In need of old fashioned, unassuming recipe books!
May 6, 2010 9:21 AM   Subscribe

In need of old fashioned, unassuming recipe books!

I want to start a collection of very reliable recipe books. I don't want anything trendy or too modern, just the old fat book grandmas usually have in their kitchens.

I would like one "bible" per cooking tradition, you may be able to recommend what you may have seen at your grandma's, or books that are considered a "must-have" in the average household when it comes to these styles:

-Traditional French
- French pastries and desserts in general
- Spanish cuisine
-Traditional British
-Non restauranty Italian
-Non restauranty Japanese
-Central Europe desserts

I don't want too many short cuts or recipes that call for exotic remakes or processed ingredients (something like "how to make a cherry pie: ingredients pie crust and pie filling" is exactly what I don't want) I want the old fashioned time consuming recipes that old housewives used to keep as a treasure. The kind of book that has simple pictures or drawings, a little bit about technique and overall a very "homely" feel to them.

I am also interested on other cooking styles that you find appealing.
I also need them in English and Spanish preferably, French not ideal but fine.

thank you!
posted by Tarumba to Food & Drink (30 answers total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Check this thread for some suggestions of international, traditional cookbooks.
posted by cabingirl at 9:31 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: My grandmother had three cookbooks, which I think is the basic triumvirate of classic cookbookery: The Joy of Cooking, the (original) Better Crocker Cookbook, and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Those would probably be at least a good start.
posted by General Malaise at 9:32 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: Delia's Complete Cookery Course is a classic - everyone I know seems to have a copy (including me), and I refer to it often. It starts with basic ingredients, walks you through the rationale of various recipes, and gives you a "normal" version of most well-known dishes. I highly recommend it!
posted by ukdanae at 9:33 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: Larousse Gastronomique is THE classic French cookery book, and Elizabeth David was a British chef and cookery book author who wrote about Mediterranean food.
posted by ellieBOA at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: The Joy of Cooking

(something like "how to make a cherry pie: ingredients pie crust and pie filling" is exactly what I don't want)

This book is pretty much the opposite of that. A recipe for coffee cake will direct you to page 379 for the recipe for bread dough, and page 578 for the struesel filling, along with any other ingredients necessary to make the coffee cake from scratch.

The recipes included aren't necessarily the most tasty recipes, but they are certainly great for building on and customizing to your taste. All of the basic cooking techniques and write-ups on significant kitchen staples are included as well.
posted by clearly at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2010


Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is my bible.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:34 AM on May 6, 2010


The one book you must have is THE NEW BEST RECIPE, a collection from Cook's Illustrated magazine. This is a very thorough book but even beginners can easily follow it. The recipes are the "best" versions of recipes for rice pudding or meat loaf or vegetable soup--as researched by the editors of the magazine. The directions are clear and the descriptions of the recipe testing are informative. I have begun giving this book as a gift to engaged couples. It's truly a wonderful cookbook.
posted by Jenna Brown at 9:36 AM on May 6, 2010


Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries is quite a homely book. She's a half-Finnish, half Cypriot lady who grew up in South Africa and has now married an Italian and lives in Italy.

The book is largely about the hand-me-down recipes she ate as a child.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:38 AM on May 6, 2010


Molly Stevens All About Braising seems like exactly what you're looking for. I love cookbooks, but I've never cooked through a cookbook like I have since I bought this earlier this year. I've make about a dozen of the dishes, and a few of them repeatedly. The chicken with pears and rosemary is succulent, and the beef with Zinfandel and sage is extraordinary. Also, because this book concentrates on a method, after making enough of the recipes I feel like I really understand the method itself, enough that I feel completely able to extemporize.

