David Thompson's epic Thai cookbook, but that's more for special occasions. McDermott's book has excellent recipes from many regions of Thailand. The homemade curry pastes are really worth the effort.
Chinese (Sichuan): Land of Plenty, Dunlop
Chinese (Hunan): Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, Dunlop
I can't recommend Fuschia Dunlop's cookbooks highly enough. You will have to search for some ingredients, but these days this is pretty easy.
General Asian: Complete Asian Cookbook (Solomon)
Charmaine Solomon's book is hit or miss sometimes, but it has so many recipes in it that it's worth it, from Sri Lanka to the Philippines to Japan, etc.
My favorite new, specialty cookbook is
Cooking at Home With Pedatha (Giri & Jain)
which has delicious Indian (specifically, Andhran) vegetarian recipes.
While that may be true to an extent with Jamie Oliver, Anjum really bastardises a lot of Indian dishes by over simplifying them and even trying to merge then with western equivalents. I'm not a fan of hers at all.
Here are a few excellent books that I would recommend:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Curries-India-Camellia-Panjabi/dp/1856265463/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1413225603&sr=8-3&keywords=curries
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Madhur-Jaffreys-Ultimate-Curry-Bible/dp/0091874157/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1413225625&sr=8-15&keywords=indian+food
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Food-India-Journey-Lovers/dp/1740454723/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1413225625&sr=8-16&keywords=indian+food
Cook books are a great idea. I did just pick up the new English translation of 'I Know How To Cook!', the most comprehensive and, quite frankly, incredible cookbook I've found.
It'll do me well for a long time - highly recommended!
I've got [that one] (https://www.amazon.com/Lebanese-Kitchen-Salma-Hage/dp/0714864803/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1520104609&sr=8-7&keywords=lebanese+cooking) at home. I think it's a good starting point for this type of kitchen.
This list is interesting but very much outside my experience of the 1980s, being from the UK. Nearly all those foods are very American.
Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course came out in 1978 and that had a significant influence on the 1980s.
For UK suggestions:
If this list looks 1970s or earlier to US redditors, it's because trends took longer to reach Europe in those days. Today, due to the internet and perhaps more international travel, we access stuff much faster. I remember in the 80s how all our mothers avidly tried out this amazing recipe for chewy "Toll House Cookies" from the single American family in our town.
The Lebanese Kitchen by Salma Hage
I'm a bit of a cookbook junkie, so I have a bunch to recommend. I'm interpreting this as "good cookbooks from cuisines in Asia" so there are some that are native and others that are from specific restaurants in the US, but I would consider these legit both in terms of the food and the recipes/techniques. Here are a few of my favorites:
Pan-Asian
Burmese
Cambodian
Chinese
Indian
Indonesia
Japanese
Korean
Malaysian
Middle Eastern
Philippine
Russian
Sri Lankan
Taiwanese
Thailand
Turkish
Vietnamese
(edit: screwed up a couple links)
Nå folkens, der er snart gået et år siden Skodbil sidst mæskede sig i fødselsdagskage, og det betyder at successen skal gentages. Fødselsdagsgaver er for lang tid siden gået fra at være Lego og våben, til at være sokker og bøger.
Derfor skal der nu nogle gode kogebøger på listen. Jeg er ikke så meget på udkig efter opskriftsbøger, men mere ude i at ville have kogebøger som jeg rent faktisk kan lære noget af. Jeg har allerede følgende på listen, men hvis DU kender en helt vildt god bog jeg bør læse, så sig til.
Sølvskeen
The Food Lab, Kenji Lopez
Chocolate at Home
Paul Bocuse Institut Gastronomique
The Professional Chef
The Flavour Bible
Mastering Cheese
Der er med vilje ingen vinbøger på listen, for det gør jeg mig ikke specielt meget i - endnu.
Ist Mayonnaise ein Hobby?
Ööhm... Zocken? (Irgendwie ist der Rest vom Faden auch nicht so, wie OP sich das so vorgestellt hat. ^^Zumindest ^^die ^^Topposts.)
