Which Cookbooks DON'T You Use & Why?

[CompassRose]

dakshin: vegetarian cuisine of south india, by chandra padmanabhan.

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Woo! another one of my very, very favourites! If you've made any Indian food, this isn't any more complicated really. This is both A.'s and my most beloved Indian cookbook. Delicious! And the toasted dals used as a seasoning are really interesting and unusual (if you're used to "regular" restaurant Indian fare).

[mrbigjas]

dakshin: vegetarian cuisine of south india, by chandra padmanabhan.

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Woo! another one of my very, very favourites! If you've made any Indian food, this isn't any more complicated really. This is both A.'s and my most beloved Indian cookbook. Delicious! And the toasted dals used as a seasoning are really interesting and unusual (if you're used to "regular" restaurant Indian fare).

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i've never really made much indian food, to tell the truth. i've made, kinda, indian-esque food. but i haven't done it much, or often.

i'm gonna do it one of these days, i swear. i suspect that just deciding on a couple menus and buying the stuff for them, and dedicating a weekend to cooking the stuff would get me over the hump.

[CompassRose]

i'm gonna do it one of these days, i swear.  i suspect that just deciding on a couple menus and buying the stuff for them, and dedicating a weekend to cooking the stuff would get me over the hump.

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Get a sous-chef/chief bottlewasher to dedicate the weekend with you. My first experiences cooking Indian food used up pretty much every pot, dish and receptacle I owned and covered them with turmeric.

Indian food absolutely forces you to understand the concept of mise en place.

[divalasvegas]

Booty Food

by Jacqui Malouf with Liz (perhaps appropriately) Gumbinner

'A date-by-date, course-by-course, nibble-by-nibble guide to cultivating love and passion through food.' And that's just the cover blurb, seductively placed beside Ms. Malouf gamboling in bed.

But wait, there's less. Ms. Malouf plumbs new depths in chapters entitled 'First Date Red Flags', 'Picnic a Go-Go', 'Cheese - Nature's Viagra, 'When Cooking Is The Last Thing On Your Mind', and 'Afternoon Delights--Nooky Hooky'.

The very best of bad taste, not something I necessarily look for in a cookbook.

Jamie

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Without a doubt the funniest thing I've read today!!! Now, three questions:

1. Are there any "real" recipes in this book?

2. Is there a forward by Bobby Flay?

3. Was this a "re-gifted" gift or did someone you know actually think that this would be just the thing for you?

[ScorchedPalate]

There should be a special purgatory for celebrity chef cookbooks--ours is the bottom shelf of the bookcase.  We hang onto them because there's always ONE recipe that works (i.e. HerbFarm cookbook's pesto recipe, Bradley Ogden's corned beef recipe, Joel Robuchon's bacon and potato cake).

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Me, that sounds like a recipe for a trip to Kinko's and a listing on Half.com. But then, I have downsized from my past excesses... I used to have no less than 20 cookbooks on the subject of potatoes.

[Sleepy_Dragon]

Booty Food

by Jacqui Malouf with Liz (perhaps appropriately) Gumbinner

'A date-by-date, course-by-course, nibble-by-nibble guide to cultivating love and passion through food.' And that's just the cover blurb, seductively placed beside Ms. Malouf gamboling in bed.

.....

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Without a doubt the funniest thing I've read today!!! Now, three questions:

1. Are there any "real" recipes in this book?

2. Is there a forward by Bobby Flay?

3. Was this a "re-gifted" gift or did someone you know actually think that this would be just the thing for you?

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Damn. It's called Booty Food and it has nothing to do with cooking to get junk in the trunk? What's up with that!

"...red beans and rice didn't miss her!"

Pat

Edited April 6, 2005 by Sleepy_Dragon (log)

[highchef]

How To Cook Without A Book by Pam Anderson (not that Pam Anderson).

Really. What were they thinking with that title? I've never used it, that I can recall.

Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking - nice to look at, nice recipes, just haven't used it

Eleanora's Kitchen by Eleanora Scarpetta

Everything Tastes Better with Bacon by Sara Perry

Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen - I've only made the meatloaf

Cook's Illustrated restaurant cookbook

Mastering Microwave Cookery 

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One mans trash....I actually, really like Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen. His chili is great and I've done teasers and breakfast stuff from there. I like the way he writes his recipes, kind of like Bourdain but cleaner. Guys note: He has a couple of recipes in there with comments on how happy they make his girlfriend (as if you need any help!).

[johnnyd]

Booty Food !