The other source is the Cook's Illustrated magazines. Solid recipes, no corners cut, emphasis on method and best ingredients.
posted by tula at 9:41 AM on May 6, 2010


I forgot to mention: Another great classic is James Beard's American Cookery.
posted by General Malaise at 9:49 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: He's an American, but Richard Olney wrote some classic French cookbooks:

Simple French Food (not actually "simple," from what I hear), and The French Menu Cookbook. Both go into considerable detail and are very passionate about traditional French food (as well as wine.)
posted by Ouisch at 9:53 AM on May 6, 2010


Also, this was not on your list of cuisines, but Food that Really Schmecks is a fascinating collection of traditional Mennonite recipes.

My mom-in-law has a huge collection of cookbooks and is a great cook, and I love looking through her collection and copying things down, so I may have to barge back into this thread again when something else springs to mind.
posted by Ouisch at 9:56 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: When you're in second-hand shops, scan the cookbook section for dated Penguin paperbacks. They are reliable classics and would fit your bill perfectly, I think. Some examples: Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (wonderful), Portuguese Cookery by Ursula Bourne, Indian Cookery by Dharamjit Singh...

Jocasta Innes' The Pauper's Cookbook is a personal traditional (after a fashion) British favourite. The Attic Cookbook is a nice Grandma's-recipes sort of work.

They are called "Penguin Handbooks" and semi-easily found for cheap second-hand, at least in Canada. I have about ten of them now and they are unfailingly great, and, I think, exactly what you are after. No exotic, no processed, focus on good labour-intensive classics/basics, rudiments explained, a bit of background chatter and then off to the food. It makes my week whenever I pick up a new one.
posted by kmennie at 9:57 AM on May 6, 2010


Response by poster: Awesome! What about European Pastries?

Thank you for your suggestions!
posted by Tarumba at 9:57 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: My mom has a book called Bake Your Own Bread, which was first published in 1972 I think. It has amazing recipes, and assumes that you are doing everything by hand instead of by stand mixer. The instructions are quite detailed and written in a hilariously conversational tone. This is still my go-to bread book.
posted by just_ducky at 10:00 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: Also, fully 2nd a Larousse Gastronomique. Steer clear of the "updated" Joy of Cooking, which is a different animal, trendy and useless.
posted by kmennie at 10:03 AM on May 6, 2010


Response by poster: Yes Just_ducky! I forgot bread! I have been trying to find a good French bread recipe for ages, and I love bread making.

thank you!
posted by Tarumba at 10:03 AM on May 6, 2010


Response by poster: and where can I find oldish versions of these marvels? I have been looking at your links and the reviews say that the older versions are way better.
posted by Tarumba at 10:06 AM on May 6, 2010


America Cooks is the one that my family enjoyed. It's out of print, but I turned one up at an antiques store.
posted by ES Mom at 10:07 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: The Silver Spoon is what you're looking for as far as Italian food goes.
posted by questionsandanchors at 10:41 AM on May 6, 2010


If you're interested in french techniques (i.e. making the sauces you'll later use in recipes, butterflying a chicken, etc), Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques rocks.

First edition Joy of Cooking (as others have said). As for the new one, Do Not Want.
posted by DaveP at 10:51 AM on May 6, 2010


Can't tell if you're looking for more American stuff too, but the Grange cookbooks totally fit the mold of "your grandma's cookbook". Google it, there were of course many variations.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 10:53 AM on May 6, 2010


"The Essentials of Italian Cooking" by Marcella Hazan is, for me (and many others), the best book of its kind-- a wide variety of simple, unpretentious, authentic, and delicious Italian food. Really, a cornerstone of any cooking library and, arguably, definitive.
posted by adgnyc at 10:59 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: depending on your level of experience and overall kitchen competency, I would really go with the Olney or Julia Child over the Larousse. The recipes in the Larousse definitely satisfy the questioner's requirements for doing everything from scratch and being time consuming but their instructions can be, at times, vague, and are not, to my mind, reliable ... at least not if you consider 'reliable to be, I can follow this recipe 100 times and will receive consistent results. They presume a level of experience and an ability to act independently following the loose guidelines laid out in the book, that isn't necessarily possessed by most home cooks. You should already know what a good bechamel sauce feels like when you stir it. You should not need to know how long to cook a steak before it is medium rare because you should already know how it feels when it is done.

