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Cookbooks – How Many Do You Own? (Part 2)


JAZ

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Add 53 for me...I feel so inadequate....BUT, I do have the small (falling apart) cookbook that my great grandmother brought with her from NY to Kansas in a covered wagon.

Oooh, what a treasure! It may not get eGullet closer to the moon (or was it Mars?), but its value is inestimable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

17 more for me this week, including a gift, several used and Patricia Wells' latest The Provence Cookbook. Also, a nice copy in hardcover of The Victory Garden Cookbook, Jeremiah Tower's New American Classics, an uncorrected proof of Fig Heaven by Marie Simmons(due out next month) and F&W's Best of the Best, 6th edition. In this, 25 cookbook authors are asked what books/authors are on their nightstand and many mention two of my very favorites, Paula Wolfert and Maida Heatter. My book group read The Devil in the White City which I highly recommend. It's about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition which gave us Juicy Fruit gum, Aunt Jemima's pancake mix, Cracker Jack and Shredded Wheat.

Judy Amster

Cookbook Specialist and Consultant

amsterjudy@gmail.com

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I'll keep a running total.  Awbrig, don't forget to count the Nancy Silverton book we borrowed.

It's relaxing.  Glass of wine in hand, go out there and count.

well, as a former cook, and a grad of Miss Farmers (yes Virginia there really was a ol dame named Fanny the Farmer) which closed (after 75 years) in 77 due to the encroachment of Johnson and Wales, I'd say 150 give or take the latest one I just got "The Balthezar Cookbook"

A LOT of them are church and community ones I have been given/inheritated from the past pastor. These are fascinating and very collectable as they are histories of communities.

My leasr fav is the "Road Kill Cookbook", which ,unfortunatly is serious. My fav is still the 9th (war) edition of Fanny Farmer's, which was my Moms.

Edited by rokinrev (log)

"As an ancestor of the next generation, ask yourself what history will you leave behind?"

~~ Ginny Salkowski: 2002 ~~

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3,246 readily accessible......My collections consists of everything from an 1814 Farm Woman's Cook book to The Peasant Breads of France. I'm lucky enough to be the recipient of all the family heirloom cookbooks from both paternal and maternal branches of the family. Community/Club/Church cookbooks also fill a good portion of this number. My favorite collection though........is all the receipts I have of hastily scribbled down receipts :smile: .......dating back to my great -great-great grandmother.

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79. And to think I thought that was a lot before seeing this thread. :blink:

I haven't finished reading about half of them, and around 20 of them I got in just the last month thanks to egullet. So, no more cookbook buying for me until I deal with what I've got first.

This is surely the fast track to wrecking a student budget.

Pat

"I... like... FOOD!" -Red Valkyrie, Gauntlet Legends-

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3,246 readily accessible......My collections consists of everything from an 1814 Farm Woman's Cook book to The Peasant Breads of France.  I'm lucky enough to be the recipient of all the family heirloom cookbooks from both paternal and maternal branches of the family.  Community/Club/Church cookbooks also fill a good portion of this number.  My favorite collection though........is all the receipts I have of hastily scribbled down receipts :smile: .......dating back to my great -great-great grandmother.

What an incredible heritage! Welcome to eGullet, Redtressed.

Oh, and one more for me: The Balthazar Cookbook.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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My favorite collection though........is all the receipts I have of hastily scribbled down receipts :smile: .......dating back to my great -great-great grandmother.

I am seriously envious of this. My own screwed up family life means this was never going to be an option, but even so, I do wish there was some way I could have recorded recipes of all the things I grew up eating.

If nothing else, for those of you who still have parents, grandparents and relatives alive and kicking, get recipes from them before they pass on.

Pat

"I... like... FOOD!" -Red Valkyrie, Gauntlet Legends-

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Sleepy_Dragon Posted on Apr 12 2004, 06:44 PM

  79. And to think I thought that was a lot before seeing this thread. 

... So, no more cookbook buying for me until I deal with what I've got first.

Oh, how this thread makes me laugh, and Sleepy_Dragon makes me laugh the most!

