I am a very beginner at cooking and I am seeking for modern well proven books, written by reputable authors, after gently studying which (of course, with some practice) I would become able to cook completely by myself and predict the result, not to only blindly follow the recipes by other people.
Another wish of mine is to find some collections of cooking cultures, i.e. to know which actions are considered as wrong and which ones as generally accepted by representatives of each cooking culture. (To understand what I mean, recall how Italian chefs react to pasta, lasagna, pizza, etc. tutorials made by common non-Italian people.)
I hope, you have understood what type of cookbooks I am looking for. I would formulate it as cookbooks for perfectionist newbie. I ask for help here, because due to my ignorance I don't know who to trust.
The following paragraph may be deleted after appropriate editing: I apologize for slightly unusual question, but I consider it as most commmon, however not fully asked here. I don't know what tags to add, so I will select main ingredients in average dish. Feel free to choose other tags or make this question community wiki.