Okay, versuchen wirs mal ernsthaft.
Kochen. Wenn du Anfänger bist, leg dir ein gutes Allgemein-Kochbuch zu. Nicht "Die 1000 besten Haifischflossenrezepte Südosthinterasiens" sondern so etwas z.B. Da stehen alle essenziellen Rezepte und Techniken drin. Generell: Kochen ist weder Gehirnchirurgie noch eine Raketenwissenschaft. Probier Zeug aus, wenns nicht schmeckt, machs besser beim nächsten Mal. Versuch und Irrtum. Noch ein Tipp: wenn du den Herd auf sehr, sehr heiß stellst, heißt das nicht nur, dass dein Essen schneller fertig wird. Du bekommst uU auch eine völlig andere Konsistenz. Oder es brennt außen an und wird innen nicht richtig durch.
Wenn du etwas fortgeschritten bist, versuch auch regional und saisonal zu kochen. Und noch ein Tipp: niemals etwas vor Gästen kochen, was man vorher nicht erfolgreich ausprobiert hat.
Zeichnen. Bleistifte, Papier, Radiergummi, fang an. Irgendwas, egal was. Ja, es wird scheiße aussehen am Anfang. Ja, es wird noch einige Zeit so bleiben. Aber auch ja, es wird irgendwann besser. Du lernst während dem Zeichnen. Wenn du willst, kannst du auch Bücher dazu lesen.
A few from different regions:
Yucatán: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition for Yucatecan / Mayan food. It is the best one for this, period.
Sicilian Food
The Nordic Cookbook for Scandinavian food.
Cuisine of Hungary.
Churrasco: Grilling the Brazilian Way
The Silver Spoon is like the Italian food bible - it is more like an encyclopedia than a cookbook.
But the one that I think you must have on your shelf is Giorgio Locatelli's Made In Italy. It's as much for the recipes as it is for the stories - you get such a sense of what food means to Italians and what a massive part of its culture food is. It's a cookbook you can happily read in bed. I love it.
I also picked up this on a recent trip to Bocca di Lupo and it's pretty special as well.
Lucky you! I've been eyeing the Lodge cast iron products for months! I just can't seem to make an excuse to pay up though...
Anyways, these 2 cookbooks were on my "to get" list along with them...
Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook
Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook
Some things off the top of my head you can cook in those awesome skillets are...
-Hunks of meat- steak, chicken, etc.
-Pizza
-Desserts-cakes, pies, etc.
-Cornbread
Tip:Don't boil water in them. Apparently it causes it to rust. Also, after washing, dry them thoroughly since the moisture may also cause rust.
Happy cooking! Be careful to handle with towels or oven mitts when picking it up. I've burned myself numerous times on my cast iron pan handle...
Claudia Roden has a great recipe for Moroccan tagine in here. A great book that's been around for some time- if you don't want to buy it, I'd bet your local library has a copy.
The cookbook for this is Gran Cocina Latina
Japanese Farm Food ... awesome recipes and a very helpful perspective. Award-winning
Donabe: Japanese Clay Pot Cooking ... requires a donabe
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art ... a famous comprehensive bible of Japanese cooking
Im also on justonecookbook.com all the time.. and if they would ever print an actual cookbook I would buy it.
Lodge also has a book out. My parents have a copy and I looked through it last time I visited. Looked promising. They also put out a magazine occasionally.
I've always really liked this book by Edna Lewis: it's written seasonally and it gives a good sense of the history of many Southern ingredients and dishes.
I live just 20 miles north east of Munich and there is in fact something like the quintessential Bavarian cook book:
https://www.amazon.com/Bayerisches-Kochbuch-Helmut-Lydtin/dp/3920105044
It is one of the most successful cook books in Germany and by far the most successful and popular one about Bavarian cuisine, in its 56th edition (although Schnitzel is a typical Austrian dish btw).
I Know How To Cook is my kitchen bible.
