Encyclopedic Cookbooks of the World
I found a copy of the first edition of The Joy of Cooking tossed out with someone's trash yesterday (!), went home and flipped through it for a few hours. I lost my copy last year and I forgot how amazing this book is.
I love the approach: ingredient, concise intro passage, a few recipes. I love the little diagrams and how thoroughly it discusses the preparation of meats. The author surely looked to Escoffier's tome as a model.
I told a friend about it and he said his dad just got a copy of Silver Spoon, which apparently is the "Italian Joy of Cooking." I'm looking forward to picking that up, and in the meantime I'm wondering if other cuisines have similarly encyclopedic cookbooks, and if they've been translated to English or not.
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10 Comments:
I have a much-loved copy of Italy's The SIlver Spoon, which basically covers anything Italian that you can think of, and then some. It was such a wise purchase. I got it the first time that it was printed in English and every recipe is authentic and turns out perfectly! it makes me want to be Italian. :)
Traveller at 1:09PM on 07/13/09
For Spanish food, best cookbook I've found is "Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas -- and for Cuban food, Cocina al Minuto by Nitza Villapol -- not sure if the Cuban volume is available in English, but it is "the" cookbook for traditional Cuban food.
gbania at 2:38PM on 07/13/09
What a fantastic find!
I order my cookbooks in a very strange way. I group them as follows:
Ethnic/Regional (Chinese, New England)
Single Chef Authors (Julia Child, Ina Garten)
Multiple Chef Compliations (Baking With Julia, Becoming a Chef)
Single Subject (Tamales, BBQ Bible)
Baking (How to Bake)
Cake Decorating (Stuff by Nick Lodge, Collette Peters)
Yearbooks/Collections (Encyclopaedia of Cookery, Bon Appetit hard bound annuals)
Christmas/Holidays (self-explanatory)
Historical/Sentimental (older books like my 1912 Junior League Cookbook from Washington State; my 1940's pamphlets - think Gallery of Regrettable Food)
...And LBNL:
Definitive Guides It's under this category that live the following books:
Joy of Cooking
Putting Food By
Cake Bible
Bo Friberg's Professional Pastry Chef
Cookwise
Larousse Gastronomique
(I HAD The Professional Chef from the CIA but lost it in a custody battle. Grrrrr.)
@gbania - I have Delicioso! by Penelope Casas and built an entire gourmet group dinner from it. Everything, from tapas to dessert, came from that book - and I did her Paella as my main course. Fantastic.
therealchiffonade at 3:20PM on 07/13/09
PS - wanted to add that like you, I made what I felt was a major find in the garbage. Just got out of the car to go to my brother's for his birthday. It had snowed. Saw stacks and stacks of magazines tied up. Old Gourmet and a magazine I had never seen, Cuisine. Turns out it went out of print many years ago. Opened car trunk, put in my score, happily paged through the mags after Bro's BD dinner. Still have those mags and this happened 10 years ago - at least.
therealchiffonade at 3:38PM on 07/13/09
For the Spanish equivalent to the Joy of Cooking, get 1,080 Recipes. An English version was recently published. I don't own it, so I can't say how good it is (although I've heard mostly positive things).
sfgoo at 4:07PM on 07/13/09
The first one that comes to mind is Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
yayfood at 6:02PM on 07/13/09
I've flipped through the 1,080 Recipes and I don't think it's worth the money. I wasn't able to find basic Spanish recipes that I grew up with. Unless my mom was a culinary genius (she wasn't) this book isn't very accurate.
gingercookiewithlime at 7:23PM on 07/13/09
I love the all encompassing, On food and cooking, the science and lore of the kitchen. It is the ultimate encyclopedia of food.
GinaPet at 7:31PM on 07/13/09
I've really enjoyed Claudia Roden's books on Middle Eastern cuisines - they were very precise and clear, but without taking shortcuts that compromised the cuisine. And I really liked the history and details she provides.
Julia Child, of course - again, followable even for novices, but really thorough..
@ GinaPet...I agree! It's so much more fun to know the reason for all the steps in cooking that would otherwise seem random(and it makes it easier to remember).
firni at 9:53PM on 07/13/09
Of the encyclopedic type, I have:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Child et al.)
Joy of Cooking
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (early 60's edition)
Larousse Gastronomique
Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne (Jehane Benoit - very famous in French Canada, unknown elsewhere?)
PeanutButter at 10:56PM on 07/13/09