Hilarious!

Check out the customer reviews on Amazon.com (scroll down and read nuggets like...)

"she provides all kinds of shortcuts so that you can get back to the bedroom as quickly as possible!"

or,

"Wow, does she know how to get the juices flowing!"

[ariggsby]

I cannot imagine that I'm alone in submitting The French Laundry Cookbook for consideration.

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I think the key to making this book useful is to make the components, not the whole recipes as they're given.

Two examples: He's got this poached duck roulade with morel sauce and a corn emulsion (or something like that). I made the roulade (which is really pretty simple), then made the sauce with mushroom broth rather than his complicated duck stock and used a corn masa boat (a la Rick Bayless) rather than Keller's more complicated preparation.

Similarly, there are fava bean agnolotti with curry emulsion; the pasta is pretty straight-forward, and the sauce is easy to simplify.

I've also used a lot of his little garnishes like tomato (and other) powders.

All that said, I'm still glad that I didn't pay full price for my copy, but it is possible to get some use out of it.

Andrew

[Lita]

The cookbooks I've never used would be ones put together by church ladies (or schools or whatnot) that someone gave me as a gift.

Cookbooks that I had and made recipes from but gave away because they were so bad or uninspired? That's more interesting: The Rogers Gray Italian Country Cookbook, Vegetarian Planet, and several Frugal Gourmet Cookbooks (inherited).

[dexygus]

The Millennium Cookbook

From the San Francisco vegetarian restaurant of the same name. Way too complicated. Every recipe required that you already had several base recipes prepared. I tried to get rid of it on ebay, but no one wanted it.

[Pontormo]

What cookbooks do you rarely use? Why?

Molly O'Neill begins "Food Porn" by recounting an experience in a bookstore in Santa Barbara that made her feel as if she'd just eaten a very bad clam.

Her mother stood nearby as she greeted gushing fans waiting to have copies of Cookbook Number Three signed. Unaccustomed to seeing her daughter as the object of such adulation, she blurted out "'Do you actually cook that stuff?'"

The embarrassed titters gave the author pause. Why, she asked, do people buy cookbooks that they don't actually intend to use? What made her chosen genre more akin to fantasy literature or entertaining essays than instructional manuals, designed for practical use?

If you're reading this, you probably hoard cookbooks, too, flipping through recipes in bed at night as if they were chapters in the latest novel by Michael Chabon or Zadie Smith. However, you also consult your books as guides, bringing them into the kitchen to cook from them, out in the backyard to cure and grill from them, photographing and discussing the results.

There are not only threads on eGullet devoted to individual cookbooks, but threads that ask you about your favorite voices, the kinds of general cookbooks you favor and which cookbooks you turn to again and again.

There is also a thread devoted to cookbooks you want to let go.

I recognize one of them: Greene on Greens, a paperback I purchased when it was the only book of its kind in the small town where I was living. I liked the organization of the book, one vegetable after another, the chatty tone.

Nearly a decade later, I think I've cooked two or three things from those pages. Too much butter and cream. Monotony. Information more interesting than the recipes.

Someone once told me that, on average, we tend to prepare only seven recipes in each cookbook we buy. Who knows how that figure was calculated? However, I began to keep penciled lists in the back of new purchases each time I tried something new, just to make sure I didn't conform to that pattern.

What about you? Which books do you neglect?

I'd be interested in your perspective on what you think keeps you from reaching for these books again and again.

What about specific genres of cookbooks? Any patterns there?

For example do you cook from books affiliated with specific restaurants (Zuni, etc.) as much as you do from others? Or are they more like souvenirs and just a bit intimidating? Recipes too time-consuming for the home cook?

[LynDel]

This is such an interesting discussion topic. I was kind of thinking the same thing as I was trying to rearrange my bookshelf. The fact that I have quite a number of cookbooks, yet I don't make a lot of recipes out of them.

I got excited about having the Emeril cookbooks, but have realized that I enjoyed reading through them but probably won't make most of the recipes. I think I need to improve my grocery list coordination with the recipe list? I need to change our basic items on hand list to better match the recipes I want to make. Then at other times, some of the things I would like to make are a little more expensive, though that is not always the case.

[mizducky]

Hmmm. Y'know, this question may well be complicated by the practice of many people--myself included--to use recipes more as inspirations for their own improvizations than blueprints to be followed exactly as written. It's not like I've *never* done a recipe straight--for instance, I very seldom alter with yeast bread recipes as I'm not an experienced enough baker to predict what effect any change will have over the rising process. But otherwise, I'm pretty adventurous. But I don't count a cookbook a waste if I never do any of its recipes as-is -- or even if I never do any of its recipes, period, but just use it as a reference book for info and technique.

