Here are The Cookbooks from The Bear Season 2
The definitive list.
Howdy cookbook fans!
Okay let’s talk about the cookbooks on The Bear. How are they different from last season? First of all, there are just a LOT more of them: we get shots at the restaurant in multiple places, Carmy’s apartment, elsewhere. Second of all, and it pains me to say this, a lot of them repeat, meaning I am not quite sure they are trying to tell us stuff about the characters through the cookbook selection as much as they are using the props they have access to. (Hello, Phaidon chef tomes.) That said, the list is pretty good? And pretty long?!
Anyway we’re gonna pick them apart now. Buckle up. Also, here there be spoilers. You’ve been warned.
UPDATE: this post has been updated with the full list of cookbooks purchased for season 2, straight from set designer Eric Frankel. Thanks Eric! Scroll to the bottom for everything we (I) missed.
Episode 1: Beef
This is in Carmy’s apartment, which is, as ever, a half-empty mess. (I love the raised eyebrows moment we get from Syd when they go to his place to talk over the menu.) The first Eleven Madison Park book makes an appearance, foreshadowing a lot of love the show gives Daniel Humm and, particularly, Will Guidara later in the season. And the jacketless (and thus I assume much-used) copy of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers is a nice touch. We also have, starting at the bottom right and working up and left, Mexico City chef Enrique Olvera’s Tu Casa Mi Casa (which is his book for home cooks), Roger Vergé’s New Entertaining in the French Style, The Gaijin Cookbook by Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying, a book I can’t quite make out, Frida’s Fiestas by Marie-Pierre and Guadalupe Rivera (which is about food Frida Kahlo liked to cook), another book I can’t quite make out but is adorably tagged with post-its throughout, Culinaria Spain (I have the German edition of this series, it’s fine), couple more books I can’t make out, and The Chicago Tribune Good Eating Cookbook (there is that Chicago I was looking for!!).
To the left are a couple books I can’t make out and there are too many cookbooks this season for me to detective them quite as hard as I did last year, but one is the first Ottolenghi (UK edition), there’s a copy of Art Fare (which was a cookbook put out by the Toledo Museum of Art to celebrate its centennial in 2000), Wookwan’s Korean Temple Food by Buddhist nun Wookwan, one of Tom Parker Bowles’s books, plus a couple more.
You can also see a shot of The Hungry Eye by Leonard Barkan in this episode, an interesting choice: Barkan is a comp lit professor at Princeton and the book is about the history of food aesthetics. From the jacket copy: the book “takes readers from antiquity to the Renaissance to explore the central role of food and drink in literature, art, philosophy, religion, and statecraft.” Getting deep!
Episode 2: Pasta
So, okay, that Trout book? Is exactly what you think it is. It is volume 1 of 2 in a book about trout fishing by trout fishing expert and Chicagoan Ernest Schwiebert. Are Syd and Marcus gonna go fishing? Stay tuned. Underneath: Giuliano Bugialli’s Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking. (We’ll see this one again later. Its spine is rather distinctive.) There are two more books we can’t see the spines or covers of in this shot but I would bet you $20 the bigger one is The Nordic Cookbook by Magnus Nilsson.
This episode is also where we get our first shot of the cookbooks in the office at the restaurant, but it’s pre-renovation and there aren’t as many. Plus we get a way better shot of them with Nat later, so I’m gonna hold off on those. There’s also a shot of Carmy’s apartment in this episode, but it’s the same books as last season and, ya know, been there done that.
Episode 6: Fishes
Among…many other things…this episode had, I thought, some interesting things to say about the (feminized) position of the home cook versus the (masculinized) position of the professional cook. Jamie Lee Curtis, whose character is an ambitious home cook, saying to Carmy: “I make things beautiful for them, and no one makes things beautiful for me” just absolutely floored me. That is probably a discussion for another time, but let’s talk about her cookbooks! Predictably they veer Italian: these seven fishes are NOT going to cook themselves, after all! I’m also seeing some easy weeknight dinner type books, and would not be surprised if there were a couple diet books in here.