My mom's Chinese and we've always had this one in our family Chinese Cuisine (Wei-Chuan's Cookbook) (English and Traditional Chinese Edition)
Jerusalem and Zahav are Israeli food cookbooks that handle vegetables nicely, though neither is vegetarian. The former is coauthored by Yotam Ottolenghi, who also wrote Plenty (which /u/Osatomr has recommended elsewhere in the comments).
It's also worth looking into Indian cuisine, as some versions of it are both vegetable-centric and relatively easy to make (due to their one-pot nature). I don't know of any Indian cookbooks off the top of my head, but Serious Eats' recipe for channa masala is a fun starting point (if a slight departure from tradition).
I bought my girlfriend, whose Lebanese this one. We like it. It's nice and broad in its content.
An iconic old American cookbook is The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis. It was published in 1976, has 300+ pages - exact page count depending on the edition. Older edition here.
If we are talking about American food history viewed through cookbooks, this book (and Edna's other cookbooks) would probably be in the top 3 list. I dislike using over the top adjectives, but this book is really an iconic book. Here's a seriouseats review.
How is "I Know How To Cook" not on there? It's solid gold: http://www.amazon.com/Know-How-Cook-Ginette-Mathiot/dp/071485736X
IIRC, this is the book M. F. K. Fisher thinks is the end-all-be-all of cooking... Tangentially related, I believe this is the "Joy of Cooking" for the French:
http://www.amazon.com/Know-How-Cook-Ginette-Mathiot/dp/071485736X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293757218&sr=8-1
Honestly, most anything by Madhur Jaffrey is great. She is not an exclusively vegetarian chef, but she treats vegetarian dishes with respect. I love her book Vegetarian India.
This one, named for his restaurant in Philadelphia (I swear I'm going there this year). I LOVE the beet salad in here too, and I'm sure everything I haven't made yet is amazing too. :)
Edit: I just looked closer at the page I linked, and the publisher actually shared the eggplant salad recipe there! It's right above the editorial reviews. You gotta try it. And be prepared to eat a shitload of eggplant.
I also recommend a Delia book. I started learning to cook from my dad's old copy of Delia's Complete Cookery Course which I think was from the 70s or early 80s (had a picture of her holding an egg on the front lol). The book itself is still in print and will have had certain stuff updated, so honestly I really recommend it. Only book you need. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Delias-Complete-Cookery-Course-Classic/dp/0563362499/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=delia%27s+complete+cookery+course&qid=1559307699&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Also, start with simple things. I still mainly cook simple things - my current staple is homemade curry. Main things you need is a carton of passata and curry powder. Start off with a bit of chopped onion, chuck it in the pan with some oil and cook it for a bit. Then just add a 2-3 tablespoons of curry powder (i usually also add a little extra tumeric, ginger and cumin too) and mix it in with the onion for a minute or so, then pour in the passata. After that, chuck in whatever you want - usually for me it's some diced chicken and some frozen spinach. And that's it.
I'm not sure if it addresses the formatting requirements you laid out, in fact I think it's laid out by course, but Spice and Spirit is excellent, and deserves the love it gets.
I've recently purchased this one https://www.amazon.com/China-Cookbook-Kei-Lum-Chan/dp/0714872245
​
I've been really wanting to learn chinese cooking and find it difficult finding recipes online as I don't know the chinese names for any dishes.
​
This one seemed authentic. I've made some delicious meals out of it but some I havent liked. I am curious though if I havent liked them just because of my taste (e.g. boiling rump steak for 30 minutes).
​
My knowledge is chinese cooking play around alot more with textures and it doesn't always translate well to westerners.
​
anyway, /u/mthmchris do you know this cookbook too and what are your thoughts?
Her most famous cookbook is The Taste of Country Cooking, which is still in print. You may also be interested in this book of essays and remembrances about her.
Photo found here, it was one of several taken by John T. Hill.
This. I have this version: http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cuisine-Wei-Chuans-Cookbook-Huang/dp/0941676080/ref=pd_sim_b_1 and it is a great book with traditional recipes. You'll definitely enjoy this book.
