By Adrienne Martini

The best tomes about food show us the pleasures of the table rather than just telling us about them. Some writers—even those more focused on the how-to rather than the why—excel at capturing all of the sensory and intellectual details of the experience of eating. Look for these books in the “As seen in Edible Finger Lakes” displays in your local bookstores.

Mark Bittman, who taught us how to cook everything, narrows his focus with Food Matters. Here, Bittman is clearly walking down the path plowed by Michael Pollan, which isn’t a bad thing. Where Pollan’s books can be long on information but short on advice, Bittman offers a snappy précis on the plight of industrial food systems as well as recipes for lower-impact choices, menu plans and shopping lists. Flexibility is the key to Bittman’s approach. Unlike other would-be food gurus, Bittman explains what works for him, and then lets readers devise their own plans. The simple, mostly vegetarian recipes can be quickly jazzed up by all of the permutations that Bittman suggests at the end of each. The only thing that would make Food Matters perfect would be Bittman himself showing up to cook it all for you.

Also on Pollan’s path is Taras Grescoe, whose Bottomfeeder explores the ethics of eating seafood. An avid consumer of all creatures finned and shelled, Grescoe travels the northern hemisphere deconstructing the sustainability of modern fisheries while chowing down on local delicacies like bouillabaisse and shark fin soup. Grescoe’s news isn’t good, for the most part. In the first 20 pages alone he reports on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, mercury poisoning and fishery fraud involving neurotoxicants as well as the impact that rapacious fishermen have on fish stocks. Despite the bad news, Grescoe offers concrete plans for ethically eating seafood. Plus, his voice and enthusiasm buoy readers back up just as they are sinking into despair. He is a boon traveling companion, one who illuminates his subject with precision and poetry.

On a lesser scale than Grescoe’s fish adventure, Richard Figiel’s Culture in a Glass thoroughly investigates its chosen subject, which is Finger Lakes wine. It’s a subject Figiel, the owner of the Silver Thread Vineyard on the east side of Seneca Lake, knows intimately. Culture opens with the global history of wine before honing in on its local growth. The unique topography of the Finger Lakes—with their steep sides and extraordinary depth—gets its own chapter, as do the three families of grapes that grow here. What really makes Culture sing, however, are the pictures and illustrations Figiel has included. All that’s missing are tasting notes for a few of the area wines.

Jim Denevan’s Outstanding in the Field is the work of a chef who puts his passion into action. Every June, Denevan hops into his 1953 Flxible bus named Outstanding and takes a road trips across the United States. Along the way, he stops at local farms, sets up tables and serves dinner to as many as 100 strangers. These locally sourced meals Form the basis for the book’s recipes, which range from the easily approachable rainbow chard tart to the more advanced lamb kidneys with fava beans and mint. The recipes themselves are fabulous, as are Denevan’s descriptions of all of the unique places, including caves and farmhouses, where he’s cooked.

Eugenia Bone’s Well-Preserved will quickly become a jam- and sauce-stained bible for those who have wanted to start canning or curing a season’s bounty. Bone opens with a no-nonsense dissertation on small-batch home preserving that makes it seem achievable by mere mortals. She explains what is worth worry and what is not. Most importantly, however, she frequently peppers her hard-won advice with reminders not to panic.

While Bone’s encouragement is what closes the deal, it’s her recipes (and Megan Schlow and Andrew Bruckner’s photos) that grab. Not content to merely create Concord grape walnut preserves, pickled asparagus, bacon and sauerkraut, she then gives you three recipes for each once you open your safely put-up treasure. With a singular and enthusiastic voice, Bone crams an abundance of riches both into her Ball jars and onto her pages.

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Adrienne Martini’s recent book is Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood. Her next work is about knitting a very complicated sweater. She has two children, one husband, a lot of yarn and a blog at www.martinimade.com