First up, we see Good & Garlicky, Thick & Hearty, Soul-Satisfying, More-Than-Minestrone Italian Soup Cookbook by Joe Famularo. There’s also a copy of what I am pretty sure is the 1978 Betty Crocker, but I can’t find an image of the spine that’s not the spiral edition so. YMMV. The rest of them I am not familiar with and can’t make out, but I am sure some of you can! The one to the right of Betty and the two that look like part of a series closer to the left side, in particular, with the italicized word in them. And the one next to Italian Soup Cookbook looks like a 4 letter name that starts with “R,” maybe a restaurant cookbook? It doesn’t look like any of the Rao’s cookbooks though. Let me know in the comments!
In the kitchen, we get more books, and these really put the “stain” in Stained Page News. There’s a book called Simply Delicious, which is not in fact a Darina Allen title OR the 2003 Weight Watchers book of the same name, but rather, get this, a collection of recipes from the employees of Herberger’s, a now-shuttered chain of Midwestern department stores based in Minnesota and later Wisconsin. !!! There is a copy of a book called Fix It Fast, which I believe is the Pillsbury book, although Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Gardens have also published books with that title. Speaking of BH&G, we can see their famous plaid spine to the right of the microwave (it looks blue here but is actually red, see below, h/t Charles Vestal), and next to it is what I desperately wish to be the paperback edition of the 1997 Joy of Cooking, aka the first cookbook I ever bought, but I juuuuuust don’t think it works. Sigh.
Okay I could spend all day poking at this, but we have to move on to the big Kahuna.
Episodes 8 and 9: Bolognese and Omelette
Including these both together because there’s another shot of the office bookshelf in 9; the books are in an entirely different order (and also adorably there’s a series of index cards labeled “Giardiniera by Nonna” in the tighter, later shot <3) so there is some overlap. Time for bullet points! Starting at the top left and working our way down and to the right (and skipping the ones I don’t know and the ones that are repeated).
Top Shelf (missed the most here because they’re cut off):
I feel like someone can get the first book, which is published by Chronicle, but I didn’t get it quickly enough. Can’t identify the next three books, either.
The first book I can identify is The Salt Box Seafood Joint Cookbook, fifth from the left, by Ricky Moore.
Next to that is The Best American Food Writing 2019, and next to THAT a nearly identical spine I can only imagine is another Best American Food Writing year.
The next one I can’t confirm but sure looks like it says “On Baking.” Perhaps an earlier, jacketless edition of On Baking by Sarah Labensky, Priscilla Martel, and Eddy Van Damme?
The gold one with red lettering miiiiight be an edition of The Professional Chef, the Culinary Institute of America’s textbook. Do not hold me to that.
The Year of Eating Dangerously by Paul Parker Bowles, same one as is in Carmy’s apartment.
The Pastry one I cannot place and it is killing me because I KNOW we had this book in the office of the catering place I worked for in my early 20s. Please make me feel dumb in the comments by knowing what it is immediately but we gotta move on.
The Flavor Thesaurus by Niki Segnit
The Tenth Muse by Judith Jones (a different edition than this links to)
La Buvette by Camille Fourmont and Kate Leahy
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual by Frank Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo, and Peter Meehan
Bianco by Chris Bianco.
Second shelf from the top:
The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
The AOC Cookbook by Suzanne Goin
Ice Cream, Sherbet, and Ices by Linda MacDonald
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
Grande Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse
The Complete Robuchon by Joël Robuchon
The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak
The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz
LudoBites by Ludo Lefebvre
I know this yellow and lime green book spine but can’t place it, sigh.
Via Carota by Jody Williams and Rita Sodi with Anna Kovel
The Art of the Restaurateur by Nicholas Lander
Tuscan Women Cook by Colleen Kirnan
Tartine All Day by Elisabeth Prueitt
Kitchen of Light by Andreas Viestad
Night + Market by Kris Yenbamroong and Garret Snyder
A book I am fully unfamiliar with but is the most amazing shade of pink. UPDATE it’s Ethiopia by Yohanis Gebreyesus. (Spotted by saltandroast)
A Good Bake by Melissa Weller and Carolynn Carreño
Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli (chefs love this book)
Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa M. Martin
SPQR by Shelley Lindgren and Matthew Accarrino with Kate Leahy
The Noma Book of Fermentation by René Redzepi and David Zilber
World of BBQ by Rodney Scott (this book is on my desk right now lol)
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten (!)
