On a seven-week journey around the Black Sea this summer, I found my way to Odessa's bustling Privoz Market with its mounds of fresh berries and fish. I spent days in Bulgaria feasting on petite mussels, and restored myself with a bowl of seafood stew at Okyanus Balik Evi, a restaurant above a fish shop in Sinop, Turkey. My guide? Caroline Eden's "Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes — Through Darkness and Light," a travelogue enriched with recipes — a sort of travel book meets cookbook.
Many cookbooks that celebrate the cuisine of a city, country or swath of the world line my bookshelves. At their finest, they take readers into kitchens and markets, on to farms and around towns they may never visit. Their recipes offer a way to bring those flavors into a reader's kitchen.
But for travelers who think about dinner reservations and pastry stops first when planning a trip, a slice of this crop of books can function as guidebooks too. They offer restaurant suggestions, point readers toward markets and frequently display maps. The recipes offer a way to prepare for the journey — or relive it when one returns. The greatest strength of these books, though, is how they connect what's on the table to the broader culture and history of a place, proving that to understand a destination, you need to pull up a seat at the table.
Here are a few I recommend taking on the road. A warning though: Cookbooks can clock in at over a pound, so if you're traveling light, be sure to download a version on an e-reader if available, snap photos of pages or build a Google Map.