Best First Cookbook

[JoNorvelleWalker]

10 minutes ago, gfweb said:

Was Jello involved?

 

Never.

 

Green pasta sauce comes to mind.  And in those days lard was twenty five cents a pound.

 

[gfweb]

14 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Never.

 

Green pasta sauce comes to mind.  And in those days lard was twenty five cents a pound.

 

 

Sounds like Seuss food

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

15 minutes ago, gfweb said:

 

Sounds like Seuss food

 

 

It was not always well received.  I recall an ultimatum about the food coloring.

 

[Norm Matthews]

Yes, with technology as it is now, you can get every recipe on line and Jaques Pepin is a great teacher.  My first cookbook was  The James Beard Cookbook in paperback. I used it until it started falling apart and then got another one in hard cover.  By the time I lost it in a house fire, it was out of print and there were no computers with online selling, so the next two were James Beard's American Cookery and Jaques Pepin's la Technique.  I think the early James Beard cookbook is somewhat dated now in that some of the peripheral information is no longer relevant.    

 

PS When my son left home and moved to Seattle in the '90's, I gave him How To Cook Everything, a Henkel chef and paring knife set and some measuring cups and spoons. 

Edited April 17, 2019 by Norm Matthews (log)

[slowshooter]

Best first cookbook? As much as I would like to drop off a thick tome of technique and recipes. I think the Sunset book (or something akin to it) would be best if a used copy could be found. It covered measures and recipes in a way that was easily understood.

For someone who has difficulty with turning on a stove or oven, and doesn't know a spatula from a spoon? There was book called The Complete Illustrated  Step by Step Guide to Cooking and it was very much a monkey see, monkey do, sort of international cookbook. It's about 30 years old, and can be found for a pittance. The recipes are about what you would expect, very simple, with a few needed chef notes to goose the flavor. That said a complete tyro could make a dish from it without ending up in the hospital, or burning down the house. 

In the age of youtube and food television, seems that authors forget that not every budding cook is starting with a solid foundation in the kitchen. If there was a combination of the two books above with really great recipes, that'd be the single book I'd get.

I think my first cookbook was either a Betty Crocker book, or a section from Mary Margaret McBride's gigantic doorstop. Yikes, I'm old!

[kayb]

I find Shirley Corriher's Cookwise to be a good intro for people who know little about cooking. I've give that, as well as Bittman's HTCE, several times for wedding gifts when I knew people had an interest in cooking but little experience.

 

[Martin Fisher]

The best FIRST all-around cookbook!?

I'm going to go with "The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery: One of the World's Most Definitive Reference Books on Food and Cooking." ~1,300 pages.

[KennethT]

My first cookbook was used as the textbook in the professional cooking class for non-professionals that I took in college...  I don't know if it is still in print, but at the time, it was a great book that not only had good recipes to illustrate the theory that was taught, but had chapters on knife skills, sanitation, etc...  It was "On Cooking" by Labensky and Hause... I'd highly recommend it.

[FrogPrincesse]

 On the Trader Joe's thread, I mentioned that I just got Start Here by Sohla El-Waylly from the library while investigating options for cookbooks to send my daughter to college with. I wasn't familiar with Sohla and @mlbatt put her book on my radar. I waited patiently for the book for a few months as I was number 37 on the waitlist or something like that. It seems it is a popular book! It was published in October 2023 and won the James Beard Media Award in the general cookbook category.

 

First impressions, it is a very heavy tome with close to 600 pages. I very much like the way it's organized and the text which is packed full of useful information (it explains cooking techniques and how dishes work, rather than being just a collection of recipes).

 

After the introduction section which covers tips, "things to have", and "things to know", it goes into a series of "culinary lessons", from easiest to most complex. The first one is called Taste and had various dishes that focus on seasoning and coming up with a balance dish. Most of these recipes do not require any heat. The sardines recipes I mentioned in the TJ's thread is part of that chapter.

 

 

The next few pages have general guidelines for "how to make a velvety vegetable soup out of anything" which I think is very smart. It does include a few examples, but is more meant to provide general guidelines that everyone can follow with what they have on hand, produce, spices, dairy, etc. That seems very handful.

 

Next up is the chapter called Temperature Management 101. She uses eggs as way to experiment with temperature which I think is brilliant. Eggs are cheap and it's not a big deal if you mess up. Also eggs happen to be one of my daughter's favorite foods, so she was immediately interested. Even better, a few pages in, this gorgeous recipe showed up and I happened to have all the ingredients on hand (which isn't difficult because it calls for few and common ingredients). Lastly, someone recently gifted me a jar of chili garlic oil, and this gave me a great excuse to try it in a dish.

 

 

I didn't follow her recipe for poaching eggs, because I like the foolproof arzak egg technique. But I composed the dish the same way - Greek yoghurt (Trader Joe's) with a little indentation in the middle, poached egg in the middle (I only used 1 egg), chili oil, torn mint, and microplaned lemon zest. And this was so delicious that I made myself another plate as soon as this was finished. Everyone loves a poached egg, and the combination with the yoghurt made them even more delicious. The chili oil is hot of course but it is tamed by the yoghurt and you can taste its flavor without being overwhelmed by the heat. Lastly, the herbs and lemon zest make everything pop. This is a traditional Turkish dish called Çılbır and would be great for brunch (funnily, a local restaurant serves a very similar dish and charges $21 for it  - but I digress ).