I have on the order of 160 cookbooks, not counting the copy of _The Kitchen Detective_ on its way, and not counting the strays crammed into binders, the piles of interesting newspaper sections cluttering the corner of the spare bedroom, and the recipe boxes and magazines. I've been thinking it was pathological excess until I stumbled onto this thread and discovered (my poor husband!) that I'm Not The Only One Who Collects Cookbooks, and that Things Could Be (Far) Worse. Then, I read Sleepy_Dragon's comments, echoing my own futile efforts at managing the wealth: "No more until I've dealt with what I already have." Bwaahaahaa! How often have I said that? :laugh:

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Welcome, Smithy!

Maggie, dahlink, I'm almost hopelessly muddled at this point as to which ones I have and haven't logged, but I believe I have another seven to report. Mostly more boozy stuff from the aftermath of the bitters impulse, but also a couple of fascinating tangents: Plants of Life, Plants of Death by Frederick Simoons (same guy who writ Eat Not This Flesh - how could I not have known about this book before?!?!), also Curtin and Heldke's Cooking, Eating, Thinking (which sounds awfully close to "read, chew, discuss," if you ask me) - plus Gillian Riley's A Feast for the Eyes (which I shall have to re-order because it wasn't available, but I promise I will, partly for the pleasure of it and partly to see whether or not it makes my lurking idea of "Pies in Art" redundant). Oh, and give me joy: Soyer's A Culinary Campaign (logged when I ordered it) is just come to hand.

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Yet another one for me -- The Jewish Creole Cookbook.

I'm blaming this one on Balmagowry because she kept talking about the wonders of used books so I wandered into a second-hand bookstore and found it. :laugh:

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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60,975. Good gracious, fellow addicts, you have been busy indeed. And welcome to the thread, new eGullet members.

Now I'm going to go back and carefully read every post. I saw at least ten titles I really, really have the hots for. Hmmm. I've been a Good Girl for waaay too long.

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

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Yet another one for me -- The Jewish Creole Cookbook.

I'm blaming this one on Balmagowry because she kept talking about the wonders of used books so I wandered into a second-hand bookstore and found it.  :laugh:

Cool! If you were expecting me to be bowed down with remorse, expect again. Nothing is more satisfying than wickedly influencing people into doing what they want to do anyway. Especially when it's acquiring more delicious juicy books!

(And wasn't the store wonderful? Didn't you just love the smell of it? Didn't you just want to inhale the whole inventory? Oooh - you're in NY aren't you? So... which store?)

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hopefully none of you are acquiring them as this woman did in bettendorf, iowa:

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnew.../bettendorf.htm

i am slowly getting rid of the ones i own. in preparation for retirement and moving HIMSELF has decreed we are not moving all the books we own at this moment but must lose about half the inventory...

Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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Three more for me:

Artisan Baking Across America, Maggie Glezer,

Breads from the La Brea Bakery, Nancy Silverton, and

The Bread Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum*

* I already regret this purchase, but I got it cheap. Does it still count?

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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Only 5 more for me from the Friends of the Library sale. This is the first time in many years that I didn't make it to the members presale and they were already pretty picked over by 11:00 AM. There were actually many like new books, but I already bought them, like, new.

Judy Amster

Cookbook Specialist and Consultant

amsterjudy@gmail.com

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At least 2 more for me: A New Way to Cook and Claudia Roden's Picnic. I found the Roden book at a garage sale this morning where I hope I also enlisted a new member for eGullet - the lady has over 1,000 cookbooks!

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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61585, SWAGing Brad's booksleves. (Seth, why are you regretting Bread Bible? I don't like her pizza dough recipe, but some others are simply amazing. Try the foccaccia -- the dough is improbably loose and runny, buy oh my! the results.)

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

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Yet another one for me -- The Jewish Creole Cookbook.

I'm blaming this one on Balmagowry because she kept talking about the wonders of used books so I wandered into a second-hand bookstore and found it.  :laugh:

Cool! If you were expecting me to be bowed down with remorse, expect again. Nothing is more satisfying than wickedly influencing people into doing what they want to do anyway. Especially when it's acquiring more delicious juicy books!

(And wasn't the store wonderful? Didn't you just love the smell of it? Didn't you just want to inhale the whole inventory? Oooh - you're in NY aren't you? So... which store?)

I love all bookstores and libraries -- I can spend my days getting lost in them. I'm totally with you on the smell. I find it very comforting.

