From Indian Curries To British Classics: Mary Berry's All-Time Favorite Cookbooks

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With a culinary career starting all the way back in the 1960s, Mary Berry has both seen and had a hand in sculpting the world of food for many decades now. For many, particularly those in the U.S., she is likely best known for her role as one of the judges in early seasons of "The Great British Baking Show." But one does not land such a position without some serious culinary chops, and her career abounds with accomplishments.

Mary Berry trained at Le Cordon Bleu, worked as an editor for several magazines, hosted and appeared on countless television programs, and even has her own line of salad dressings. But, perhaps most relevant to this article, she has also written more than 80 cookbooks in her long and storied culinary career. With that many books under her belt, it is no surprise some of her titles can be found on lists like "2024's best cookbooks for beginners" and "the best baking cookbooks for your collection."

Beyond her own work, someone with that much experience both in the kitchen and holding a pen surely also has excellent insight into the best cookbooks by other capable culinarians. In an interview with The Daily Express, Berry was asked to name her top five cookbooks by other authors, and the list that she gave has some excellent entries. Once you have copies of "Mary Berry's Baking Bible" and "Mary Makes It Easy" on your shelves — and maybe the other 80 as well — her top five cookbooks from other authors will fill out your culinary repertoire nicely.

This book from Elizabeth David is considered to be a cornerstone in the transition of post-war British cooking, serving as it did to invite influence from other cultures into U.K. kitchens. It is, in truth, a collection of three books — a clever move from Berry to choose a multi-book collection among her top cookbooks of all time — with David's "Mediterranean Food," "French Country Cooking," and "Summer Cooking" all bound up in one volume. The "Classics" collection was first published in 1980, but the component books were themselves first published in 1950, 1951, and 1955, a time when Great Britain was emerging from wartime rationing and seeking new flavors to explore.

In total, "Elizabeth David Classics" is close to 700 pages long, with countless recipes that, at the time of publishing especially, would have been intriguing and exotic for many British cooks. In "Mediterranean Food," David shared dishes like lemony Greek avgolemono soup and Egyptian melokhia, a dish made with rabbit and mallow leaves. In "French Country Cooking", recipes like Basque pheasant soup as well as countless other soups, salads, sauces, sweets, and everything else, are bound up alongside entertaining introductions related to her time in France. With "Summer Cooking," the focus shifts to celebrating the bounty of the garden in summer, with recipes like fresh green pea soup and gooseberry fool, highlighting the joys of the midsummer harvest. It is not hard to see how these books, coming out when Berry was still an aspiring culinarian, could have had a profound effect on her development in the kitchen.

Madhur Jaffrey is another culinary star, as well as one of the first to really introduce Western palates to the flavors of Indian cuisine. Interestingly, Jaffrey started her career as an actress, appearing in more than 20 films, though it is her more than 15 books for which she is best known now. Her first book, "An Invitation to Indian Cooking," was released in 1973, the culmination of a five-year journey that brought her knowledge of Indian cuisine to the West. Or, rather, it opened a door, though many still wonder what the difference is between garam masala and curry powder.

For Mary Berry, though, the top book in Jaffrey's collection was "The Madhur Jaffrey Cookbook," a veritable tome published in 1987 containing more than 650 recipes. With a list that long, one might consider putting down what isn't in the book, rather than what is, but you can rest assured that this Jaffrey book is chock full of recipes for curries, breads, salads, chutneys, desserts, and countless other Indian and Eastern delights. The book does not have many photos, as is the style in cookbooks these days, but what it lacks in visual artistry it more than makes up for in personal anecdotes and helpful advice.

A chef with many, many awards to his name, Ken Hom has been publishing cookbooks since the early 1980s. He is now author to nearly 40 books, has his own line of woks and other cookware, and has inspired an untold number of chefs and home cooks with his blend of Chinese tradition and Western innovation in the kitchen. Hom's work is certainly part of why "fusion" food became so popular in restaurants around the world, a representation of his growing up as a Chinese immigrant in the United States.

Hom's book "Chinese Cookery" didn't reach markets until 2009, 25 years into his career as a cookbook author, though it is a book that truly shares the soul of Chinese cuisine. In the more than 150 recipes, Hom shares dishes that have been passed down through generations, each of them embodying the Chinese culinary principle of balance between flavors, textures, aromas, and even colors.

Throughout the book you will find recipes that you recognize, like cashew chicken and stir-fried pepper beef, but also many other offerings that will surprise and delight. Almond jelly with fresh oranges, Buddhist casserole, and curried sweetcorn soup are not fare that you are likely to see at your local Chinese takeaway but are recipes that you can make for yourself with a copy of this Hom classic.

Katie Stewart wrote and contributed to, throughout her career, more than 20 books on cookery. But while books like "The Times Calendar Cookbook" and her famous "The Pooh Cookbook" — about Winnie the Pooh — were a significant part of her work, the real meat of it was writing for newspapers and periodicals. For 12 years, she had a weekly column and a monthly page with The Times, which was followed by years writing for The Guardian, and then Women's Journal and the BBC's Homes and Antiques magazine.

The basis of "The Times Calendar Cookbook," in fact, comes from those time-stamped pieces. The book itself is divided into 12 chapters, one for each month of the year. Using this book, home cooks could follow along with the progression of seasonal ingredients throughout the year, cooking recipes that made use of what was freshest and most delicious at the time.

These days, the idea of shopping and cooking seasonally might seem fairly mainstream, but this book from Stewart was published all the way back in 1977. This was in the post-war period, when the industrialization of food production meant that there was no longer necessarily a seasonality to foods, as most of them could simply be shipped in from elsewhere in the world. With the monthly chapters in her book, Stewart could give light, fresh salad recipes in the summer and warm, hearty stews in the winter, thus reconnecting readers and cooks with the natural cycle of foods throughout the year.

In the world of food, fads, trends, ingredients, and techniques have a tendency to come and go with great speed, and cookbooks can quickly become obsolete. Every once in a while, however, a cookbook is written that seems timeless. "The Constance Spry Cookery Book" is one such book. First published all the way back in 1956 — 70 years ago now — it is still a staple for many cooks, a kitchen bible with a nearly comprehensive recipe list in its 1,000-plus page binding.

Written over three years by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, the goal of the book was to pack in nearly everything an aspiring cook could wish to know. In addition to the many recipes on offer, the book also details the ins and outs of soups and sauces; many types of meats, vegetables, and starches; and plenty of kitchen processes that a cook would do well to understand. Spry and Hume's cookery book is a one-stop-shop for nearly all of the knowledge you could need in the kitchen.

Of all the books on this list, "The Constance Spry Cookery Book" may be the one that has best aged into the modern era, with its many editions and reprintings. But while some of these books are now out of print and may be hard to find, their authors are all legends, and their contributions to the world of food are undoubtedly lasting. Mary Berry hasn't given us here a list of the best cookbooks of 2025, but rather her top five cookbooks from throughout her long and prestigious culinary career, a foundation on which newer cookbooks are built.