Cookbook series

[JAZ]

In this topic on the cookbooks that shaped us, a few series of cookbooks have been mentioned: Sunset books and the Time-Life Foods of the Worlds spring to mind. Other than those, I know that Williams-Sonoma has a selection of single-subject cookbooks, and of course there's the "Beautiful" series, but I'm not very familiar with any others. I'm sure they're out there, although it seems to me that series aren't as popular as they used to be in cookbook publishing. So maybe the series that are worth checking out are old ones, but maybe I just don't know about the contemporary ones that are available.

Are there series that are worth buying today? Which old series are worth tracking down? Is it just a collector's passion, or can one actually cook from these?

[Wholemeal Crank]

I have several volumes of the Time-Life Good Cook series, and find them excellent with clear photographs of some things that were otherwise confusing, and the back of the volumes have a quite wide variety of recipes from disparate sources. Unlike most of my other books, there is no one author's voice, but the recipes always work. I particularly use the Candy and the Cookie & cracker volumes, the latter being particularly useful as a source of cracker recipes--a topic that gets short shrift in most baking books.

[mbhank]

Wholemeal beat me to it. The Good Cook along with Foods of The World by Time Life are considered two of the best series ever published. I still go back to recipes in both those sets.

I noticed also that the series seemed to die out. Williams-Sonoma is the only one who seems to be publishing series. Their world cities is pretty good.

[Lisa Shock]

I have the Grand Diplome Cooking Course (20 volumes), 1971, edited by Ann Willan, published & re-published several times by both Danbury Press and Grolier. It is a solid series of books, my only criticism is that each volume represents a couple of meals, so the subject matter is scattershot throughout the volumes. It does have great photos and detailed diagrams, and takes the reader through the basics of French cuisine.

(edited to add the date!)

Edited October 25, 2009 by Lisa Shock (log)

[Martin Fisher]

For what it's worth, Rozanne Gold has written a series of 3-ingredient cookbooks.