An annotated list of sources for food and drink articles. The goal is to help editors find reliable sources of information on food topics. This page is intended to provide sources that are useful for multiple articles. Of course, individual articles' bibliographies should also be useful.
Since Wikipedia is not a cookbook, the question is how useful cookbooks are not for recipes, but for the description and history of food. In general, they are fairly good about description, though they can be idiosyncratic and provincial, being unaware of food habits outside their authors' neighborhood. They also tend to be trendy. Cookbooks are generally very weak for history. Very rarely have the authors consulted serious sources, and they tend to repeat legends and folklore freely.
Probably the best all-round encyclopedia of food. Many articles have useful bibliographies. Especially strong on English and western European foods. Benefits from the years of articles in Petits Propos Culinaires and the Oxford Symposia on Food.
A good source for 19th and early 20th century French cooking. Very unreliable outside France. Unreliable for history (the notorious croissant legend was first published here).
Mostly traditional French recipes. No source notes. Not very useful.
Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne (1994), History of Food, Blackwell Publishing Professional, ISBN0631194975.
A totally unreliable source, full of legends and misinformation. She doesn't footnote most of what she writes, so there's no way of verifying it. Do not use.
Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece
An amazing summary of classical and Byzantine Greek texts on food. Scholarly, careful, comprehensive. The Ottoman and modern periods are very briefly touched on at the end.
Regina Sexton and Cathal Cowan, Ireland's Traditional Foods: An Exploration of Irish Local and Typical Foods and Drinks, Dublin: Teagasc, The National Food Centre, 1997, ISBN 978-1-901138047.
Teagasc is an Irish semi-state authority responsible for research in the agri-food sector. Regina Sexton is an Irish food historian at University College Cork.
Margaret Hickey, Ireland’s Green Larder: The Definitive History of Irish Food and Drink, London: Unbound, 2018, ISBN 978-1783525249.
This is not a very reliable source - not properly referenced/footnoted, and re-telling a lot of Bríd Mahon's work in a superficial way.
Japan
Mexico
Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Que vivan los tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican IdentityISBN978-0826318732
Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican FoodISBN978-0199740062
José Luis Juárez López, La lenta emergencia de la comida mexicana. Ambigüedades criollas, 1750-1800ISBN978-0199740062
José Luis Juárez López, Nacionalismo culinario. La cocina mexicana en el siglo XXISBN978-6075164656
José Luis Juárez López, Engranaje Culinario: La Cocina Mexicano en el Siglo XIXISBN978-6074559583
A very authentic and thorough (though sadly not illustrated) coverage of traditional recipes, including those of the former republics of the Soviet Union. Chapters for each type of meal (appetizer, soup, salad, meat by type) and holiday menus. Includes brief cultural and historical introductions.
Fabulous resources on the fish and seafood of their regions. A summary page per species including both biology and cuisine. Also a collection of recipes.