Africola by Duncan Welgemoed
Nopi by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully
Hartwood by Eric Werner and Mya Henry with Christine Muhlke and Oliver Strand
One of many copies of The Elements of Taste by Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky, which can be expensive/tricky to find.
A book I can almost make out the title but can’t sigh.
The shelf with El Bulli 2005-2011 on it:
Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman
Masa by Jorge Gaviria
Rich Table by Sarah and Evan Rich with Carolyn Alburger
Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman
American Sfoglino by Evan Funke with Katie Parla
Tu Casa Mi Casa by Enrique Olvera, again
One of several copies of Black Power Kitchen by Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao, and Lester Walker with Osayi Endolyn
The Jemima Code by Toni Tipton-Martin
The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller
The Del Posto Cookbook by Mark Ladner
The Barbuto Cookbook by Jonathan Waxman
Oaxaca al Gusto by Diana Kennedy
A Ridley Scott book?
The Family Meal by Ferran Adriá
Bras by Sébastien Bras
Sun and Rain by Ana Ros
A New Napa Cuisine by Christopher Kostow
Les Dîners de Gala by Salvador Dalí (Spotted by [holm])
Au Pied de Cochon by Martin Picard (anyone know what edition that is? I’ve never seen it)
El Bulli 2005-2011 by Ferran Adriá, a book I would like to thank personally for taking up so much space on the shelf, without which you would not be getting this today.
Culinaria Spain, again
Second to last shelf:
The Escoffier Cookbook by Auguste Escoffier
There she is! The Joy of Cooking by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. The 1997 edition, albeit hardcover.
Sauces by James Peterson
Black Smoke by Adrian Miller (Spotted by Dan Rosenberg)
The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo
Moro by Sam and Sam Clark (chefs also love this one)
Black Food by Bryant Terry
The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking by Barbara Tropp
Cooking at Home by David Chang and Priya Krishna (Spotted by Lynn)
Smoke & Pickles by Ed Lee
Franklin Barbecue by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay
Sweet Enough by Alison Roman
Momofuku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi
The Craft of Cooking by Tom Colicchio
The New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser (different edition than is linked)
Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
Diasporican by Illyanna Maisonet
Italian Easy by Andrew Dargue (I couldn’t find a link for this, I suspect it was a UK only release?)
Jubilee by Toni Tipton-Marton
The Drinking Food of Thailand by Andy Ricker with JJ Goode
I Am From Here by Vishwesh Bhatt
Gjelina by Travis Lett
The Nomad Cookbook by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara
Bottom shelf:
Soul by Todd Richards
Joshua Weissman by Joshua Weissman. This is the only book that doesn’t really make sense to me? He’s a YouTuber which doesn’t seem this gang’s speed.
Peppers of the Americas by Maricel Presilla
Breakfast, Lunch, Diner…Life by Missy Robbins with Carrie King
Alpine Cooking by Meredith Erickson
Amá by Josef Centeno and Betty Hallock
South by Sean Brock
Everything I Want to Eat by Jessica Koslow
Relae by Christian Puglisi
Japanese Cooking by Shizuo Tsuji
The same edition of The Professional Chef I own!
Daniel by Daniel Boulud
Bouchon Bakery by Sebastien Rouxel
Benu by Corey Lee
The Whole Fish Cookbook by Josh Niland. Everyone loves the fish cookbook!!
La Tante Claire by Pierre Hoffmann
Kaiseki by Kaichi Tsuji
Cooking for Good Times by Paul Kahan with Rachel Holtzman
Fäviken by Magnus Nilsson
Mugaritz by Andoni Arduriz et al.
