7 Books We’re Reading This Spring

The Campout Cookbook
This illustrated guide by food writers Marnie Hanel and Jen Stevenson offers plenty of practical “roughing it” tips, alongside 100-plus sophisticated takes on campfire fare, from Garlicky Grilled Artichokes to Brown Butter Toffee Blondies. ($20; Artisan)

Saladish
Even the most lettuce-averse can find comfort amid these 75 dishes – which incorporategrains, nuts, cheeses, and proteins – devised by Ilene Rosen, co-owner of R&D Foods in Brooklyn. Case in point: the Tex-Mex Cornbread Salad on page 73. ($25; Artisan)

Jerky
Charcuterie experts Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller, who founded California’s Fatted Calf butcher shops, tease the mystery out of making jerky through solid advice on equipment, techniques, and season-ings, as well as some two dozen methods for curing various meats. ($22; Ten Speed Press)

Jam Session
James Beard Award winner Joyce Goldstein details how to preserve Bing cherries, Meyer lemons, and 28 other fruits and vegetables, while also delivering a few frank opinions. (Pricey copper pans, she believes, don’t yield better jam.) ($25; Lorena Jones Books)

Milk!
Mark Kurlansky, the best-selling author of Cod and Salt, traces the 10,000-year-old cultural, economic, and culinary trajectory of this dietary staple, packing in dairy-centric recipes both ancient and modern. ($29; Bloomsbury)

Buttermilk Graffiti
For his second book, Korean-born chef Edward Lee crisscrossed the country in search of immigrant cooks reshaping our culinary landscape – swapping stories with a pair of Lebanese sisters-in-law who sell wigs and kibbeh in Mississippi; slurping noodle soup in a Brooklyn Uyghur café; and breaking the Ramadan fast with Syrian Muslims in Michigan. ($28; Artisan)

Secrets of the Southern Table
Atlanta chef Virginia Willis also explores the ways in which international flavors have influenced American cuisine, though her focus remains the South. She chronicles the region’s increasingly global food and farming scenes, and cooks up dishes both exotic (West African Chicken Stew) and classically Southern (Pimento Cheese Tomato Pie). ($30; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)