We pay top dollar to explore new regions and cultures. It is not very surprising that tourism is a trillion-dollar industry. We can debate all day long on why we are so fascinated by overseas nature and culture, but no one can deny that it is food that really gets us excited.
The Best street cookbooks bring that home to us, bringing us the delicate experience we travel far and wide for. Even more, each one can give us power over hundreds of recipes. Introducing you to exciting and mouth-watering cuisines.
It is our delight to introduce you to our list of top street cookbooks.
Table of Contents
Review of the Best 14 Street Cookbooks for 2022
#1. Thai Street Food: Authentic Recipes, Vibrant Traditions
His recipe contains over 100 authentic dishes, each accompanied by luscious pictures that teach more than just how to make fast street foods. This authentic recipe plunges the reader into the streets of Bangkok, inducting you into the culture with each line of instruction.
The book is a product of careful observation and the kind of expertise that can only be achieved through decades of cooking experience.
The paperback copy of the recipe is large, with clear words and formatting that is easy on the eye. It can certainly be awkward to use when referencing, but it more than makes up for it in its details and picture quality.
Pros:
- Easy to learn recipes
- A large variety of food
- Simple and clear instructions
Cons:
- Ingredients might not be readily available
#2. Milk Street: Cookish: Throw It Together: 200 Ways to Reinvent Dinner
Throw it together recipe is another in the Milk Street series by TV host and Chef Christopher Kimball. If you have ever used any of the cookbooks of the Milk Street series, you know Kimball knows his stuff.
Simplicity and short cooking time is the common theme of the recipes. Most of the ingredients called for are readily available in a family kitchen, and it rarely calls for more than six per recipe. Yet the results are the most exceptional quick meals you can imagine. The book made meals of broccoli and carrots that were just delectable.
Each recipe is accompanied by pictures that carry you along with the writings.
Pros:
- Readily available ingredients
- Fast cooking time
- Wide variety of meals
Cons:
- Poor quality images
- Most recipes are not suitable for vegans
#3. Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand [A Cookbook]
The cookbook is a detailed collection of roadside recipes from Thailand. The recipes are diverse in taste and rarely require over 30 minutes of cooking time. The book contains over 50 recipes described in easy-to-follow steps.
The detailed outline catapults this book from the leagues of recipes to an actual course in the street food culture of Thailand.
The author’s essays give contexts to each recipe, painting vibrant, living pictures in mind. The author goes beyond teaching cooking, including the proper cultural way to eat these delicious meals.
Pros:
- Authentic and Diverse recipes
- Fast cooking time
- Detailed instructions
- Cultural context
Cons:
- Some ingredients are difficult to source
#4. Japanese Soul Cooking: From the Streets and Kitchens of Tokyo and Beyond
The recipes are described in such a homey manner, it is hard to miss, even for complete beginners.
Recipes include popular and beloved street foods like ramen, soba, udon, tonkatsu, tempura, and more and less known, equally delightful ones like Okonomiyaki. Totally over 100 different such delicacies with very short cooking time. Vivid images accompany each recipe.
Tadashi brings Japanese street delicacies from Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka to the home of American fans. Food lovers can now make these fast meals from across the world with perfect accuracy.
Pros:
- Varied and Diverse Recipe
- Simple and detailed instructions
- Colorful picture gallery
- Healthy and delicious meals
Cons:
- Requires scarce, specialty ingredients
- Some recipes require long prep time
#5. The Truck Food Cookbook: 150 Recipes and Ramblings from America’s Best Restaurants on Wheels
So far, we have taken a look at recipes from East Asian cultures, but you will agree that there is plenty of deliciousness on the streets of America. And in America, street foods mostly come from food trucks.
Food author John T. Edge agrees and has done an exceptional job collecting our best comfort foods from American streets. The recipes are stylistically arranged and explained in a way that even a complete cooking beginner can make sense of. Edge goes over even the most familiar cooking steps in his cookbook.
The Truck Food Cookbook coalition of 150 different recipes, from the streets of Portland all the way to New York City, with no bias. Each recipe, in turn, originates from all over the world. They come with clear, descriptive images that help to put recipes in perspective.
Pros:
- Detailed explanations of recipes
- Clear and vivid images
- Diverse truck food recipes.
- Fast recipes
Cons:
- Many ingredients require extensive prep time
#6. Latin American Street Food: The Best Flavors of Markets, Beaches, and Roadside Stands from Mexico to Argentina
This book tells a gourmet story of a journey through the magical cities of Latin America. The author Sandra Guiterrez has overdone herself with an effective collection of tasteful Latino street foods rich in spice. The cookbook includes a brief history of the foods it teaches, as well as personal stories from the author.
The recipes are easy to follow, with detailed processes. Most of which uses easily available ingredients.
Latin American street foods cover recipes from Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba. Which together makes 150 distinct recipes, sorted into groups based on their similarities. You will learn the secrets to making a variety of favored street foods like Mexican Tacos al Pastor, as well as sweets like Avocado ice cream.
Pros:
- Recipes require easily available ingredients
- Colorful stories and histories of foods
- Recipes require little prep times
- Diverse across several cities
- Clear, informative images
Cons:
- Poorly researched comments
#7. Mowgli Street Food: Stories and recipes from the Mowgli Street Food restaurants
Nisha Katona’s Mowgli street food is a collection of Indian food stories and recipes. The recipes are representatives of the most beloved delicacies you will find in homes and on the streets of Mumbai and Delhi.
