The Best 20 Food Books of 2006 as Chosen by Leite's Culinaria

or the past several weeks, we've been making lists and checking them twice — in some cases, four and five times — searching for what we think are the top 20 books of the year. And, as always, we were in for a few surprises and disappointments. Something that didn’t surprise us, and was a trend we mentioned two years ago, was the growing popularity of narrative food books. This year, it seems, was the tipping point. Unflinching looks behind the food world and at our food supply, autobiographies, post-James Frey memoirs that stick to the truth (or so we hope) have all risen to the top of our list. In an article written earlier this year by Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune titled "Food Memoirs Replace Recipes," he states, "Reading about food has become almost as red-hot a subject in America as eating." He continues by quoting Rux Martin, executive editor of cookbooks at Houghton Mifflin Co., as she speaks about the market for these books: " 'It's a way broader audience. It's easier to read about someone's experience with food [in these books] than to cook from them. Everyone thinks about food; not everyone is so dedicated they want to spend money on a cookbook.' "

If our readers are any indication, people are still very interested in buying cookbooks — some from expected categories, such as baking, chocolate, and hyper-popular ethnic cuisines like Italian. But we also found interest, no doubt due to excellent books written by talented authors, in lesser-known cuisines, such as African, Turkish, and Lebanese.

That being said, the work for which we reserve top honors this year isn’t a cookbook, but rather Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you haven't read it, do yourself the favor. It's one of the most important food books to come along in memory. In it Pollan traces four meals back to their natural roots: a McDonald's lunch eaten on the go, a meal made with ingredients from Whole Foods, a chicken dinner cooked with foods from a small über-organic Virginia farm, and a banquet comprised of items Pollan foraged and hunted. You'll be fascinated, horrified, awestruck, and think twice about the foods you put in your body. Plus we guarantee you'll never look at corn the same way again.

In addition to our 20 best, honorable mentions go to A Culinary Traveller in Tuscany by Beth Elon (Little Bookroom), My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'Homme (Knopf), Keys to the Cellar by Peter Demeter (Wiley), The Cake Book by Tish Boyle (Wiley), and The Red Cat Cookbook by Jimmy Bradley (Clarkson Potter).

Congratulations to all the winners.