Books That Age Gracefully

[MaxH]

Thanks Karen. FYI, here are the other three that I omitted because I thought it was long enough. I use all of these and have done for many years.

Julie Sahni, Classic Indian Cooking. Horst Scharfenberg's internationally popular Cuisines of Germany. Waters, Curtan, and Labro, the "Pasta Pizza and Calzone" cookbook from Chez Panisse Café, 1984, ISBN 0394530942. Each contains recipes that will just knock you on your butt (thus meeting the aforementioned criterion of value).

[Carrot Top]

I'm not sure that for true book-lovers the list is ever long enough, Max.

I'll have to take a gander at the first two. I remember Julie Sahni from when she was teaching independently in New York. People loved her. I fall back upon Madhur Jaffrey's Illustrated Indian Cookery when the occasion arises. . . certainly I think Julie made Indian cooking seem more accessible to some people. Madhur Jaffrey herself (and the tone of her books) seems to have become younger over the years, which is rather nice, I think.

All the Chez Panisse books are worthwhile in their own ways. Standouts in a crowd. For what they have to say as well as what they list as recipes.

As far as German goes, gosh that is a lost cuisine here. Can't even find it on the bookshelves of many bookstores. The old Time-Life series is fairly decent, and is even more useful if you combine the German with the Russian and Vienna's Empire and A Quintet of Cuisines because of the historic influences. It all becomes more cogent. I've never found a better Linzertorte recipe than the one in Vienna's Empire.

(Strangled noise)(Oh but for some Sauerbraten with Potato Dumplings and Red Cabbage right now . . . Sigh.)

I have another list to add but will do so a bit later.

[Carrot Top]

Here's two more - one on pastry and one on wild foods.

Lenotre's Desserts and Pastries, 1975. Perfect recipes for Paris-Brest; Concord Cake; Yule Logs; St. Honore Chiboust; a strawberry cake that looks like a gift (bagatelle aux fraises); Pithiviers; and too too much more. Irreplaceable.

And Euell Gibbon's Stalking the Wild Asparagus, 1962. Classic. Lots of bang for your (free foraging or not) buck.

[Carrot Top]

Here's some more:

Here's one that surprises me, but still I refer to it often enough to keep it, and I *am* an irrepressible book-weeder: The New York Times International Cookbook by Craig Claiborne, 1971

And one a bit more current but which still has aged with grace - Cooking with the New American Chefs by Ellen Brown, 1985

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(Edited to remove some titles, because apparently I am old enough now to have become one of those people that keep repeating things they've said before )

Edited April 20, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Peter Green]

We just talked about this while staring at our cookbook collection:

For repeated use, Yoonhi goes with The Joy of Cooking and the Larousse Gastronomique, but she admits she's biased as these were her school books way back when. Both of these are falling apart but still in active use.

I'm still fond of Thai Cooking In American Kitchens Vol 1 but I do admit that was more for when we couldn't access proper Thai ingredients. It's a great book for substitutions.

And it's not reallly a cookbook, but I still go running to The Penguin Companion To Food everytime I have to decipher a menu from St. John.

And thanks! Kingsley Amis' On Drink is now on my must-buy list.

[heidih]

Alot of repeats I have noticed. Definately Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I because I learned to cook from it, When French Women Cook by Madeline Kamman which I read when I want to experience that growing up food connection, The Time Life Foods of the World Series because it was my first window into other cultures (to this day when kids are doing reports about a certain country I find them a used copy of the applicable book and they get SO much out of it), and an odd little give away book called the Spanish Cookbook by Barbara Norman- a little paperback given away by a Savings & Loan around 1970- very good colorful explanations of regional cuisine with recipes.

[CtznCane]

Two books I haven't seen listed thusfar which are favorites of mine are 'The Classic Italian Cookbood' by Marcella Hazan and 'The New Orleans Cookbook' by Richard and Rima Collin. Over the years I've found the New Orleans Cookbook to be one of my favorite cookbooks period and use it quite regularly still. Marcella Hazan's book is still great and to this day, if I had to choose just one of my Italian books to keep that would be the one I"d keep.

I'm sure it has been mentioned already, but I still on occasion use Juila Child's 'The French Chef Cookbook' on occasion too.

Of course, like most people, Joy of Cooking, regardless of the edition, never has lost its lustre.

[Sherry B]

This is a good place for my first post on this forum, books about food are my great love. Hi everyone, and here goes:

The Country Kitchen by Della Lutes. Lyrical writing about the kind of food that I love, home cooked food. I have a first edition, but I think it's been reprinted.

