What cookbooks that aren't newly published do you like the most?

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

The 1896 Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer is what I use for dishes I remember from my childhood because they are all in there. Otherwise I never use a cookbook. It stifles my creativity!

 

[taxlady]

I use recipe for dishes that sound good, especially ones that I have never tasted. I find that I learn a lot from trying new-to-me stuff. It gives me new ways of doing stuff and new ideas, new ingredients. I find that it enhances my creativity.

 

[Marlingardener]

My "creativity" is limited to adding a bit, subtracting a bit from recipes.
I couldn't and wouldn't do without my cookbooks. Like Taxlady, I learn from new-to-me recipes. Here in the back of nowhere, many ingredients are impossible to find, but I try the recipe with what I can get my mitts on, and usually it works out well.

 

[pepperhead212]

Especially with a cuisine that I'm new with, I know I couldn't come up with the recipes that have been developed over the centuries in their places of origin, by just taking 20 spices, for instance, and and making an Indian spice mix. And many seasonings are what I term essential - while I see some recipes where people have substituted things like lemon zest for lemongrass, or lime zest for lime leaves, when making Thai food, or the carob powder in place of chocolate, they are simply aren't even close. And how 'bout all those baking dishes - all those bread recipes, with a lot of the science behind it, in some of my favorite books, and those favorite cookie and dessert recipes in my favorite books of Maida Heatter. How would I have ever come up with those recipes - trial and error? After making a lot of some things, it's easy to make some variations, but especially with baking, which requires more exact measuring, it's not easy to just throw something together at random, and get the same recipe every time.

 

[bethzaring]

Including all the cookbooks Aunt Bea mentioned...I also still use Whole Foods for the Whole Family, published by the La Leche League in 1981.

 

[GotGarlic]

I didn't say that Spag Bol was a British dish. It was not included in the recipes in my first post about a recipe book by Marguerite Patten.

In my second post, about an entirely different cook book, about "Recipes of the World" I entered an opinion that the recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese was an excellent one.

I know you didn't - I did Just joking. It's my understanding that it's pretty popular, there.

 

[emilymh2018]

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is one of my all-time faves. I would never have gotten into cooking (aside from microwaving things to warm them up) without Julia Child.

Also love Joy of Cooking -- have both the classic and the 75th Anniversary editions.

Old church cookbooks are also something I love, because they have the old-timey Minnesota hotdish recipes that are still classic comfort food in the cold months.

 

[Badjak]

I got lots of cookbooks.
I read them like a novel, and I use them for ideas.
Favourite ones is difficult. I suppose I have to go to the ones I pick up most often (i'm excluding bread baking books as those recipes I actually follow)

Most used:
Indonesian cookbook in Dutch. No pictures, just recipes that work
Raichlen: Planet Barbecue for the large variety of countries covered
Woman's weekly (I'm a bit embarrased, but some good recipes, esp their Thai & Vietnamese ones)
My Thai cooking course book full if endearing spelling mistakes
Vivek Singh: Curry (contributions from lots of others)
Madhur Jaffray: everything
Harold McGee: on food & cooking
& My home brewing books

 

[IC 2.0]

Off the top of my head...

• On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee
• Culinary Artistry, Andrew Dornenburg
• Alinea, Grant Achatz
• The French Laundry Cookbook, Thomas Keller
• Sauces, James Peterson
• Charlie Trotter's, Charlie Trotter
• On the Line, Eric Ripert
• The New Cuisine of Hawaii (Various chefs--this book really got me interested in food and cooking)
• Momofuku, David Chang
• Happy in the Kitchen, Michel Richard

 

[taxlady]

I'm very fond of Joy of Cooking, I have a couple of editions and my big Danish cookbook, Mesterkokkens Store Kogebog.

I have loads more that I like, but I have to include this one that I forgot to mention, Julia Child's The Way to Cook. From just about anyone else, I wouldn't get a cookbook with that name, sounds too arrogant, but she could get away with it.

 

[Marlingardener]

I agree! Joy of Cooking has great recipes, but also explanations. When our plumber brought us a piglet "dressed out" but whole carcass, I went to Joy to find out how to cut it up.
And Julia Child--all of her cookbooks are great! Julia could get away with being a bit arrogant, but she was also funny, terribly competent, and smart as a whip.
I really must go through my cookbooks and thin the ranks. (That won't happen--these are more than cookbooks, they are memory binders and old friends).

 

[taxlady]

I agree! Joy of Cooking has great recipes, but also explanations. When our plumber brought us a piglet "dressed out" but whole carcass, I went to Joy to find out how to cut it up.
And Julia Child--all of her cookbooks are great! Julia could get away with being a bit arrogant, but she was also funny, terribly competent, and smart as a whip.
I really must go through my cookbooks and thin the ranks. (That won't happen--these are more than cookbooks, they are memory binders and old friends).

I tend to think of my copy of Joy of Cooking, the version from the 1970s, as a mini cooking encyclopedia. We used it a lot when I lived in a log cabin in the late 1970s to early 1980s. We used it when we had to butcher an entire moose and also for deer. How to dress a whole snowshoe hare. (We were broke. Snowshoe hare was our main protein all winter long.) How to can jams and tomatoes and make chutneys. Very, very useful cookbook.

 

[KatyCooks]

I guess, once you understand that there are some "basics" about things like sauces, stews, cooking meat (and cooking different types of meat in different ways), vegetables, salads, herbs, spices and balancing all those things - you hardly need a cookbook at all! But I still love cookbooks for the inspiration and just reinforcing what you think you know. (Don't get me started on baking...) I still pick up a cookbook given to me by my ex sister-in-law every time I make the very simple Carbonara ... I don't need to look at that recipe - but I do! (It is tied with a ribbon, so there is a sort of ritual of undoing the ribbon - I know the gift was given to me with care.)

 

[Cooking Goddess]

While I don't exactly "like the most", I am glad that I have an exhaustive reference book called "The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery". It was last published in 1971, as far as I can find. Himself bought it for me shortly after we got married. Figured if his Mom found it useful, I might like it. While I may have made one recipe from the book, I do pull it out when I want to identify or learn about an ingredient.

 

[CharlieD]

I have a whole bookshelves of cook books, but I rarely use them, if ever. I usually here about a good recipe and end up buying the whole book, since obviously I cannot buy just one page . So, I prefer to ask question here.

 

[letscook]

I miss the fundraiser and church cookbooks, I love finding old-old cookbooks ,