What's on your cookbook shelf?

Cafe Society
1

With all of the online sites for recipes and everything gleaned from the Food Network, I was wondering what cookbooks the average foodie Doper still kept on their shelf.

I’m not generally an extremely fancy cook, although I can be, and my shelf reflects the type of cooking that I do when there’s someone here to eat it.

Here’s mine:

The Joy of Cooking - from the seventies, classic company stuff

Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breadmaking - my breadmaking bible.

Betty Crocker’s Cookbook - 1978 edition, good , basic stuff. I’ve given copies to several people with minimal cooking skills, who were just starting out housekeeping.

Recipes for Diabetics and Diabetic Cooking - bought these when I was first diagnosed to get an idea of what types of meals to fix.

All Day, All Night Snack Book - I love this one for potlucks, work snack days and ball game gatherings.

Greatest Ever Salads - good when I’m stumped for what to do with my Farmer’s Market finds.

Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook - this is another good basic one.

The Spatulatta Cookbook - I’ve given copies of this to some of the kids in my world. I also gave a copy to my dad when he was learning to cook after Mom’s health moved that chore to him. Possibly the best kids’ cookbook ever.

Betty Crocker’s New Dinner for Two - 1964, vintage and a hoot to read.

Mom and Me Cookbook - for when kids are in the kitchen with me.

White Trash Cooking, Sinkin’ Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravings and White Trash Gatherings - this is stuff I was raised on. Worth their weight in gold for the stories and pics.

Half a dozen church lady-type cookbooks - comfort food.

What’s on your shelf?

2

I just aquired my mums cookbook collection [some 400 or so] and the 2 recipe boxes of handwriten 3x5 cards. I have no idea what all I have, though I did just buy a silk route cookbook from the American Museum of Natural History’s gift store when we were there last weekend. havent made anything out of it yet, though they have a rice stuffed baked apple that looks good …

3

I have tons of 'em.

The ones that get prime shelf space in the kitchen are:

  • The Joy of Cooking

  • Cook’s Illustrated “The Best Recipe”

  • Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio, The Elements of Cooking, and Charcuterie

  • Giuliano’s Hazan’s “The Classic Pasta Cookbook” (I had no clue what a following that book has until I just looked it up on Amazon to get the correct spelling. It’s out of print and gets great reviews. I knew it was a great book, didn’t realize everyone else did!)

  • a binder with a collection of recipes printed out from various web sites (Cook’s Illustrated, NY Times, etc)

  • The Food Lover’s Companion and The Wine Lover’s Companion

  • A Betty Crocker from the early 60s, for the comfort food that they left out of the newer editions

  • Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (both volumes)

  • A couple bread baking books that I can’t remember the names of.

I know there’s more, but those are the ones that get the most use. Mostly nowadays I use cookbooks as reference, if I’m following a recipe carefully it’s almost always something I found in Mark Bittman’s NY Times column or off the Ruhlman site. The exception to that is Charcuterie. I’m on a meat kick lately, and I carry that book around with me more often then not, as I plot my next sausage experiment.

4

I’ve got a load, in particular The Silver Spoon, The French Kitchen and Delia’s Vegetarian Collection, which has some great recipes even if I’m as carnivorous as they come.

5

I’ve got:
[ul]
[li]The Joy of Cooking, 70s edition[/li][li]Better Homes And Gardens New Cookbook[/li][li]Several in the Company’s Coming series[/li][li]500 Low-Carb Recipes, by Dana Carpender[/li][/ul]
among others

6

Too many to count. Heck, there’s an entire shelf just of BBQ books. But the ones that sit on the top shelf include:

**-Joy of Cooking, both the 1973 and the most recent editions

-Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook

-Serious Pig by John Thorne

-Lowbush Cranberry and Highbush Moose (a collection of Alaskan recipes)

-several Bobby Flay books

-a dozen or so "church lady/Junior League cookbooks from around the country**

There is also a large notebook filled with recipes culled from magazines over the years, along with recipes swiped from my mother and other relatives.

7

I’m envious! :slight_smile: Especially of the written recipe cards. I have a few of my mom’s and grandmother’s and they’re a treasure.

8

Aren’t the Julia Child books available in more than one edition? If so, do you have a recommendation as to which is best? I’m thinking of adding these to my collection.

9

Barbeque at silenus’s house! :stuck_out_tongue:

10

I don’t think there’s more than one edition. There’s two volumes, published 9 years apart.

They’re quite pricey to buy them both - Amazon has a two-volume set for $56. My suggestion is to keep your eyes open at used book stores. That’s where I found mine.

And, for the record, I mostly use them as reference, not the actual recipes. As much as I like classic French food, I’m not usually up for 3 days of cooking for one meal. :smiley:

11

I have tons of cookbooks. What I need is THE FOOD TO COOK.