Cross Creek, and Cross Creek Cookery by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. More beautiful evocative writing by a woman who loved to eat. ("The Yearling" has a lot of food in it as well.)

The Man Who Ate Too Much and It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten. Funny guy...good writer.

The Art of Eating, MFK Fisher's omnibus. Oddly...I find myself more critical of her writing now. Just a personal thing, but she does not enchant me quite as much as she did on first/second reading. I'm not sure why. I still return to her, though.

Food That Really Schmecks by the late, great, Canadian writer Edna Staebler. Wonderful recipes and stories of Mennonite cooking and life in Ontario.

I like Anthony Bourdain's books. He's matured as a writer, and I get a huge kick out of his work. The Les Halles Cookbook....not so much.

The Faber Book of Food. Excellent anthology of food writing.

The Penguin Book of Food and Drink. Another excellent anthology.

Delights and Prejudices and Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles. The first is James Beard's autobiography, the second is a collection of some of his correspondence with Helen Evans Brown. Both books are a delight.

I have a large collection of 19th century cookbooks, and I find them wildly interesting to read. Lot's of history, and a fascinating window into the lives of women and their families.

That's off the top of my head...to paraphrase Laurie Colwin...basically, all I ever do is read.

Sherry

[Carrot Top]

That's off the top of my head...to paraphrase Laurie Colwin...basically, all I ever do is read.

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Mmm. Sherry, I do not know any woman who can get away with really saying with full veracity that all she ever does is read. But it is a wonderful thing to aim for to be sure.

What a block-buster of fabulous books you mentioned in your very first post! Some I have not read and will now have to take a look at.

As they say, one can never be too rich or have too many books.

[Sherry B]

That's off the top of my head...to paraphrase Laurie Colwin...basically, all I ever do is read.

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Mmm. Sherry, I do not know any woman who can get away with really saying with full veracity that all she ever does is read. But it is a wonderful thing to aim for to be sure.

What a block-buster of fabulous books you mentioned in your very first post! Some I have not read and will now have to take a look at.

As they say, one can never be too rich or have too many books.

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Thank you for the kind response! Um, would you settle for "semi-veracity"? I wish I could just read, my idea of a holiday is a quiet cottage on the ocean with no TV. Just books. Meanwhile, I have to work.

[Carrot Top]

Thank you for the kind response! Um, would you settle for "semi-veracity"? I wish I could just read, my idea of a holiday is a quiet cottage on the ocean with no TV. Just books. Meanwhile, I have to work.

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I try to avoid work.

As a matter of fact right now I'm trying to avoid work and better hop to it.

It's a shame that one can't just read and cook (or eat) all day long.

........................

Actually I just picked up a book-that-has-aged-gracefully from the library. It does have a peculiar sense of its own time about it, like a seventy year old hippie who still ties a bandana over their trailing long (now grey) hair, but what is inside it is good.

Bert Greene "The Grains Cookbook". Really good compilation of recipes and information. Still worthy after all these years.

Edited August 1, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Terrasanct]

I have some old friends that I don't refer to as much as I used to, but they still have a place of honor on my shelf. The Joy of Cooking enchanted me as a child for its detailed descriptions of everything, from the cuts of beef to simple skills like how to fry bacon and bake potatoes, and for the fact that in the index, opossum and opera creams were near each other. That's encyclopedic.

In the same vein, I've had a copy of On Food and Cooking since it first came out, and wore it out with reading. The second edition hasn't gotten as much attention because I'm busier than I used to be, but I still love both of them.

Martha Stewart Entertaining and Weddings--my first copies I read so often that I broke the spines eventually. I was a caterer, so they were invaluable.

The Cake Bible, for the same reason.

The Wooden Spoon Bread Book, a great one that I've used for years.

My family cookbook, which has mostly simple, homey recipes, but it's the one I pull out the most often. It's ring-bound, so I can add new recipes and keep all of my favorites in one place. We put it online several years ago so that wherever we are, we can look up our recipes.

Link to the family cookbook: http://www.maystar.org/Cookbook/cookbook.htm

[racheld]

This is a good place for my first post on this forum, books about food are my great love. Hi everyone, and here goes:

. . .

That's off the top of my head...to paraphrase Laurie Colwin...basically, all I ever do is read.

Sherry

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Sherry, I'm so glad you're here!!! And I love that your first post was about BOOKS!!!

(My own, thousands ago, was about Chick-fil-A---loses a bit in the comparison, but it was where I started, and I had something to say at the time).

