Must-Own Cookbooks: Pork & Sons

Think for a minute about those cold wintry weekend mornings, when all you want to do is stay in bed...or once you do happen to get up, drink coffee and read the newspaper in front of a roaring fire. That’s the kind of warm good time feeling we get from Pork & Sons, an authentic, beautifully rustic and eccentric French cookbook by chef and restaurateur Stéphane Reynaud. The 150 recipes are inspired by three generations of pork devotees, beginning with the patriarch village butcher. With its quirky pink crosshatch cover and piglet illustrations throughout, this cookbook in not lacking in whimsy and aesthetic delight. It’s the kind of cookbook you can look at over and over, each time finding new inspiration. Its an invitation to Reynaud's family dinner table, from heirloom recipes to annual pig roasts. Yes, the recipes! Although heavily influenced by Reynaud's native France, the collection manages to traverse the world through the medium of pork (always local, from farms or in the wild). You’ll find treasures ranging from wild boar and dried fruit terrine to curries, street food and Grandmother’s bourguignon. Being the grandson of a village butcher on the Ardech plateau in France and owner of Villa9trois in Montreuil near Paris, it's pretty obvious Reynaud knows his stuff.