Just one example: my copy of the 1970s-era Joy of Cooking. Frankly, a lot of the recipes just don't spin my propeller. I can't remember the last time I used a recipe out of it, either straight or, well, warped. But hey--what a terrific compendium of info! If I ever had to do the survivalist thing, I'd be all set with instructions on how to skin a squirrel!

Having said that, the cookbooks I have found myself discarding sooner or later are ones that are more on the frou-frou side, devoted to very exquisite fancy dishes that are long on beauty and presentation, and giving reference-type material short shrift. Lacking such underlying meatiness, such foofy books just don't have any staying power for me. But even if a book is frou-frou-ed out to the max, if it does have any useful reference material in it at all (say, an appendix of interesting sauces and stocks, or an illustrated glossary of ingredients previously unfamiliar to me), I'll still hang onto it.

In other words, I'm not at all against food porn, but I majorly prefer porn with redeeming social value as opposed to purely gratuitous porn.

[srhcb]

I purchase some books with the intent of cooking from them, and others just to read, although there always ends up being some overlap.

There are some books I don't use because they don't work for me. Christopher Kimball's Yellow Farnhouse Cook Book is one example. None of the recipes seemed to work, and I was a faithful reader of Cooks Illustrated at the time besides. I ended up giving the book to my sister.

I've also had trouble with Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads (earlier edition). Some of the recipes are in my standard repertoire, but others were just plain flops.

In both cases I think it's just a lack of communication.

SB (prefers gratuitous porn) (gotta draw the line somewhere)

PS: Next thing you know people will demand "redeeming social value" in politics!

[Philanthrophobe]

Just one example: my copy of the 1970s-era Joy of Cooking. Frankly, a lot of the recipes just don't spin my propeller. I can't remember the last time I used a recipe out of it, either straight or, well, warped. But hey--what a terrific compendium of info! If I ever had to do the survivalist thing, I'd be all set with instructions on how to skin a squirrel!

Yes, yes, yes!!! I bought the new JoC and almost tossed the old version, but when I realized that the new version didn't have the squirrel recipes I changed my mind. --Not that I have ever eaten squirrel, nor been in a position that required that I disassemble one. (I have White Trash Cooking I and II for the same reason. Because someday the world could blow up and one might be reduced to eating possum. Or something.)

Having said that, the cookbooks I have found myself discarding sooner or later are ones that are more on the frou-frou side, devoted to very exquisite fancy dishes that are long on beauty and presentation, and giving reference-type material short shrift. Lacking such underlying meatiness, such foofy books just don't have any staying power for me. But even if a book is frou-frou-ed out to the max, if it does have any useful reference material in it at all (say, an appendix of interesting sauces and stocks, or an illustrated glossary of ingredients previously unfamiliar to me), I'll still hang onto it.

In other words, I'm not at all against food porn, but I majorly prefer porn with redeeming social value as opposed to purely gratuitous porn.

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Right there with you on this as well!

I bypass coffee table-style cookbooks: I don't need the photos which are probably visible from space, I need information. I'm always afraid of cookbooks with a celebrity chef's name attached to it--or, in fact, celebrities of any stripe. I tend to get these as gifts from my food-impaired friends sometimes--I eventually swap them for something else. (the books, not the friends. Heh heh.)

And because I have a seriously stupid amount of cookbooks, I'm trying to weed out the one-trick ponies, so I guess the old Joy of Cooking really should go...

[BigboyDan]

As far as celebrity books go, I received as an unsolicited gift, The Elements of Taste, by Peter Kaminsky and Gray Kunz; Little, Brown & Company, 2001. (Kaminsky previously co-authored with Andre Soltner, The Lutece Cookbook). Gray is a well-known New York chef, currently at his namesake, Cafe Gray, and formerly of Lespinasse.

Just for the fun of it I tried several recipes, some worked, some didn't. Odd. Now, I just look at the pretty pictures...

Edited June 1, 2006 by BigboyDan (log)

[carpetbagger, esq.]

I got this Tyler Florence (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) cookbook as a gift, and have never made anything from it. I'm just not inspired when I flip through the pages.