I have several of those you mentioned, including quite a few from the 1800's--perhaps we have some similars or sames. My very favorite was Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, which I gave away in a great flurry of mixed generosity and idiocy, to my Sister's first MIL, who was a Home Ec teacher. It just seemed appropriate at the time, and I've regretted it ever after.

I've just begun to discover Laurie Colwin, after a suggestion from our Maggie. I'd mentioned loving the work of Gladys Taber, an old-fashioned, simple homekeeping girl like myself, and Laurie is just wonderful. Gone much too soon, taking an unestimable storehouse of wonderful stories before they could find the page.

Welcome, Sherry!!

[MaxH]

Two books I haven't seen listed thusfar which are favorites of mine are 'The Classic Italian Cookbood' by Marcella Hazan ... Of course, like most people, Joy of Cooking, regardless of the edition, never has lost its lustre.

FYI, comments on those titles in another, related thread Here.

More on the Internet-history connection in that thread: This excerpt from the official history of that original food forum mentions that it

began as net.cooks, launched in Berkeley in January 1982 with a posting on pragmatic pasta sauces ... We were all cranking out a lot of fresh ribbon pasta with Atlas 150 (150mm) roller/cutter machines and we needed things to do with it.

Marcella Hazan had recommended those Atlas hand-crank pasta machines in her original book, prompting many people to get them at the time.

[Sherry B]

I forgot about John Thorne. I've loved all of his books, Simple Cooking, Outlaw Cook, Serious Pig, and the newsletters. Wonderful!

Also, Bob Shacochis. Not really a foodie writer, but his book "Domesticity" had some stellar food writing. And recipes.

[bittersweet]

Cucina Fresca by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman has been my go-to book since 1985 for simple, room temperature Italian favorites.

Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking are great. I've been making a variation of her cornbread and prosciutto stuffing for years. I've also saved all of her Gourmet articles.

The Frog Commissary Cookbook has some great salads.

I always use Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookook and More Classic Italian Cooking. I wish they'd reissue them so I could replace my beat-up copies.

I have the whole Time-Life Foods of the World series, but don't use them as much as I should.

I have Fernand Point's Ma Gastronomie because I went to his Restaurant de la Pyramide in Vienne on my honeymoon.

Not quite 20 years old yet, but I always go back to Emily Luchetti's Stars Desserts.

Edited August 25, 2007 by bittersweet (log)

[Woods]

try to find the 1961 edition and see what you think. Woods

Great answers to this question.

All these books have big personalities, don't they....!

Here is my list (shortened a bit so as not to rant on...)

-'Larousse Gastronomique 1971 edition' (have never seen a better edition so far in mild perusals of newer ones). This was my first real serious cooking tome, and I actually read it from A to Z. Yes, a love affair with an encyclopedia. Takes all kinds, huh?!

-MFK Fisher 'The Art of Eating'. What can compare? I've read this book many times over the years, in different locales. My favorite reading of it was in a small chilly apartment in the 9th arrondissement of Paris where I moved with my small dog and no particular intention except to ruin my bank account, one April years ago....

Last year I read 'A Life in Letters', the autobiography of MFK...and although I still love her writings, I wish I had 'kept them straight up' and had not read the underneath of her real life...it sort of sullied the experience somehow (that sounds pretensious but is not meant to be!).

-'Food' By Waverly Root. What a mix of history, reality, and knowledge put together with beautiful drawings!

-'Auberge of the Flowering Hearth' by Roy Andries de Goot. Great story....

-'Better than Store Bought' by Witty/Colchie. Simple recipes on how to make many things from scratch including cured meats and fresh cheeses.

-Evan Jones 'American Food', a fascinating book on the history of American food with some mesmerizingly wonderful recipes such as 'Fried Chicken with Waffles, Ham, and Maple-Cream Sauce' mmmmmmm.

-'The Golden Lemon' by Tobias/Morris. Cookbook with a steady stream of great recipes that all include lemon as an ingredient.

Can't wait to hunt up some of your listed favorites to take a taste!

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[Carrot Top]

try to find the 1961 edition and see what you think.  Woods

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I've heard good things about that edition. Will do.

[NWKate]

Home Cooking and More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin.

Fannie Farmer Cookbook - the 1986 edition edited by Marion Cunningham.

My Time-Life Foods of the World series.

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YES! And also anything by Elizabeth David!

[snowangel]

I have and treasure every single one of the Farm Journal Cookbooks I got when my grandmother moved out of her house, but none more than the pie, or perhaps the freezing and canning book. Not a dud in these books, and the intro's to the recipes, about which grandma or great aunt first made this for one of the editors are priceless.

