Well I finally went and did it. Here are my cookbook favorites, and things I bought because they were cool. I'm sorry if you came here expecting whatever you were expecting, but no. This isn't that kind of place.
OK fine it is that kind of place but still.
COOKSBOOKS, PEOPLE. Talkin' bout cookbooks. My cookbooks. There should be a little something to please everybody!
All right, settle down.
We all knew that was going to happen. You did, I did, and yes, it did happen.
OK. Now for cookbooks.
SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111 hahahahahahaa!
What? It's Halloween! See, and that's ^^^ scary, right? Ha ha! Oh my!
OK it was Halloween a couple of days ago.
OK fine fine fine cookbooks.
Fine.
Whenever I am really interested in something, I like to have one central reference book, something well-organized and well-researched, that opens the door to the whole subject. Joy has been my core reference since 1979. It has never let me down.
The Joy of Cooking isn't just recipes, it's an introductory course as well- I learned the basics from this book. I doubt that one in fifty people ever give this the reading it deserves.
I own the 1976 edition. I also own a 1945 edition, and the differences between the two are incredibly interesting.
If you're me.
Two have gone on before, used to rags. This is my third copy. I've got decades of weirdness saved in the pages
...including this picture of a butt that my grandson drew.
The Art of Italian Cooking
My first Italian cookbook (1975?) and one that I still use.
This is the first recipe I ever made out of it, and it is the only ravioli recipe you'll ever need.
Of course I have the Alice B. Toklas cookbook.
Of course I've made the 'Hashish Fudge'.
Tell you what, that shit is tasty, too.
It'll fuck you up.
The ABTC is more than a collection of recipes, though. It's the story of how life was in pre-WWII France, what home was like, and friends, and survival. Plus you get 'take no prisoners' - level recipes. Do please give it a read. It is wonderful!
-oh and lets get it straight for the last time - she didn't make pot brownies. She made HASHISH FUDGE. Damn kids and their jungle music.
Got Escoffier.
The whole tone of this book is one of absolute authority. I found that offputting, but I soldiered onward. I'm glad I took the trouble:
These three paragraphs on stock ^^^ changed the way I cook. I've spent hours and hours of my life perfecting this one basic thing, using the information and techniques here, and it's been one of the most worthwhile things I've ever learned in my life.
I have made a few of the sauces, the terrines and pate's, and also the chicken galantine, which is SO AWESOME. It is not easy. I seldom come close. But I LEARN SO MUCH. This whole book is absolute, solid gold. Get a copy. Or you can
read it online at the Internet Archive.
Go. Do it.
Now.
I love my Larousse!
Excellent rainy day reading. Just let it fall open to any page and settle in. Ahh!
"... and if you're not careful you might learn something!"
-not said in Bill Cosby's voice at all.
You can learn how to deal with weird fish!
You can check out what your ancestors did to amuse themselves!
NATURALLY.
OF COURSE.
The thing people don't understand about Mastering The Art Of French Cooking is that these books are simplicity itself. Clear as a bell, easy to understand, pictures, diagrams, all that. If it were still 1965 I would not hesitate to give these to a new bride (of the auld American bridal stripe - dumb as a bag of hammers, never been near a kitchen, was playing with Barbies the morning of the ceremony.)
Of course the word 'French' is frightening all on it's own to most Americans
OH MY GOD NO SAUTEEING HOW IS THAT PRONOUNCED NO GOD RUN EEK
and I think that's why more people don't turn to these when they look for a good basic cookbook.
Yes! Julia! These are good, basic cookbooks! So what if the woman uses a lot of French words? She explains them! Go on, give her a chance!
You gotta figure, they cook in space.
But no, you cannot see inside. It's CLASSIFIED.
This is arguably the most important cooking collection I have: It was owned by my father-in-law, The Playboy of the Western World, and it is the work of his lifetime.
The Bikers' father was a professional chef for, shit...40 years, I think. This box of recipes was originally his grandmothers. She died and passed it to her daughter, who added to it, and passed it to her son, the Playboy, who added to it and passed it to his son, my husband. The Playboy had a Master's degree in food biology but he never took a cooking class in his life. His mother taught him how to cook when he was a little kid out on the farm, on a wood-fired stove.
Imagine that.
The contents of this little box supported his family, paid for his bills, his house, his cars, his worldwide travels and etc., and made him a famous and respected man in his corner of the world, in his time.