You will find ridiculously simple meals to make. The recipe delivers flavourful and appetizing fresh foods ranging from succulent to scrumptious — each delectable in its own right. It is safe to declare that there is more than enough for everyone, regardless of your preferences.
Pros:
- Highly flavored recipes
- Simple and detailed recipes
- Variety of options for all diets
Cons:
- Ingredients might be difficult to source
#8. Italian Street Food: Recipes from Italy’s Bars and Hidden Laneways
No topic on street food can be complete without mentioning the culture behind some of the most revered street foods — the Italians.
It goes without saying that Italian street foods are well documented. It is certainly a culinary discipline where it is difficult to stand out, but Paola Bacchia did exactly that with this masterful cookbook.
Italian street food sneaks you behind the scenes of making pizzas, piadine, cannoli, etc. Each recipe is carefully outlined, making it so easy to follow. Her great storytelling skills also make the book enjoyable and fun to read.
Pros:
- Easy to follow recipes
- Colorful and descriptive images
- Rare cuisines
Cons:
- Recipes require long prep times
- Lacks diversity
#9. Food Truck Road Trip–A Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes Collected from the Best Street Food Vendors
Follow authors Kim Pham and Philip Shen as they journey through boisterous streets across the American states. The cookbook is full of exciting stories and details the secrets behind the most delectable American food truck foods.
The collection has a great variety, sampling the most popular recipes, from sandwiches to soups.
The total number of recipes here spills just a little over one hundred. It delivers all these varieties to your kitchen, where you can share the memories with family and friends.
Pros:
- Variety of food from different locales
- Simple and easy to follow
- Ingredients are easy to obtain
- Clear and glossy pictures
Cons:
- Clunky text that can be difficult to read
#10. Milk Street Fast and Slow: Instant Pot Cooking at the Speed You Need
Fast and slow is another impressive book from the widely popular Milk Street recipe series. It is very easy to mistake Instant Pot Cooking for a picture book with all the wildly vivid images and food pictures.
Here Kimball assembles stimulating and flavorful recipes that put your instant pots and multicookers to work.
These are not street foods but fill in the gaps when you need delicious home meals during a work week. The recipes require little attention, with short prep time. You can leave the ingredients cooking in your instant pots while you attend to other matters.
Instant Pot Cooking is heavy with vegetables and legumes, adding a healthy balance to your diet.
Pros:
- Detailed and easy-to-follow recipes
- Bright and colorful pictures
- Healthy and easily available ingredients
Cons:
- Meals take a long time to cook
- Book lacks diversity
#11. The Traeger Grill Bible
Don’t think we forgot your grill. Not many people can resist the savory stimulations awakened by nutty, juice-dripping steak. The Traeger Grill Bible is an entire schooling for mastering your grill.
It features an assembly of 200 refined recipes full of intricate flavors. Plus plenty of tips and techniques that are useful to both beginners and long-time grillers. You learn everything from temperature control to flipping techniques.
Pros:
- Simple to follow recipes
- Extensive lecture on handling grills
- Boisterous pictures and images
Cons:
- Lacks diversity
- Not suitable for vegans
- Requires outdoor cooking
#12. The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001-2021
Every gourmet and savvy cook recognizes the America Test Kitchen brand. Now imagine you had access to detailed and simplified recipes used on the hit show for over 20 years; that would be sublime. And that’s exactly what you are getting in this cookbook.
It covers over 1600 recipes with origins from every part of the world you can think of. The book also contains a very instructive shopping guide to help you find your way while shopping for ingredients.
Despite the large collection, the book is easy to browse, thanks to its careful organization and detailed outline.
Pros:
- Enormous collection of great recipes
- Vivid imagery
- Detailed organization
- Simple and easy-to-follow recipes
- Includes shopping guides
Cons:
- A physical copy is difficult to move around
#13. The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook: 500 Vibrant, Kitchen-Tested Recipes for Living and Eating Well Every Day
Here is another priceless cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen. This is a more specific cookbook that highlights all the best dishes in simple, detailed recipes from the Mediterranean sides.
You’ll find simple-to-follow recipes of varieties of spectacular, creative, and mouth-watering foods from Greece all the way to Morocco. It is a collection of 500 distinct and highly diverse Mediterranean dishes. All the while getting a peek into the most peculiar cultures and history of different ingredients and spices.
It also features an introduction to the Mediterranean “way of eating”
Pros:
- Diverse and large collection of recipes
- Simple to follow instructions
- Detailed and illustrative pictures
Cons:
- Many ingredients are difficult to get
#14. 101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die: Discover a New World of Flavors in Authentic Recipes
It is only fitting to end this extensive list with a collection of authentic flavors from across Asia. !00 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die written by seasoned chef Jet Tila. It is filled with hidden gems of several Asian cultures.
The recipes often utilize contrasting flavors that wake up the tongue delightfully. The Sriracha recipe is to die for.
Recipes are collected mostly from East Asia, including Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, China, etc. The book is also filled with tips for improving cooking techniques. If you long for traditional Asian recipes or crave something distinct, this is the book for you.
Pros:
- Easy-to-follow recipes
- Descriptive images
- Plenty of tips
Cons:
- Calls for obscure ingredients
- Recipes take a long to prep
Is the Street Fighter Cookbook any good?
Conclusion
Each of the cookbooks here will send your tongue on a palatable journey filled with deliciousness. They’ll also make exciting and unique gifts for your friends.
Explore the world through street foods without leaving your kitchen, all thanks to the gift of cookbooks from passionate authors.
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