Help me find a vaguely remembered, possibly imagined, cookbook?

December 4, 2013 12:08 PM

I could have sworn I once saw a cookbook which was less about recipes and more about learning to create your own recipes. Cannot find it anywhere, though!

It wasn't a technical guide to laying out a recipe, rather, a guide to creating meals from scratch without recipes. I believe there were charts involved -- I remember a blog post or something, possibly by the author, which included a pie chart.

That tiny, useless piece of info is all I've got. Any ideas?

posted by AmandaA to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

Best answer: Was it Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio ?
posted by Kakkerlak at 12:12 PM on December 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Almost certainly Ratio. The front cover of the book is a circular chart with all the ratios on it. If it is indeed Ratio, you might also check out the app, which is fabulous and lets you enter the amount of, say, butter, and it does the math for you for the eggs, flour, and salt. The whole thing is brilliant.
posted by hungrybruno at 12:14 PM on December 4, 2013

There is also the No Recipe Cookbook by Susan Crowther which came out more recently.
posted by beagle at 12:17 PM on December 4, 2013

Response by poster: Oh goodness, it's definitely Ratio! Thanks all.
posted by AmandaA at 12:46 PM on December 4, 2013

A similar-sounding cookbook, which I use all the time, is How to Cook Without a Book.
posted by merejane at 2:33 PM on December 4, 2013

The Flavor Thesaurus is a great little reference as well.
posted by oulipian at 6:03 AM on December 5, 2013