For a slightly less heavyweight introduction (to specifically Indian curry), I highly recommend this book by Camellia Panjabi. It's a selection of (only) 50 recipes, but it's got a great introductory section talking about the different basic techniques and ingredients, plus titbits about the regions/cuisine of India and the religious/cultural background to the food. I've been slowly making my way through the recipes for a few years now and I've yet to have a real flop from it
You might want to look into cuisines that have a more integrated take on dishes than the western style of star ingredient + sides.
For instance, there are a lot of great Indian vegetarian dishes where you'd never feel like you're missing meat, because curries are about a whole integrated dish of ingredients in a delicious spicy gravy.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Levantine (Lebanese, Palestinian, Israeli) cooking, and there are a lot of great vegetarian dishes there. /u/greypillar already recommended Ottolenghi's Plenty and I seconded and added Plenty More, which have clear influences from this region (Ottolenghi is Israeli). There are also a lot of good recipe's in Michael Solomonov's Zahav. I've heard good things about Bethany Kehdy's Pomegranates & Pine Nuts, but I don't own it myself. Check out the recipes on her blog and see if anything piques your interest.
I recommend them all, if you get the chance. If you're interested in Lao food, then this book is worth a look - it's not the easiest book to work from (it kinda assumes you have a palace-full of kitchen lackeys to do the hard work for you), but it's a wonderful read, and all the dishes I've managed to cook from it have been delicious. Also, this book covers everything I listed, IIRC - we only got our copy recently and have only made a few recipes from it, but so far everything's good :-)
I second Thug Kitchen. I have the first book. It's fun to just read parts and has some really good recipes in it that me and my gf have done multiple times. The Pad Thai is bomb.
If they're a little nerdy, get them something like this. I also found this list on Google.
Also, camping cookbooks are pretty interesting. Try to look a some of those if you think they'd like them.
Edit: Ice cream books seem pretty interesting. I went to school to be a baker/pastry chef and that interests me. Cookies and Beer is one that I love. Also, give them something with the book. Like, if you give them like a lodge cookbook give them a cast iron skillet or something like that.
Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook is excellent for a wide variety of Asian cooking.
https://www.amazon.com/Yucat%C3%A1n-Recipes-Culinary-Expedition-William/dp/0292735812/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499695656&sr=1-2&keywords=yucatan
Yucatan by David Sterling. RIP
I have been very happy with China: The Cookbook
Yucatán by David Sterling is really great! It has lots of old Maya recipes as well as modern Yucatec food! And it's a beautiful book. link
Here's what I found to be the best ones. There are a few here but out of all the ones on Amazon, these are the ones I've seen recommended most or are by reputable authors.
Classic Lebanese Cuisine: 170 Fresh And Healthy Mediterranean Favorites
Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen: Authentic Recipes for Fresh and Flavorful Mediterranean Home Cooking
Rose Water and Orange Blossoms: Fresh & Classic Recipes from my Lebanese Kitchen
Saha: A Chef's Journey Through Lebanon and Syria
Middle Eastern Cookbook, 150 Recipes
Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes
The Lebanese Kitchen
A Taste of Lebanon: Cooking Today the Lebanese Way
Ive never found any of the apps that give you premade lists great when trying to eat healthy and on a budget.
I live in Ireland but im back and forth to the USA as my husband who is a type 2 diabetic lives there and here is what Ive learned so far.
Always check the supermarkets weekly deal flyer before you go shopping, if something you use regularly is on sale and you can work it into your budget stock up.
Frozen veggies are your friends, Kroger often has bags of frozen veg down to a dollar each.
Whole foods are better for you and its easier to a) control your portion size and b) keep an eye on the amount of sugar that is in things, as an aside lowfat stuff is usually full of sugar to improve the taste.
Pintrest is great for ideas for meals that are quick an easy
Try and have some form of protein with every meal it will keep you fuller for longer.
Eggs are great for using up leftovers to make a full meal, I introduced my husband to frittas this trip and he loves them, he even brings the leftovers to work the next day for lunch.
