Essential cookbooks

April 24, 2024 by
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What makes a cookbook essential? Is it one that covers broad swaths of territory, like Joy of Cooking, or one that keenly focuses on a smaller subject like Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables? Maybe it’s a cookbook that changes the way an entire country cooks, like Mastering the Art of French Cooking did. Perhaps this whole line of inquiry is looking at the definition from the wrong perspective – can what makes a cookbook essential just be the way it speaks to a particular reader? That’s what you will find in a recent New Yorker feature called Fifteen Essential Cookbooks.

Rather than proscribing a list of cookbooks that everyone should have in their home the way most lists of “essential books” do, this is a reflection by fifteen different New Yorker contributors and writers on a single cookbook and why it has become indispensable to each person. Each of these vignettes is beautiful and inspiring, making me second guess parting with Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts and causing me to take another look at Grist by Abra Berens, which has been gathering dust on my bookshelves.

Although I have hundreds of cookbooks, there are a handful that have earned a special place on my bookshelves, either through their unfailing recipes (The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum), the way they transformed the way I cook (Ratio by Michael Ruhlman), or the compelling storytelling (Black Sea by Caroline Eden). The ones I find indispensable change over time as well. Books I had once turned to on a near daily basis are now only occasionally referenced, either because I had outgrown them or because I had absorbed them so fully that the words are practically seared into my brain. After reading the lovely stories about these books, I’m going to pull a few off the shelves and dive back into them.

Category: Antipasto

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8 Comments

  • vickster  on  April 25, 2024

    I can’t read without New Yorker subscription 😕

  • matag  on  April 25, 2024

    My 60 year old torn and tattered Betty Crocker Cookbook now sits on the shelf until I make popovers. Not sure why I can’t remember how to make them without looking at the recipe. On the other hand my Milk Street cookbooks are opened often.

  • demomcook  on  April 25, 2024

    What an unusual list, and great reading. “Mezcla” is the one that caught my eye.

  • demomcook  on  April 25, 2024

    Posted too soon! Two on the list that I rely on: How to Cook Everything -but this migrated with the kids when they moved out – and How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Definitely essentials.

  • Rinshin  on  April 28, 2024

    None of those. If I can only have one cookbook, I think I would choose Joy of Cooking or The Sunset Cooking. If I have the basic recipe from these two books and with my years of cooking experience and exposure, I can make the recipes mine by modifying to my taste and knowledge.

  • ccav  on  April 29, 2024

    Honey from a Weed is such a wonderful book. I must read it again! It’s about living from the land, cooking what you have, taking joy in what the earth provides, enjoying seasonal flavors in the moment.

  • djownes  on  May 11, 2024

    The American Library Association (under the Reference and User Services division) publishes a list of Essential Cookbooks annually. Our committee narrows down the list to 12 from hundreds of cookbooks reviewed, and cooked from! Here are the 2023 publications that made the list – https://rusaupdate.org/2024/01/essential-cookbooks-2024-the-codes-list/

  • EskieF  on  May 13, 2024

    I have 6 of the 15 – and find East and Mezcla to be the most inspiring, Bittman’s to be the most practical, Bee Wilson’s to be the best read (and best written), and Food52’s to be an excellent compendium of great recipes. I never use Nigella’s book any more, because I don’t bake. Grist looks interesting.

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