The store I found the book in is called Westsider Rare & Used Books on Broadway btw 80th and 81st. I think it used to be called Gryphon. I walked by this store thousands of times over the years and somehow avoided it until three weeks ago. :huh:

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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The store I found the book in is called Westsider Rare & Used Books on Broadway btw 80th and 81st.  I think it used to be called Gryphon.  I walked by this store thousands of times over the years and somehow avoided it until three weeks ago.  :huh:

OMG, that is where Gryphon used to be! When I lived at 90th & Columbus I used to wallow in that place at least once a week. It's not the same owners now, is it? Last I heard Gryphon had moved around the corner, and then I think eventually they folded, more's the pity. Didn't know there was a bookstore in the space again - oh dear, now it's your turn to be a bad influence, I may just have to make a pilgrimage back to that old haunt. Do they still have two levels?

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The store I found the book in is called Westsider Rare & Used Books on Broadway btw 80th and 81st.  I think it used to be called Gryphon.  I walked by this store thousands of times over the years and somehow avoided it until three weeks ago.  :huh:

OMG, that is where Gryphon used to be! When I lived at 90th & Columbus I used to wallow in that place at least once a week. It's not the same owners now, is it? Last I heard Gryphon had moved around the corner, and then I think eventually they folded, more's the pity. Didn't know there was a bookstore in the space again - oh dear, now it's your turn to be a bad influence, I may just have to make a pilgrimage back to that old haunt. Do they still have two levels?

It's exactly as you describe it. Floor to ceiling shelves stocked with books on two levels. The cookbooks are in the back.

I assume there's new ownership.

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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I must preface this post by stating my current living situation. I am a 21 year old college student who still lives at home. All of my cookbooks are on my bookshelves in my room (along with my Le Cruseut Cookware, which my family is not allowed to touch).

Not including all of my mother's cookbooks, which I occasionally use, I have approx. 76 cookbooks (with one on the way: "The New York Times Passover Cookbook".

Shannon

my new blog: http://uninvitedleftovers.blogspot.com

"...but I'm good at being uncomfortable, so I can't stop changing all the time...be kind to me, or treat me mean...I'll make the most of it I'm an extraordinary machine."

-Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

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(Seth, why are you regretting Bread Bible? I don't like her pizza dough recipe, but some others are simply amazing.  Try the foccaccia -- the dough is improbably loose and runny, buy oh my! the results.)

I don't want to go off-topic, but since you asked, here's a little rant/review:

I posted a sort of minireview of the book here, which was kind of negative, and then I decided I was being ungenerous. The book has lots of good info about the bread-making process (and particularly good tutorials on shaping loaves), and I've liked the breads I've made from the book (particularly the spoonbread), so why not buy it?

But I've learned a lot more about bread in the last couple months, and I find a few of Beranbaum's habits very irritating. Most of her breads call for a sponge (pre-ferment), and her method is to include all of the water for the recipe in the sponge. She says this very wet sponge encourages fast yeast development, which enables the user to use the sponge in as little as one to four hours. She claims this as an innovation.

Well, this is just stupid. The point of a sponge is to let bacterial development occur slowly, creating flavor. Her one-hour sponge ain't gonna create much flavor, no matter how fast the yeast multiplies. Beranbaum knows this, so she recommends that you make the sponge a day ahead and refrigerate it. That's all well and good, but then where's the innovation?

She also likes to make her sponge, then cover it with a "blanket" of the rest of the flour in the dough. This is a traditional technique from someplace, and I don't want to knock it, but Beranbaum says she uses it because when the layer of flour cracks and the sponge bubbles through you know that the sponge is proceeding well. Of course, once the sponge breaks through the blanket it is no longer shielded from the air, so she has you cover the whole thing with plastic wrap.

This completely redundant technique is a waste of time. You don't need the flour blanket to cover the sponge if you're using plastic wrap too. And you can easily tell if your yeast is multiplying without the flour blanket: it will bubble! Really her technique is likely to give the user inconsistent results. If you do things her way, you never know how much of your flour ends up incorporated into the sponge. It will likely be different every time. What's the point of that?

Apart from these technical points, I keep flipping through the book looking for breads I want to make, and there just aren't that many. Most of the ones I find appealing are covered well elsewhere. I think her book is really too complicated for the casual baker, and will disappoint the baker (like me) who wants to get serious. So that's why I regret the purchase.

I've liked everything I've tried from her Pie & Pastry book, though. Yesterday I made the poblano/roasted red pepper tart. Yum.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast;

but we like hot butter on our breakfast toast!"

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