Six top books about food

Mark Bittman, longtime food writer for the New York Times, is the author of How to Cook Everything and The VB6 Cookbook. One of his six favorite books about food, as shared at The Week magazine:

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

Hazan brought real Italian cooking to America in 1973, demonstrating — long before "locavore" was a word — that decent ingredients treated simply yield wonderful food. This updated version may be the only Italian cookbook you'll ever need. Her tomato sauce with onion and butter will ruin you for all other marinara.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: Grub Street's top 25 food memoirs of all time.

--Marshal Zeringue