ell, it's that time of year again. After having tabulated all the e-mails and notes we've gathered throughout the year from our readers, recipe testers, and contributors — and after adding our favorites — we came up with our picks for the best food books for 2004. But it was harder. Our short list was a lot shorter than last year's. Were we more selective this time around? Absolutely. Is the marketplace different? We think so. We found fewer good books in 2004, but those that made the cut are extraordinary in their own ways.

This year's list contains a broader mix of books. From the Web site statistics, we can see that out readers' tastes have continued to diverge: cookbooks — from celebrity chefs to single-topics tomes — still lead the way, but narrative food writing and food history made big strides this year. And that's reflected in our choices.

Some of the books not on the list but that deserve mentioning are the evocative Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food (Stewart, Tabori and Chang), the newly revised On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (Scribner), John T. Edge's historical and culturally enlightening Fried Chicken and Apple Pie (Putnam), and Cooking for Kings, Ian Kelly engrossing biography of Carême, the first celebrity chef.