Thai Food — David Thompson

Thai Food is the definitive English-language reference on Thai cooking, surpassing #9 How to Cook Everything in depth with 673 pages of scholarly rigor. Thompson spent decades studying in Thailand, from Thai cooks, covering hand-pounded curry pastes and the hot-sour-sweet-salty balance in every dish. This James Beard Award winner includes techniques like charring chili for nam prik that 90% of Western cookbooks skip. It treats Thai cuisine with a level of detail French cooking has long enjoyed, offering a data-backed path to authentic flavors.