PrintMost 'fun' cookbook you have read or own?
Okay, we've done best and worst...but c'mon, the funnest ones to read are the novelty ones, admit it ;)
Well, perhaps my affection starts with my first--a circa 1950s Betty Crocker kids cookbook from the library I loved as a child--complete with hot dogs made to look like little dogs, smiley cookies, pears on lettuce decorated to look like mice, and burger buns with faces, and great retro illustrations--wish I owned it!
Kid's party books were and are always quite fun for recipies.
I recently read 'The Back of the Box' cook books, with great recipes from boxed, processed goods, spanning everything from apple pies with ketchup in them to mock saltine apple pie to Knorrs spinach dip, and so forth. Hilarious!
And Jane & Michael Stern wrote a cookbook awhile ago (not a Roadfood book) about traditional American food fads, from weird 1920s suspended salads to rationing offal dishes to 1950s Hawaiian themed party platters...
What are your favs?
The Little House Cookbook, based on the Laura Ingells Wilder series was nice..
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26 Comments:
I have Aunt Bees Mayberry Cookbook, which actually contains some pretty good recipes.
Also fun is my 1972 Campbells Cooking With Soup. If you want the recipe for "Creamed Cooked Beef", or "Chili Liver", (using Condensed Onion Soup), just let me know!
srhcb at 8:25PM on 05/18/08
Cooking with Two Fat Ladies is good for a laugh ....and like srhcb ...it does have some pretty good recipes.......another fun one would be Nose to Tail Eating by Ferguus Henderson
onepercent99 at 9:10PM on 05/18/08
Have to go with the White Trash Series (though the first is hard to find... not sure what that means):
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery:
Definitely not vegetarian. And, in many ways I hate the idea that it memorializes Spam and Hot Dog recipes (some things are best buried). But for appreciating what one is eating (makes Top Ramen seem gourmet) and not having to live through the seventies, maybe even to help with dieting, these are great (maybe keep in the bathroom).
Course, I'd have never known about the Twinkies Cookbook if I hadn't been looking up the above.
For net cruising it's hard to beat the Weight Watchers Recipe Cards from the seventies. Yowser, what a decade!
Sieseye at 9:29PM on 05/18/08
The one that amuses me the most is my Star Wars Wookiee Cookies cookbook that I bought ~10 years ago. It's so cute, with recipes of Princess Leia Danish Dos, Hoth chocolate, Yoda soda (yep, it's green), Han burgers, Boba Fett-ucine, etc. Great pictures too!
Cassaendra at 9:43PM on 05/18/08
i read the other day part of Deceptively Delicious - i liked reading the comments the taste-testers made of most dishes... nice fun read.
MadelynRodriguez at 10:04PM on 05/18/08
Bourdain's "Les Halles Cookbook", the first cookbook I read cover-to-cover: "Poulet Roti ... That's roast chicken. numbnuts. And if you can't properly roast a damn chicken then you are one helpless, hopeless, sorry-ass bi-valve in an apron. Take that apron off, wrap it around your neck, and hang yourself. You do not deserve to wear the proud garment of generations of hardworking, dedicated cooks. Turn in those clogs, too."
LunaPierCook at 6:42AM on 05/19/08
I bought my daughter the Easy Bake Oven cookbook a few years back.....it actually has recipes by chefs all over the country, adapted for the Easy Bake Oven....it's been alot of fun to read, and we've even tried a couple of recipes too!
mepolo at 7:59AM on 05/19/08
Years ago, I fell in love with a quirky movie called "Home for the Holidays", and for Christmas that year, I got the movie and the accompanying cookbook. The recipes in it were all real blasts from the past (a real hoot!) and the commentary along with them made me chuckle almost as much as the movie did. I'm not sure it's even still in print, but if you run into it, take a peek.
@LunaPierCook - I also loved the irreverently comical tone of Bourdain's "Les Halles Cookbook"! But, he makes me laugh out loud most of the time, anyway. He's such a bad boy.
Brownie at 8:07AM on 05/19/08
Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes .
From Publishers Weekly
Hungry? Perhaps a serving of "Scrambled Dregs" or "Hair Toffee to Make Hair Grow on Bald Men" will hit the spot. Recipes for these and the additional delicacies mentioned in the late Roald Dahl's (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) work are hereby adapted for the home kitchen, thanks to the author's widow. Dahl, one suspects, would have been tickled: the offerings are heavily weighted on the side of sweets, and the order of presentation defies adult logic.
Karen Resta at 8:30AM on 05/19/08
"Eat Dangerously (the blow it out your ass) Cookbook." That is the actual title, published by Hollander and Hechsher, copywrite 1999.
bessfour at 9:33AM on 05/19/08
HeartofGlass: I also adored the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. My mother the packrack recently regifted it to me (after 30-some years) -- complete with all the dried dough blobs on the chocolate chip cookie page! It's pretty popular on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/5eezps
Dee at 9:44AM on 05/19/08
Thank you so much for that image! That retro stuff rocks! I also love the fact the boy is making the cake, even in 1965!
