I’d like to buy a cookery book. My mum owns a copy of “Woman’s Own Cook Book”, given to her as a prize back when she was in school. This sort of book is what I’d like - 1500 recipes, sections on virtually everything: soups, salads, sauces, puddings and sweets, pastry, icings and fillings, cakes, recipes for putting weight on, recipes for losing weight, cooking for invalids etc. and tips on different meats.
Unfortunately, my mum won’t let me take the book with me to university (it’s listed as an antique book) and, while they’re available to buy online, some of the recipes within it are a bit dated (there’s a section on cooking brains, for instance) and some of the ingredients listed are no longer available (it was printed in the late sixties/early seventies).
I notice that a lot of cook books have very specific topics, like seafood cooking, or are centred around the recipes of a celebrity chef. Is there a modern general purpose cook book available at a reasonable price?
Go to a used book store and get an older copy of Joy of Cooking. Under no circumstances get the most recent addition. It blows. But the previous editions have recipes and techniques for just about everything, and the basics are easily adaptable to whatever you want to do.
I’ve been using The Fannie Farmer Cookbook for years. The complete text of the last cookbook actually written entirely by this recipe pioneer is available online here. I like these books because they not only contain a huge number of recipes, but also explain the basic techniques of cooking, along with important stuff about selecting meats and vegetables. My copy really taught me how to cook fairly well. You can browse through the book at Amazon to see if it suits your needs. I hope these aren’t too American to suit you.
Did I actually type “addition” instead of “edition?” Much shame. :o :smack:
The 3 “bibles” of my kitchen are JoC, Betty Crocker, and the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I own at least 50 cookbooks, but I keep going back to these for 80% of the recipes I don’t know by heart.
Add my voice to the chorus in favor of the Betty Crocker book. I like that one too, second only to my beat up, held together by a rubber band Fannie Farmer.
It’s not a traditional cookbook as much as it is a “theory of cooking” book, but I’d recommend Alton Brown’s “I’m Just Here For The Food.” It explains the reasoning behind a lot of standard cooking methods, and includes some easy-but-good recipes too.
I have the Better Homes & Gardens book. It’s really good for basic recipes. It has a lot of recipes labeled “fast” also. Mine’s a loose-leaf binder type of thing I got c. 1986.
I also have a semi-campy Encyclopedia of Cooking put out by, I think, Southwest Book Publishing. It has at least five different recipes for every dish. Plus a whole section for cooking wild game. Moose and gopher included. I think it’s a hoot … but if I want to cook something really Americana, like Cabbage Rolls or macaroni salad, that’s where I look.
Do you still use cup/Tbsp/Fahrenheit measurements in the UK? If not, it might be a real pain working from an American cookbook like Fannie Farmer. Just a thought. I don’t know if Joy of Cooking/Fannie Farmer provide metric measurements for every recipe, or just a conversion table in the back. I do really love Joy of Cooking, although it seems like not all their recipes are carefully tested (e.g. I made baked beans following the recipe in the book, had to cook them about twice as long as recommended, and they came out absolutely swimming in liquid)
My suggestion: I really love Lindsay Bareham’s cookbooks–they’re not the 1500-recipe type but they are small, interesting, simple, and in my opinion, perfect for someone going off to university and getting ready to cook all their own meals. I have cooked many of the recipes from "Supper Won’t Take Long " and all of them have turned out delicious. I also own A Wolf in the Kitchen, which is aimed towards young, hungry, poor folks. They are written for the UK, using metric measurements, but I’ve overcome this annoyance and converted her recipes to US measurements because they’re just that good.