Cookbook buying preferences?

If you buy cookbooks, what kind of cookbooks do you prefer? Technique, specific ingredient focus, general cookbooks, ethnic, chef based...? Please mention recently purchased favorites.

[Jenise]

Greg, judging by the two books I bought in the last year (I probably average 2 purchases a year) I tend to buy technique and chef more than anything else. My two most recent purchases are Daniel Boulud's Braise and Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie, for example.

Greg, since taking the Boot Camp at the CIA five years ago, I rarely buy technique books, although like Jenise I bought Braise.

I also bought Chef on Fire by Chef Carey; as he's mentioned from time to time, he's a travel adventure all tied up in one person.

Instead of technique books, I've been concentrating on "cuisine travelogs", books that cover both the culture and the food (often without many recipes) of a particular time and area.

none - the best cookbooks were written a long time ago

I favor the ones that teach technique and systematics. Hence, two of my favorites: Julia Child's The Way to Cook, and Chef Carey's Chef on Fire. A pair of books that crystallized my thinking on a wide variety of cooking techniques.

I similarly value cookbooks on ethnic cuisines that take a technique-oriented approach. For example, Chinese cooking seemed to be to be a disorganized hodge-podge of disconnected individual recipes until I read The Chinese Cookbook by Virginia Lee and Craig Claiborne, and The Encyclopedia of Chinese Cooking by Kenneth Lo.

Paul Prudhomme's first cookbook, Louisiana Kitchen, similarly laid out his approach to Cajun-nouvelle cuisine, and the fundamentals to how he builds a dish.

I like that kind of thing. Given the principles, you can then apply them to any ingredients at hand. Having an isolated recipe is nice, but it's so much better if you also know the principles that make it tick.

-Paul W.

I feel pretty solid on technique, so I tend to look to books to expand my repertoire of ingredients/preparations, which generally means either an ethnic slant (Basque, Thai, etc.) or a chef slant (Mark Miller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten) or both (Rick Bayless). My most dogeared cookbooks, though, are "Joy of Cooking" and MFK Fisher's Time/Life book "Provincial French Cooking."

Mark Lipton

Thanks all. Some very nice suggestions.

Hmm. There seems to be a difference between what cookbooks I buy to read and what cookbooks I use for cooking.

I tend to read cookbooks for entertainment, information about other ways of looking at the world, and general ideas, more than for recipes. I have a couple of the ones on Bob's list, and I also like the way Patricia Wells weaves a travelogue into her books.

Being a visual artist, layout and graphics (illustrations and photos) are important to me in something I am reading for pleasure. Like Mark, however, my old faithful, broken-binding, loose-pages "Joy of Cooking" gets used as an actual cookbook much more than the other kind, especially as a jumping off point for comfort food-inspired dishes.

Frankly I never buy cookbooks these days and I had shelves upon shelves of cookbooks but threw them all away a couple of years ago. All of them, and everything from the CIA Professional Chef to Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking to Joy of Cooking. Why, you ask? Because I had an epiphany during a layover in the Omaha, Nebraska airport when I was perusing the cookbook section of the used bookshop. I discovered a book entitled, “Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals”. From the minute I opened it, I could not figure out why someone would discard this fine cookbook. And by simply calling it a “cookbook” I am doing it a disservice because it is a manifestation of a philosophy for making meals that will solve all of your problems and in only 30 minutes.

Have you fallen out of favor with your boss? No problem! Invite her over for a “Bosses Night” dinner and serve her a garlic and Bacardi 151 marinated flank steak with carrots soaked in Green Chartreuse.

Having a difficult time wooing that guy you know through the bowling league? Don’t worry. Call him up on a Friday afternoon and invite him over for a dinner of Penne with Vodka sauce followed by Twinkies in a prune Sambuca sauce.

Trying to smooth things over with the neighbors who are irate because you have trained your dog to only poop in their yard? No worries! Just make them a 30 minute meal comprised of duck breasts buried under an Everclear sauce with a side of Yukon Gold mashed potatoes made with Yukon Jack. And don’t forget the green beans macerated with plum brandy. YUM-O. They will be friendly neighbors again in no time!

Why would I need any other cookbook? Ever!

Frankly I never buy cookbooks these days and I had shelves upon shelves of cookbooks but threw them all away a couple of years ago. All of them, and everything from the CIA Professional Chef to Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking to Joy of Cooking. Why, you ask? Because I had an epiphany during a layover in the Omaha, Nebraska airport when I was perusing the cookbook section of the used bookshop. I discovered a book entitled, “Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals”. From the minute I opened it, I could not figure out why someone would discard this fine cookbook. And by simply calling it a “cookbook” I am doing it a disservice because it is a manifestation of a philosophy for making meals that will solve all of your problems and in only 30 minutes.

Have you fallen out of favor with your boss? No problem! Invite her over for a “Bosses Night” dinner and serve her a garlic and Bacardi 151 marinated flank steak with carrots soaked in Green Chartreuse.

Having a difficult time wooing that guy you know through the bowling league? Don’t worry. Call him up on a Friday afternoon and invite him over for a dinner of Penne with Vodka sauce followed by Twinkies in a prune Sambuca sauce.

Trying to smooth things over with the neighbors who are irate because you have trained your dog to only poop in their yard? No worries! Just make them a 30 minute meal comprised of duck breasts buried under an Everclear sauce with a side of Yukon Gold mashed potatoes made with Yukon Jack. And don’t forget the green beans macerated with plum brandy. YUM-O. They will be friendly neighbors again in no time!

Why would I need any other cookbook? Ever!

Not to mention all the space you have gained. She gives us so much, and asks for so little.

[Robin Garr]

Not to mention all the space you have gained. She gives us so much, and asks for so little.

Thanks for the midday guffaw, Greg! Have another beer ... on me!

I buy cookbooks for two reasons: I want to learn something about the history and cooking a cuisine that I really like (Thai, and all things Asian). These are the books that I read; and food porn (books that grab me with both interesting ingredients and pictures to prove it!) These are the books that I look at and drool over, but may never prepare a single recipe. When it comes to recipes that I cook, I have 4 over-filled, 3-ring binders full of recipes that I have been collecting for over 30 years from magazines, newspapers, friends scribbled recipes on the back of envelopes, napkins and copy paper.