Love the idea of a Star Wars cookbook--I've seen a Disney cookbook too recently, and vaguely remember an Encyclopedia Brown cookbook as a kid...
I thought of another--Amy Sederis' book on Entertaining, complete with an image of herself buried in whipped cream as a centerfold, and recipes for cheese balls.
HeartofGlass at 10:15AM on 05/19/08
"I Hate to Cook" book by Peg Bracken. Very entertaining -- A good read and I have made a few things from it that were very good.
lakeloverhh at 10:57AM on 05/19/08
I think the funniest books through which I have ever thumbed are these 1940's pamphlets I have in my historial section. Many of the recipes can be found here and it's worth a look if you have a few minutes. WARNING: If you are at work, be sure not to LOL.
Another fun book I have is I'm A SPAM Fan. It's kind of a "nostalgia/trivia" book more than a cookbook. (Scroll down and read the two reviews at the site linked above.)
chiff0nade at 10:59AM on 05/19/08
That Bourdain... such a gentle, supportive character. I hope he isn't taking the lead in toilet-training his baby daughter: "Listen, numbnuts, EVERYONE can pee in a goddam toilet! What's your fucking problem?"
annien at 1:11PM on 05/19/08
I have a 1963 edition of Mimi Sheraton's 'The Seducer's Cookbook', subtitled 'Helpful and hilarious hints for 20 situations into which men may lure women, and vice versa'. Extremely dated, of course! The line illustrations by Paul Coker are also quite amusing.
hng23 at 1:20PM on 05/19/08
Morimoto's book, because it's so goddam beautiful and the recipes are so absurdly intricate it's almost funny.
johnhutch at 2:10PM on 05/19/08
Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest -- beautifully hand-lettered and with quirky, hand-drawn illustrations throughout!
onedaylingers at 3:10PM on 05/19/08
Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. A brilliant blend of quirky humor, possible insanity and recipes (mostly Greek) presented in earnest. She is the anti-Martha.
latteaday at 3:57PM on 05/19/08
I still have my copy of the 1965 Betty Crocker kid's cookbook. Love it and will never part from it, at least until I get some grandchildren! Jane and Michael Stern's "Square Meals", a 1984 book about meals and/or parties that may have been (or not). Much of the copy is hilarious. I actually made the Enchanted Broccoli Forest when my daughter was about 3. We had fun eating it.
My most recent acquisition is the "Tempting Kosher Dishes" published by Manischewitz in 1930. The writers (anonymous) really didn't know how to write a recipe so it becomes a challenge to the semi-adventurous cook to use it. Great Manischewitz wine/walnut cake....about the best use for that wine I've ever experienced!
joannabar at 11:06PM on 05/19/08
An old Jell-o cookbook. There is a recipe for ham "loaf", ham, eggs, peas in lemon Jello paradise. I've never been brave enough to try a recipe, but I wouldn't part with it for the world.
LearP at 12:47AM on 05/20/08
My husband gave me a copy of David Letterman's Mom's Cookbook - I thought is was going to be a nice doorstop, but it turned out to have the best burger recipe that I use for every cookout.
http://www.dinnersforayear.blogspot.com
eatmyfood at 2:07PM on 05/20/08
i am a cookbook freak, so much so that there is much less space than there should be on the counter to actually COOK :-),but my favorite one is the one i got as a gift when my youngest son was in sixth grade. as a science project (?) the whole class brought in their favorite recipes from home and made a book out of them...laminated and everything. between the handwriting, spelling errors, very odd sounding directions and a healthy dose of our Southern country culture, it was, and still is, belly laugh funny. and today he turns sweet 16 and you can best believe he wishes i would lose that thing now!
justicetassie at 2:45PM on 05/20/08
I have one called "Miss Ruby's Down-Home Trailer Trash Cookbook"...mostly just comedic value, but some of the recipes are actually pretty good. Comes with recipes from all her trailer park neighbors, and the ones from the "barfly" neighbor always contain half a can of flat beer from the night before. Hysterical.
rosezilla at 1:46PM on 05/21/08
Easily the most entertaining cookbooks yet published in the English language are Beat This and Beat That by Ann Hodgman (are you reading this, Ann?)
I regularly re-read these - and by regularly, I mean weekly. And the recipes all work.
Bakerloo Line at 7:03PM on 05/23/08
I have a few cookbooks, but I think the most "fun" one I have is Retro Desserts: Totally Hip, Updated Classic Desserts from the '40S, '50S, 60s and '70s by Wayne Brachman. I made the grasshopper pie and it was pretty tasty. The pictures are fun to look at, too.
fatitalianbroad at 6:42PM on 05/26/08