These books LOOK like food porn, but, surprisingly perhaps, are stuffed with history, recipes and other food lore. I waited a long time before getting these. I shouldn't have. ( )

I have several Hungarian cookbooks, but this is the one I like best. Like all the books in the Culinaria series, it's far more than a cookbook, full of gorgeous photography and background information about food-related cultural phenomena, from Easter customs to the specialized varieties of pigs, ducks, geese, etc. raised on Hungarian farms. I love it best, though, for the recipes, which are authentic and represent a full range of traditional Hungarian dishes. ( )