And, in a few years, all of my Wolfert books will fit the bill.

[caseyell]

Any of Elizabeth David's exquisitely written books. I particularly love "Mediterraneran Food." And the fairly recent biography of her is a fascinating read.

[caseyell]

oops--forgot to include the title of the E. David bio: "Writing at the Kitchen Table."

and, of course, that should have been "Mediterranean."

Need coffee.

[MaxH]

try to find the 1961 [Larousse Gastronomique] edition and see what you think.  Woods

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I've heard good things about that edition. Will do.

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You must!

The 1971 you mentioned, Carrot Top, was a mezzanine edition or reprinting of the '61 (I don't remember), in relatively small numbers if I recall. The Crown 1961 was the first, and for a long time the main, Anglophone edition, produced in such quantity it has been ubiquitous on the used market since the 1970s, found in almost every US used bookstore I've checked that has a cooking section, for example. (I have four or five copies, some of them often lent out; I've cited it here and on other online food fora since the 1980s). It is close to the 1938 French, including some Francocentric chauvinisms and eccentricities [1,2] thoroughly expunged from later editions, and is interesting just for those. Examples below illustrate touches so dramatically missing from the new, more international, more sanitized 1988 Crown Anglophone edition (and the newer one, 2000). LG did not go as far as Escoffier, who explicitly omitted, for instance, curry recipes because they are "not to European taste," but it had remarks about ghastly foreign habits -- American fondness for sweet sauces and "automated" restaurants (surely written in the 1930s when Automats were more fashionable) and other corruptions from which (1938, 1961) "French cooking has nothing to gain."

[1] Discoursing on the history of coffee houses: Having first introduced, sort of reverently, the appearance of early examples in Paris in the late 1600s, the Larousse then, characteristically, dismisses them: "But these miserable cafes were really no more than dirty little smoking-saloons, frequented only by confirmed smokers, travelers from the Lebanon, and several Knights of Malta."

[2] "You have heard the news: excommunicated. Come and dine to console me. Everyone is to refuse me fire and water; so we will eat nothing but cold glazed meats, and drink only chilled wines." -- Talleyrand (Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord), in a letter to his friend the Duc de Biron (better known as the Duc de Lauzun), April 1791. Sources include Larousse Gastronomique, 1961 Crown English-language edition (but missing, like so many other tidbits, from the two "modern" editions).

[Snadra]

Bump!

My mother has a copy of 'The Spice Cookbook' mentioned upthread which I used to read over and over as a child. It's on my list of books I must get my own copy of.

My candidate for aging gracefully is "Everyday French Cooking for the American Home" by Henri Paul Pellaprat (1960s) , NOT to be confused with the bastardised version released in Australia (sponsored, I think, by the Australian Womens' Weekly) some years later.

It has my go-to, unsurpassable recipe for Beef Stroganoff, and the cake and pastry recipes are fantastic. A large number of colour pictures, some stunning, some more than a little frightening - one trout dish in particular gives me the shivers - and a nice bit of history and direction here and there. The cooking times don't really suit modern tastes, but adjust for those and you have some lovely meals in your future.

[janeer]

Here's two more - one on pastry and one on wild foods.

Lenotre's Desserts and Pastries, 1975. Perfect recipes for Paris-Brest; Concord Cake; Yule Logs; St. Honore Chiboust; a strawberry cake that looks like a gift (bagatelle aux fraises); Pithiviers; and too too much more. Irreplaceable.

Agree: irreplaceable. I have made every single thing from this book and it is a pastry course between covers.

I love this topic. I too like anything by De Gouy (The Pie Book), and NYT International (love the regular NYT Cookbook as well). Devoted to original Gourmet. Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee's The Chinese Cookbook is excellent.

Personal favorites not already on this list (many of which I agree with wholeheartedly)

--Marcia Adams Quilt Country Cookbook. Excellent recipes and photos of the culture of Amish/Mennonite food. A frequent gift to friends.

--Madeline Kamman Making of A Cook (and as mentioned, When French Women Cook). A real authority. Taped together from constant use.

--Charles Virion French Country Cooking. Reliable, authentic, tasty, conversational from the former cook for Orson Welles and J. Ringling North. Another taped volume.

--Tom Margattai and Paul Kovi. The Four Seasons Cookbook from the iconic NYC restaurant

--Diana Kennedy, Cuisines of Mexico. Perfection.