 

 

I haven't fully explored the rest of the book but this is a very auspicious start! The next chapters are Just Add Water (grains, beans, pasta), Break It Down & Get Saucy (how to stew and braise), Steam & Poach, Go to Brown Town (cooking with dry heat), then the last half of the book is about baking and pastry lessons. At a very quick glance the baking recipes don't look super appealing to me (very "American" for a French native like me), however the techniques and explanations seem very good. 

[Maison Rustique]

@FrogPrincesse, you make me want to buy that book and I do not need another cookbook to pack and move. The poached egg with yogurt looks delicious. I am going to give it a try!

[AfroFogey]

I'd say Joy of Cooking is a solid first cookbook. Fannie Farmer is also acceptable. For a pretentious soul such as myself Julia Child's The Way to cook was my first but looking back not the best 

[AlaMoi]

Joy of Cooking is hands down the best - especially of an 'celebrity' cookbooks.

 

it has intro/section on the 'how&why' things work.

a collection of ingredients and steps is not particularly educational.

[Katie Meadow]

Joy of Cooking was indeed my first cookbook. My mother gave me a copy when I first moved out of the dorm in college. I still have that copy.  You can't beat her recipe for Brownies Cockaigne. It's easy enough to whip up when stoned. I've been making those brownies since I got the book about 55 years ago. Cockaigne indeed.

[gulfporter]

My MIL gave me the James Beard cookbook in 1973 a few years after we married.  The following December and until he died, my FIL' s Christmas gifts to me were subscriptions and renewals to Gourmet and then Bon Appetit magazines.  Both my In Laws were founding members of a DC food club way back when.  

 

Our first cookbooks to ourselves (as a teenage age married couple!) were Pierre Franey's two 60 Minute Gourmet books.  

 

James Beard gave me the basics I needed to understand.  The magazines gave me interesting au currant recipes.  The 60 Minute Gourmet books allowed us to make decent meals a few nights a week after a hard day's work.  

[gfweb]

38 minutes ago, gulfporter said:

My MIL gave me the James Beard cookbook in 1973 a few years after we married.  The following December and until he died, my FIL' s Christmas gifts to me were subscriptions and renewals to Gourmet and then Bon Appetit magazines.  Both my In Laws were founding members of a DC food club way back when.  

 

Our first cookbooks to ourselves (as a teenage age married couple!) were Pierre Franey's two 60 Minute Gourmet books.  

 

James Beard gave me the basics I needed to understand.  The magazines gave me interesting au currant recipes.  The 60 Minute Gourmet books allowed us to make decent meals a few nights a week after a hard day's work.  

I have and love each of these.

[rotuts]

@gulfporter

 

I completely agree with your selection .

 

its not so much ' best '  thats important 

 

but a selection that might start w a book ( there are many that fill this bill )

 

and then supplements ,m back in the day it was stunning good cooking magazines 

 

Gourmet  =>  then also stunning branches of the same.  many excellent ones folded

 

but this days , a book , not so much a bi-monthly subscription 

 

but some videos that show fundamentals .  Jacque Pepin , Julia Child 

 

VCR to DVD'

 

now with  and an explosion of cooking shows

 

quality varies greatly but there is still some fine sutff

 

and a lot of Cr*P

 

over the last few years , there was a Master Class series 

 

top chefs .  but it was very expensive to purchase 

 

and thus not worth those prices.

Edited September 15 by rotuts (log)

[FlashJack]

A marvellous topic.

 

Twice recently I have given books as a wedding gift to young not-cooks.

 

McGhee On Food & Cooking -- the single one that explains everything. Endlessly useful. I wish there were an update.

Every Australian household needs (and mostly has) Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion.

Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking

 

These are my Trinity.

 

Salt, Fat, Acid is a good primmer.

 

I adore Pepin but find Techniques oddly disappointing.

[Rickbern]

Endorsing @gulfporter

 

I believe the best cookbook to start with is one that emphasizes menus rather than recipes. 
 

I started many years ago with Pierre franey’s “60 minute gourmet” series that taught you how to get a two course balanced meal suitable for company on the table in the epononymous 60 minutes and that was exactly what I was looking for. I seriously dislike the fetishization of a single dish, meals are about harmony and learning that (and time management in the kitchen) is, perhaps, even more important than finding out when to squeeze a little lemon into a dish. 

Edited Monday at 08:11 PM by Rickbern (log)

[Tempest63]

I can’t really remember my first cookbook but thinking back my first wife and I had a few Marks & Spencer cookbooks. M&S is a national store with most towns having one. Back in the day they produced a series of basic cookbooks that were great for the relative beginner.

Here in the U.K. we also had the Australian Woman’s Weekly recipe books, soft back, large format, glossy books with plenty of pictures and step by step instructions. I still have a few of those kicking about.

Every year I buy cookbooks as Christmas presents as each of my children have a love of cooking and all four of them are competent in the kitchen in varying degrees.