If your interested in learning to cook, Delia smith has a great book called the complete cookery course that starts at the basics and moves on from there, here it is on amazon but you might pick it up second hand even cheaper https://www.amazon.com/Delias-Complete-Cookery-Course-Vol/dp/0563362499/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1503177499&sr=8-2&keywords=delia+smith
I ended up getting Gran Cocina Latina. So far seems like exactly what I was looking for - a little bit from each region. The author seems to have quite a bit of experience with the various areas (or at least to my inexperienced eye). My only complaint is that she calls for very specific ingredients that are not readily available where I currently live, and doesn't often mention more accessible substitutes.
The one I have for Asia is The Complete Asian Cookbook, which doesn't address 'Asian' cooking as a whole, but has a chapter for each country, each with an intro about the style and ingredients of the area.
First recommendation is don't work as a chef if you value a social/family life.
Good books to read are;
Larousse Gastronomique which is the absolute Bible/Koran/Bhagavad Gita
The Silver Spoon which is a great Italian cook book.
And another tip is old, outdated looking cook books are sometimes the best. I've got one I got from an ex girlfriend's mum which looks terrible but if you're into Cypriot/Greek/Turkish food is incredible, it's here
Eddit: You also want to get whatever's that one old cook book is which your mom and everyone else's mom has around. The ones without pictures and which have been republished for decades are best. They cover most everything.
Point in case, I took an old copy of my mom's Bayerisches Kochbuch when I moved out. It's been in publication for eighty years and got its 57th update in 2007. That's some cooking knowledge right there.
Plus, it comes with nutritional information, hints on cheap and efficient cooking, etc. A lot of moms poured their hearts and experience into that one over the years.
Try and get one like that. If you are able to read German, get that one.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0848734343
Quesadillas? Thinking filled with refried beans, not just cheese.
Those, or empanadas; I actually just got The Essential Cuisines of Mexico and there's a chicken empanada recipe that looks pretty simple and tasty, the only thing that really takes time is making the dough.
Would you have time to throw together a sandwich? Tons of easy variations and pretty damn cheap as well.
Hey I got one for Christmas as well.
I also got this cookbook and it has been very informative.
u/Monkoton is right. First make a batch of rice porridge in your donabe to season it before cooking.
Thank you. It's from the cookbook "Spice and Spirit".
https://www.amazon.com/Spice-Spirit-Complete-Cookbook-classic/dp/082660238X
If you're into Middle Eastern food, Zahav is incredible. I'm biased because I'm in Philly but the restaurant has won James Beard awards for Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant, and the book has recipes for everything they serve and a lot more.
For a more general book, The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is pretty great. Most of the recipes are on the Serious Eats website but it's nice to have the physical book.
A few British classics Delia's Complete Cookery Course, Mary Berry Cooks and Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible.
Let me recommend an excellent Vietnamese cookbook.
This book takes you on a culinary journey and teaches you how to make your own.
If you don't have a copy of Spice and Spirit, you don't have a Jewish kitchen.
http://www.amazon.com/Spice-Spirit-Complete-Cookbook-classic/dp/082660238X
It's expensive because it's out of print - ask around your local bookstores if they can get it for you any cheaper.
Either Diana Kennedy - The Essential Cuisines of Mexico or Rick Bayless - Authentic Mexican. Really any book by either of those authors is going to be good.
Palak (saag) paneer. This book has a recipe for it.
Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best of Indian Home Cooking https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101874864/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_H-lqDbGAW2ZX8
https://www.amazon.com/China-Cookbook-Kei-Lum-Chan/dp/0714872245
I love this cookbook: Arabesque by Claudia Rodin. It contains really excellent recipes from Lebanese, Turkish, and Moroccan cuisine.
I got his vegetarian book for Christmas. Haven't made any of the recipes yet, but they look great:
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-India-Journey-Through-Cooking/dp/1101874864/
For Chinese Cuisine, China: The Cookbook is what you're gonna want. It came out last year and has over 600 authentic recipes.