Now this I had to own.
No I do not use it.
I own it.
OMG look at it. You want it too. You know what I mean.
Whu-haaaaaaay back in the day, my aunt Winnie had a rooty-toot, no expense spared Westinghouse kitchen c.1940, and I mean top of the line chrome and enamel and style and all. Seriously, check out that link. It has a picture of that very kitchen. Anyway, this is the cookbook that they gave you with the installation, and isn't it a honey! It's in a polished aluminum case! It had its own little nook by the stove, too! I remember her making sugar cookies with this lying open on the table. So when it came up online, SWOOPABUNGA I nabbed the sapsucker.
IT IS SO TUFF OMG.
That Super Chicken cookbook? Also one of my first cookbooks c1976. Just something off the 'impulse purchase' rack by the checkstand in a Thriftways supermarket. It has a recipe for vermouth chicken that I cannot live without.
Not just one, but TWO, PEOPLE, TWO Iona Blender cookbooks, just because I can.
(You get it? Iona = I Own A? Huh? Huh?)
Yes, I bought the blender, and so now IONA-BLENDER too.
But it was busted ass, so the Biker turned it into a lamp for me, and
I do.
Tell you what, it IS fun to fondue! Just not with the fondue set on the cover.
Now with the cold weather setting in, this book is out ready to be used, and I'm planning on fon-doing a pot the first day it snows! YUM.
Now the cover of this one is hard to make out. See it more clearly here:
linkieIt is the foot of a duck.
It is The Web-Foot Cookbook. Yes indeedy.
-well it's a facsimile copy. Fine.
I only got this one recently, after having lusted for it for literal decades. It claims to be the first cookbook published in Portland, Oregon, back in the days of jackleg races, bicycle girls, shanghai tunnels and cheap household labor. All the leading ladies of the day contributed. You can practically hear their voices as you read. You feel kind of sorry for their servants too. Some of this stuff had to be murder to make in the days before electricity and refrigeration.
Indiana Herbs the Herb Doctor and Medicine Man.
Not a cookbook, strictly speaking, although it gives recipes for all kinds of concoctions.
I've owned this little booklet for-freakin'-ever and I love it. This is a catalogue that was sent primarily to doctors and pharmacists, small enough to carry in your pocket.
You could buy herbs in bulk for dying, manufacturing, cooking, for remedies, for veterinary purposes, and for...OTHER...purposes.
Ahem.
Cough.
.....I'm talking about getting high, and 'easing the torment of the terminally ill' and abortifacients and syphillis 'cures' and shit like that. Geeze, catch up.
OK here is my guilty secret.
How to know if someone grew up on the West Coast during the 1960s:
Do they have a copy of Hi Protein Meatless Health Recipes falling to pieces on their shelf? If yes, then pull up a bowl of lentils and I don't know where I was going with that thought.
Sit in it? Sure.
Paul Bragg was... well, here we go, in his own words:
Yes, well.
And he was sincere in the beginning, I do believe. But then he got famous, and moved to Hawaii, and stopped giving much of a fuck.
But nobody cared. Somehow along the way he had managed to hook into the West Coast Counterculture group mind and stick there like a paisley amyloid plaque. This cookbook was being passed around everywhere for a few years. I saw it in waiting rooms. I saw it in the library on the 'free' table. People were leaving it in public places like a religious tract.
I think half the reason he garnered so much credibility is the fact that the line of products he was pushing were, and still are, really, really good .*
Here is a little gem from it's pages:
Folks, he means a quesadilla.
OMG SO ADORABLE SQUEEEEEEEE
Until you read
...this nonsense,
...which lets you know that by this time he was pretty firmly in the pocket of Big Grocery, far from his idealistic roots in the early physical culture scene and all it's attendant
woo.
The first couple of years after I moved out, this is how I ate. Strictly, mind. This is how 3/4 of Portland was eating, too. And in fact this is how I prefer to eat to this day, wonderful big heaps of glorious, glorious produce, baby, only with bacon and fried chicken because I'm not an idiot.
OK WOW that was fun, right? Yes it was! And now you know all about my favorite cookbooks, or at least most of my favorite cookbooks. I left out a few because this was getting long.
I hope you're happy. I feel pretty good about it.
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*Braggs Liquid Aminos - that's him. Well not now, he's dead and Katy Perry owns the company. And I guess the apple cider vinegars taste different now.