Basic Joyacookin, Betty Crocker. Everything by Jane and Michael Stern, as much fun to read as using the recipes. The New Best Recipe. The church lady/jr. league bound cookbooks, useful for 40 versions of meatloaf or pasta salad. The Bentley Farm Cookbook, quaint and country-ish, written in cursive. Several historical cookbooks…oh, Dinner and a Movie cookbook - remember Paul, Claude, and Annabel, on TBS? (gonna make Clams Casino any day now, I mean it). My old favorite, use it way too often, I Hate To Cook by Peg Bracken (corollary: the utterly delightful I Hate To Cook Almanack)…a few rich-yuppie/Martha Stewart-ish cookbooks…The Wind in the Willows Country Cookbook (English)…Cooking With The Saints…and assorted tomes by Mr. Food and the Frugal Gourmet. And I love Mark Bittman, he is a genius… It’s actually easier to look up a recipe online now, but I love my cookbooks.

12

There is a great column on Slate this week comparing The Pioneer Woman and Thomas Keller.

I agree, sorta. Or maybe I disagree, sorta. I like French food, but I loathe French cuisine. Michelin can take their stars and stuff them. I’ll eat with the farm-hands.

13

Keller isn’t really French food, though. Sure, there’s definitely a French influence, but it’s hard to find chefs/recipes without any French influence at all.

But he’s definitely similar to “Mastering the Art…” in that his recipes take a ton of ingredients and a lot of time. I don’t have “Ad Hoc at Home”, but I’ve got a few other of his cookbooks, and they’re pure porn. I’ve made a few things out of them, but once again, I use them mostly as reference - I’ll flip open to a recipe for Duck Breasts, steal his seasonings, but skip the brining, the 3 fussy garnishes, and the $25/pound must-ship-in-from-California fancy Moulard duck.

But that’s a good article - thanks for the link. I’m somewhere in between Keller and the Pioneer Woman, myself. Pioneer woman uses too many processed ingredients for my taste, and as I don’t actually work on a ranch all day, I simply can’t eat her fatty, sugary recipes. Don’t get me wrong - I love butter immensely - but mashed potatoes themselves are a very-rare treat, and not something I need to put butter, cream cheese (!), and half-and-half into. Honestly, it doesn’t even sound good to me.

Keller, on the other hand, is not realistic for even the most serious home cook. At least not one with a job and a life.

14

Lots of the classics. Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Joy of Cooking (don’t ask which editions, mostly newer ones). Some other favourites are a slow cooker book (wonderful desserts and I love the pork chop recipe in it), anything by Michael Smith (good simple recipes which encourage experimentation with lots of options) or Sandi Richards (cooking for people who don’t have time to cook, lots of easy recipes and tips on meal planning with recipes clearl marked on how much time it takes to make… Including prep.) One of my absolute favourites is Out Of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens. I use it the most for biscuits, pies and cookies but it also has quirky recipes and a bit of history about the people of Nova Scotia through it’s food.

15

One ancient book from the 50s or so, called (I think) “Let’s start to cook”, plus a book of Gramma’s most popular recipes, edited by my Mom and given to all of the kin. I use the latter much more often.

Oh, and a PDF copy of a cookbook several members of the physics department put together, for all those recipes you bring to a potluck and say you’ll share when people ask, but never get around to it.

16

We have a bookcase full of them. My wife likes cookbooks, and I get them for gifts, and my aunt had a collection much of which she gave to us. We have Julia Child (but don’t use it much) several editions of Joy of Cooking, and several of Fannie Farmer (including the original) which is really helpful in figuring out how to deal with odd cuts of meat. We also have a dozen or so Weight Watchers cook books, which are pretty good. We have Beard on Bread, we have a bunch of specialized books on meats and vegetables, we have an old UN cookbook, we have the Nero Wolfe cookbook, with recipes for dishes mentioned in the books, and we have a bunch of books on Chinese, Japanese, and Thai cooking.
And half a copy of a book on cooking ground beef that I lived on as an undergrad.

When we plan meals Saturday morning we drag out a bunch of cookbooks and look through to see which favorites to make and new recipes which look interesting and which work for what is on sale.

We also have a book which has pages in which you write pointers to cookbooks with recipes you have tried and liked. And we have a looseleaf notebook with recipes printed from the web, and a card box with my wife’s mother’s favorites.

17

My tastes are a little … eclectic. One of the stars in my collection is Ukrainian Cuisine. They say never judge a book by it’s cover, but in this case it’s a good guide. Very 1975. Very Soviet.

18

Off the top of my head, the Gourmet cookbook, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, The Best Recipes in the World (same), an old and a new Betty Crocker Cookbook, and Pam Anderson’s Perfect Recipes for Having People Over. There are a bunch more on a bookshelf, but I know all of those are actually on a shelf in the pantry. How to Cook Everything is looking a big dogeared, and by “a bit,” I mean “the spine is broken and pages are falling out.”

19

Could you recommend a Fannie Farmer cookbook for a reasonably skilled, once-or-twice a week cook? I’m an omnivore with an adventurous palet, as are most of my guests, so I’m game (and eat it) for something different.

20

The Anniversary Edition is quite good. It’s be revised and up-dated, but still has the basics that FF has always been good with. The originals are still available, if you like cookbooks from the 1890s.