This book is amazing
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Curries-India-Camellia-Panjabi/dp/1856265463
This is a decent video on broth making for pho, a bit long perhaps, makes for a good watch though; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxM4t8vP-0A
What I do is pretty similar. There are the traditional ways of making it of course with the beef bones..but I've found I enjoy a mix of veal and pork bones more. Sometimes I use duck bones, just depends if I want something different taste wise.
There are a decent amount of recipes out there for broth, the one I played with at first was this; http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vietnamese-Pho-Rice-Noodle-Soup-with-Beef-232434 and then a few from books like http://www.amazon.com/Vietnamese-Home-Cooking-Charles-Phan/dp/1607740532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414444571&sr=1-1&keywords=pho.
The key for me at least is I make my own spices, fish sauce, and trying to get down a recipe for Vietnamese style soy sauce. I keep to similar spices just homegrown instead..or from a CSA I belong too. Idea for me is freshness, home made dried star anise is going to be fresher than the store bought. It sounds like a lot of effort but it's not just for the Pho recipe, it's for everything else I use the spices for too. The only thing I have yet to grow is poppy (for obvious reasons) and saffron.
So that's basically my secret, follow the normal recipes but with pork and veal bones along with home made spices. If you can afford it, spring water for the broth I find to be good. I personally have hard water at home so I have to soften it which makes it salty..messes with everything I cook. Thus I use spring water. As to how much greatness that adds I don't really know..just better than using soften salty water.
Edit* - forgot, so in the youtube video, how they roast the veggies I do mine on a charcoal grill. A lot of my spices that need to be roasted I roast in a pan over charcoal.
Please avoid requests for recipes for specific ingredients or dishes (unless it's obscure and Google has failed you) and prompts for general discussion or advice. As a general rule, if you are looking for a variety of good answers, go to /r/Cooking. For the one right answer, come to /r/AskCulinary.
This being said, generally speaking taco's and nacho's are both made from Masa flatbread which are called tortillas. Burritos and quesadillas are going to be made from a wheat flour based flat bread.
Though you will find Taco's south of the border, it looks like the cuisine you are actually interested in would be Tex-Mex or Southwestern US cuisine. Nacho's, Quesadillas, and Burrito culture is largely Americanized even though some of them still have roots in Northern mexico.
Additionally, Mexican cuisine is both diverse and very regional. The essential cuisines of Mexico is supposed to be a very good cookbook if English is your first language. It is by Diana Kennedy. I would not expect that it is really going to show you the kind of cuisine you are actually looking for though. Oaxaca Al Gusto was also highly recommended by Kenji of serious eats as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cuisines-Mexico-throughout-recipes/dp/0609603558/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Rick Bayless is another go to. Mexican Every day is another very highly rated cookbook for mexican cuisine.
https://www.amazon.com/Mexican-Everyday-Recipes-Featured-Season/dp/039306154X/?tag=serieats-20
I believe something like this though will be closer to what you are actually wanting.
https://www.amazon.com/Tex-Mex-Cookbook-History-Recipes-Photos/dp/0767914880/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299551913&sr=8-1
I recently picked this up: https://www.amazon.com/China-Cookbook-Kei-Lum-Chan/dp/0714872245
It's a neat overview of many Chinese regional dishes, promoting authentic recipes.
While it isn't exclusively South American, https://www.amazon.com/Gran-Cocina-Latina-Latin-America/dp/0393050696 covers South America (as well as Central America and the Caribbean and Mexico). Nice book. I haven't cooked from it yet.
For Brazilian, I've cooked from https://www.amazon.com/Brazil-Culinary-Journey-Hippocrene-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B0030P1WBI/ with tasty success.
Das Bayerische Kochbuch
/Faden
Instead of some of the generalist books already featured here, let me recommend you two books which are more narrowly focused:
If you are at all interested in learning about Oaxacan or Yucatan food, you can not go wrong with either one of these books.
Je Sais Cuisiner English version
It is pretty much the bible of french cooking. Massive book and covers everything you would ever need to know about french cooking, basics to the complex.