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Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I love this book and use it way more than any other cookbook I own, with written notes all over and dog-eared pages and sauce stains, the way a well used cookbook is supposed to look. That said, it's certainly not all purpose. For all purpose, I'd go with The Joy of Cooking from 1972 or 73, can't remember. That edition was awesome. I swear, it kills me that the new ed doesn't have their lemonade recipe. Skythe, what's your edition?

Julia (Child) & Jacques (Pepin) Cooking at Home, because I admire them so much.

(and it is a great cookbook too, with good recipes and beautiful pictures!)

I'm a joy user as well. If I'm not following a specific recipe and just doing my own thing, that's my go to book if I need some reference on basic techniques, temperatures, seasonings, etc.

Mine is a 1979 and it does have a lemonade recipe (and a lemonade syrup recipe too), in case you were wondering.

Joy of Cooking. Though on a less practical note I have come to love The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I had only made a handful of recipes but I read it cover to cover when I got it and don't get tired of looking through it to find the next recipe to tackle. Am I weird?

I second Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Most used cookbook in my kitchen, even over Silver Spoon, which I got as a gift yet rarely use.

I've got the 1975 edition. Does the lemonade recipe have a special name, at all? (I'm intrigued, now!)

Right now I'm loving Sunday Suppers at Lucques, but I'm not sure if I'd say that it's the best cookbook ever, just because it's not as timeless as some others that have been mentioned. I also love everything in the Cooks Illustrated set,especially Baking Illustrated.

I grew up with Fannie Farmer for the basics and The Silver Palate for special occasions. Currently my favorites are Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, by Pam Anderson (no, not that one) and Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook.

I confess. I'm a cookbook addict fanatic. So was my mother and I have many of hers too. My favorites are some of the very oldest that belonged to ancestors. More recent are Cooks Illustrated, Julia Child, Pierre Franey, Barefoot Contessa, Jacques Pepin, Lidia Bastianich. Some multiples, especially Julia and Ina..

On another thread, there were so many votes for the 70's version of Joy of Cooking, that I bought one on Ebay. Haven't received it yet, but can't wait! My reference book is called The Basic Cook Book, and my mother gave it to me when I got married. It has great sentimental value, but I used it a lot, until I started amassing cookbooks.

I used to have an ancient, soft-cover copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook that eventually fell apart and got lost in one move or another. I've always missed it, so that's one that's on my wish list. Mostly I want it for sentimental value, but also because I've found over the years that knowing "the old way" of doing things often reveals the "best" way!

I still have my first copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook. I bought it for myself in junior high when I was in one of those book-of-the-month clubs. I still look at it, but mostly for comic relief.

jcrisco......I don't have any Disney cookbooks, but I've had the pleasure of tasting some recipes and they were to die for. My friend has even more cookbooks than I, but she loves the Disney recipes. Her husband (a Brit) loves Nigella, but one day she made 5 recipes from her cookbook for a bake sale. Not a single one worked as it should and this woman is a phenomenal cook/baker. The recipes were flawed. Just a warning.

Okay jcrisco - I am so jealous you live so close! I've been to DisneyWorld three times (once on a business trip, but still park-hopped). Never on a cruise, though hope to some day! I'll look for the Delicious Disney book..actually I have friends going in November and they are cruising, so I'll put my order in with them if I don't get it sooner!

Gotta say that my fav appetizer from my 1st Disney cookbook is the Jamacian Hot Wings! Have you tried them? Oh, and the fantasia cheesecake, and the milky-way cake... oh, and the decadence cake, not a stitch of flour init...cocoa powder, butter, eggs, sugar and bourbon...probably one more thing, but it was to die for!

Chisai -- 1975 edition has the lemonade recipe! Here it is, just in case you want it:
For each cup of water, add:
1.5 T of lemon or lime juice
3 to 4 T of sugar
1/8 tsp salt

There is also this note:
Sugar and water need not be boiled, but the quality of the lemonade is improved if they are. Boil the sugar and water for 2 minutes. Chill the syrup and add the fruit juice. (There are more details on adding other kinds of fruit juice or iced tea -- let me know if you want those, too.)

I learned to cook by using Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet. Highly creative and original, and yet very accessible, with AMAZING recipes. It's not so huge as to be unmanageable, and it greatly increased my food literacy as well. Every recipe I've made from it, including the very first one when I barely knew what sauteing was, has been an unqualified smash with whoever has tasted it. After four years, my copy is dog-eared and stiff with dried food splatters ... you can tell it's been well-loved. You don't need to be a vegetarian to benefit greatly from this one.

Goodness, so many to choose from! Some cookbooks are transformative in that they introduce so many concepts as well as recipes and techniques. For me that was Amanda Hesser's "The Cook and the Gardener." It's loaded with recipes and information about the food she cooked when working for Ann Willan at La Varenne (?), which I think is the Burgundy region of France. It was the first cookbook I ever saw that was organized by month rather than by course. Introducing each season, she goes over a few basic recipes that are used in various recipes or are typical of the season. Now that I shop at a farmers market in Washington, DC, the organization of this book makes more sense than ever. But even before that her writing and recipes got me to try things like brussel sprouts and making jams and preserves that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. Now I've sought out other sources for some recipes but so enjoy referring to her cookbook as she coaches me through the preparation. She can be a bit of a pedantic food snob, but I've learned so much!

This question is hard because what I'd call my favorite cookbooks, or what I'd argue are the best cookbooks ever, are cookbooks that have taught me. So in a fire, I might not need to grab those books, since many of their lessons and quite a few of their recipes have been internalized.

I'll recast the question: there's a fire and all knowledge gained from the books will be lost: which would I want a back-up copy of?

In that genre, I'd say that Cooking One on One by John Ash is a great cookbook. It doesn't have the romance or other emotional tug of Zuni or works by Marcella or Julia or any other number of famous books and their authors. But he's such a great teacher, and this book is so efficiently comprehensive (its barely 200 pages, if that), that I think anyone who works through it would emerge quite a capable cook with a deep understanding of highly adaptable techniques across several cuisines. You wouldn't need the books so much after that.

But he's lacking in desserts, and no baking.

For sheer breadth of recipes: Gourmet. It's a boring answer, but if I could pack only one book (and this may be happening soon in real life, sigh), it's probably Gourmet.

the complete meat cookbook (kelly/aidells) the timing/temperatures for various cuts are so accurate. i love it.