[jgm]

There are lots of cookbooks I have that I've never used. But they were purchased because that's the kind of cooking I want to do "someday." i.e., Bouchon. Sort of like buying bigger clothes for kids, expecting them to grow into them. And sort of like purchasing jeans 2 sizes smaller than I wear, fully believing that someday I'll un-grow into them.

For me, it's not about good cookbooks and not so good cookbooks. It's about fantasy and intention . . . or put another way, about vision and aspiration. And perhaps a little self-delusion?

[Bobby 2 Shakes]

In other words, I'm not at all against food porn, but I majorly prefer porn with redeeming social value as opposed to purely gratuitous porn.

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A little help in determining what qualifies as porn -

---It's not the meat, it's the motive.

[dockhl]

Sally Schneider~ A New Way to Cook............there is just SO much !

David Rosengarten~whom I love~ Dean and Deluca Cookbook because....... ...dunno !

[Sugarella]

Molly O'Neill begins "Food Porn" by recounting an experience in a bookstore in Santa Barbara that made her feel as if she'd just eaten a very bad clam.

Her mother stood nearby as she greeted gushing fans waiting to have copies of Cookbook Number Three signed.  Unaccustomed to seeing her daughter as the object of such adulation, she blurted out "'Do you actually cook that stuff?'"

The embarrassed titters gave the author pause.  Why, she asked, do people buy cookbooks that they don't actually intend to use? 

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I'm not familiar with the story but I'd strongly suspect the "embarrassed titters" by fans were out of sympathy for their beloved author, rather than an acknowledgement of guilt. What a thing to say about your kid....

To be perfectly honest, I supposed the cookbooks I've left on the shelf after making a few of the recipes are the ones where the recipes turned out to be mediocre or uninspired. If I want to make mediocre and uninspired food I definitely don't need a cookbook's help.

[Busboy]

You know, I've got two different Alice Waters/Chez Panisse cookbooks, and I doubt I've cooked seven recipes between them. Zuni Cafe was a big disappointment, though I flip through it as a reference every now and then. I wonder sometimes if that's not just because the lessons taught by Alice and embodied by what's-her-name have been so internalized that one hardly needs their cookbooks any more.

I spent a good deal of money not only buying the Aquavit cookbook but going to a dinner at which Samuelsson spoke. Dinner sucked (he wasn't cooking that night) and neither my friends who attended nor I have ever cooked a thing from it. Ditto with the seafood cookbook written by some Japanese-Australian chef which looked quite good in the bookstore but seemed way too austere at home.

Edited to add that while think ford porn books are too expensibe and take up too much damn room in a small kitchen, I've cooked the hell out of the French Laundry and Bouchon.

I've also done a few from Kaminsky-Kunz's The Elements of Taste, and hope to do more. Despite their pretentious, or at least boring, theorizing, the recipes tend to be, well, tasty.

[LindaK]

You know, I've got two different Alice Waters/Chez Panisse cookbooks, and I doubt I've cooked seven recipes between them.  Zuni Cafe was a big disappointment, though I flip through it as a reference every now and then.  I wonder sometimes if that's not just because the lessons taught by Alice and embodied by what's-her-name have been so internalized that one hardly needs their cookbooks any more.

I'm with Busboy both on these cookbooks and his theory. To this category I'd add early Deborah Madison cookbooks, Greens and A Savory Way, still gathering dust on my shelves.

Edited to add that while think ford porn books are too expensibe and take up too much damn room in a small kitchen, I've cooked the hell out of the French Laundry and Bouchon.

I've also done a few from Kaminsky-Kunz's The Elements of Taste, and hope to do more.  Despite their pretentious, or at least boring, theorizing, the recipes tend to be, well, tasty.

Maybe a second question is: about which food porn books can we honestly say "no, really, I read it for the articles, not the pictures!" ??

[Kim Shook]

There are lots of cookbooks I have that I've never used.  But they were purchased because that's the kind of cooking I want to do "someday."  i.e., Bouchon.  Sort of like buying bigger clothes for kids, expecting them to grow into them.  And sort of like purchasing jeans 2 sizes smaller than I wear, fully believing that someday I'll un-grow into them.

For me, it's not about good cookbooks and not so good cookbooks.  It's about fantasy and intention . . . or put another way, about vision and aspiration.  And perhaps a little self-delusion? 

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This is where I am. I buy the cookbooks fully intending to cook extensively from them, perhaps even cook through them ala "Julie and Julia". I read each one and make a list that I put in the inside cover of each cookbook before it goes on the shelf. On the shelf is where they tend to stay. Good intentions...you know the rest.