Fifty best cookbooks of all time

The Observer Food Monthly has recently published its list of the fifty best cookbooks ever. The panel of judges was made up of cooks and cookery writers including Raymond Blanc, Simon Hopkinson and Prue Leith. The chosen books ranged from The Constance Spry Cookery Book, published in 1956 and containing the original recipe for coronation chicken, invented for Elizabeth’s ascent to the throne in 1953, to Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, published in 2010 and containing vegetarian recipes such as pear crostini and scrambled smoky duck eggs on sourdough. The list contains books on clearly defined subjects such as Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf on bread-making using wild yeast to Escoffier’s classic reference work The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery containing 5,000 recipes for everything from salads to jams. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/15/top-10-best-cookbooks for the complete list.