Don't get me wrong: The Larousse is a lovely reference, and my girlfriend and I enjoy pulling it out to get a definitive explanation of what a kougn amann should be were I to go to a bakery and ask for one; then be able to lecture the baker on why their kougn amann is not authentic. I would not turn to the Larousse if I, myself, wanted to make that same kougn amann in my own kitchen, especially if I've never made it before.
posted by bl1nk at 11:19 AM on May 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


oh, and +1 to the Marcella Hazan Essentials... book. I bought this ten years ago and have not felt the need to get any more Italian cookbooks since.

It's been solid.

Most of my pointers to ethnic cookery was gleaned from the appendices of an early edition of How To Cook Everything. Besides Hazan's Essentials, I also have Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, which is dense and time consuming and certainly a little dated but incredibly solid, Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food which is a little more streamlined and easier in the learning curve, but rather wide-ranging and great, and Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, which is, I think, a fine introduction but not necessarily a bible for that particular culture.

Unfortunately, the most recent editions of How To Cook Everything have foregone these lists for some unexplained reason... which is unfortunate.
posted by bl1nk at 11:27 AM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: For bread, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice is phenomonal. Thorough, varied, and pages and pages of instructions on how to start a sourdough starter. For vegetarian food, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is my bible.
posted by hungrybruno at 11:27 AM on May 6, 2010


I would be a little hesitant to use the Larousse Gastronomique primarily as a recipe book. It's more of a reference book, a dictionary of culinary terms. On the same page as coq (for coq au vin), it has definitions for "copper" ("A reddish material used in the manufacture of cooking utensils..."), "copra"("The dried kernel of the coconut..."), and "coppa" ("Italian or Corsican charcuterie..."). Immediately following coq, there are four serviceable but spare recipes for coq au vin1. But immediately after that is the definition of coque, "A cake made in the south-west of France for the Easter celebration" -- but no recipe. Lots of the book is comprised of tantalizing descriptions of regional or archaic (or both) French specialties, but mysteriously lacking in recipes.

Also, it's massive: 1360 pages and 6.8 pounds, according to Amazon. So there's that. The Larousse Gastronomique is to cooking what the Oxford English Dictionary is to writing.

1. And, while I'm certainly in no position to pass judgment, I would like to point out that they use bacon in their coq au vin recipe (at least in the American edition), not lardons.
posted by mhum at 12:49 PM on May 6, 2010


Best answer: First edition Joy of Cooking (as others have said)

I would also recommend Joy of Cooking, also recommend avoiding the latest versions (the 1997 and 2006 ones), but I don't think I'd go so far as the 1931 edition (reproduced in a facsimile edition in 1998) unless you're really looking for Depression-era recipes. I've worked off of and quite enjoyed the 1975 edition (probably tied with the 1963 edition for "most iconic"). It's old enough to be old-fashioned in its sensibility, but modern enough to be of practical, everyday use. It truly is one of the touchstones of American cooking.
posted by mhum at 1:07 PM on May 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Another vote for the Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything. I'll often look up the same recipe in both and then combine them to create my own. Either one would be great on its own but they work really well in tandem.
posted by sbrollins at 1:53 PM on May 6, 2010


I have a couple volumes of the Time Life Foods of the World Series* (I have Scandinavia and Provincial France.) I've had a lot of success with the recipes. Despite their age, the recipes don't seem dated at all because they are all basic and made with real honest food rather than fad ingredients like pudding mix or cheez wiz. And as a bonus, the front section is an article about the foods of that area.

I love almost all of Paula Wolfert's books on the cuisine of the Mediterranean.

*link is to an ebay auction of the entire set with an opening bid of $9.99!
posted by vespabelle at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2010


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