In “Feast,” Anissa Helou—who first exposed me to a new world of cooking in “Mediterranean Street Food”—guides us through the recipes of the Islamic world, including Indonesia, Zanzibar and Senegal. Take flatbreads. We’ve all heard of pita and naan, but what about yufka, markouk or non? There are truly useful recipes, like onion and parsley salad—a perfect bed for roasted meats—or labneh (strained yogurt) flavored with tarragon, garlic, salt and olive oil. Egyptian bread pudding, cookies, baklava and Indonesian black rice pudding. But perhaps the best part of this work is the sense of history. The cooks of the Levant share recipes, but each region has its own approach, a subtlety often lost on the Western palate. Key to this book and the cultures it represents is that culinary tradition is strong: One tastes the past in the present. (Amazon, $38)

Mark Kurlansky, the author of “Cod” and “Salt,” starts this hugely entertaining work by noting that creation myths often include milk, like a Norse legend in which an ogre is sustained by a cow, or that Vishnu created the universe by churning a sea of milk. That’s just the start. Kurlansky writes that almond milk was popular in the 1500s because the Catholic Church thought of animal milk as blood and regulated it like red meat. When Protestants came along with no dietary restrictions, almond milk faded away. Cow’s milk is more prominent in northern climes, where it is less likely to spoil—a serious problem, even in 19th-century America. While ice houses have been around since the 11th century (in China), the icebox wasn’t invented until 1803. Spoilage explains the popularity of condensed and evaporated milk as well as cheese (a form of preserved milk). And when it comes to cheese, most consumers just scratch the surface. Beyond feta, there are 70 Greek cheeses alone. Kurlansky manages to tie all this together in a compelling narrative, one more than the sum of its parts. (Amazon, $21)