Quay by Peter Gilmore
All the books from the Episode 9 close-up that haven’t appeared elsewhere (or I didn’t clock them elsewhere):
Zahav by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook
Les Dimanches de Joël Robuchon by Joël Robuchon
Flowers by Cédric Grolet
Gullah Geechee Home Cooking by Emily Meggett and Kayla Stewart
Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown by Brandon Jew and Tienlon Ho
Pizza Camp by Joe Beddia
Bress ‘n’ Nyam by Matthew Raiford with Amy Paige Condon
Tasting Rome by Kristina Gill and Katie Parla
Classic Thai Cuisine by David Thompson
Claridge’s: The Cocktail Book (Took this long to see a drinks book!)
Monk by Yoshihiro Imai
Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard (Chefs also love this book)
That Sounds So Good by Carla Lalli Music
Mozza by Nancy Silverton et al.
The Dooky Chase Cookbook by Edgar Dooky Jr. and Leah Chase
Soul Food by Sheila Ferguson
Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi
My Mexico City Kitchen by Gabriela Cámara
Ms. Philippines Cooking in America by Elizabeth Guevara-Buan
White Heat 25 by Marco Pierre White
The Pastry Chef Handbook by Pierre Paul Zeiher and Jean Michel Truchelut
Cooking Through the Seasons by Joël Robuchon
A book called A Cooking Life I can’t find? Anyone?
The Complete Book of Pasta by Jack Denton Scott
The Africa Cookbook by Jessica B Harris
UPDATE: Direct from Set, Here Are the Rest of the Books
THE BEAR HAS SPOKEN. After this ran on Friday, I got an instagram DM from Eric Frankel, the Set Decorator for The Bear! He forwarded me a list of the books he purchased for this season, which begins with a nod towards LA’s Now Serving, South Pasadena’s Prospect, and Chicago’s Myopic Books, which is nice.
Okay here are the books we missed from this season, see if you can spot ‘em!
More Fish, More Veg : Simple, Sustainable Recipes and Know-how for Everyday Deliciousness by Tom Walton
On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen by Jeremy Fox with Noah Galuten (chefs do love this book)
L.A. Son by Roy Choi with Tien Nguyen and Natasha Phan (I saw this but somehow it didn’t make the post? IDK.)
Coi by Daniel Patterson with Peter Meehan
Septime by Bertrand Grébaut, Théophile Pourriat, and Benoit Cohen
Almost Filipino by Liezel de la Isla
Vibration Cooking by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor
Hungry by Jeff Gordinier
Susur by Susur Lee
Roberta’s by Brandon Hoy, Carlo Mirarchi, Chris Parachini, and Kathleen Wheelock
Roberta’s: Still Cookin’ by Brandon Hoy and Carlo Mirarchi
In Bibi’s Kitchen by Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen
Alinea by Grant Achatz
Brown Sugar Kitchen by Tanya Holland
My Korea by Hooni Kim
There were actually 4 copies of The Best American Food Writing, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022.
Core by Clare Smyth
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, which is maybe the most important book in the season because we actually see Richie reading it, but it’s not a cookbook.
Toothache Magazine issues 2-10, editor Nick Muncy
Noma 2.0 by René Redzepi et al.
魚づくし―魚介の日本料理 by 春香 山本
焼く by Tooru Okuda
Princess Pamela’s Soul Food Cookbook by Pamela Strobel
Salami by Hans Gissinger and Gerard Oberle
In the Kitchen With Love by Sophia Loren (!)(can’t find a link for this womp)
Beard on Bread by James Beard
Pastry by Michel Roux (this is the one that was killing me and I never figured it out sigh)
Whew. Y’all. That’s it. Oh, and Marcus has a bunch of Noma books in his station when he comes back from Denmark, obviously.
So! There were a bunch I didn’t catch. If you know what they are, drop em in the comments and I’ll update, with credit. COOKBOOK DETECTIVES START YOUR ENGINES can I get a yes chef?!
All in all a pretty good list? I’d recommend most of these. What say you? TO THE COMMENTS! I am going to have a glass of wine.
This is amazing and makes my head hurt to think of all the work and squinting that went into it
this is incredible