How many cookbooks do you need?
 

I guess I own between 30 and 40 cookbooks. I have a small bookcase in the kitchen where I keep them. I have a few general cookbooks, like Betty Crocker and Joy of Cooking, some specific to cooking methods (grilling, slow-cooking) and the rest are mostly regional. I bought another Italian cookbook yesterday and Mrs BamaVol asked how many I needed (already had 6). Truth is, I like to open the up and read them, look at the pictures with no intention of cooking anything. Am I addicted to food porn?

If you really have no intention of cooking (hardly) any of the recipes then yes, most definitely.

Mind you, there is an American author who's recipe books I like to read yet I rarely make any of her stuff - Anna Thomas. That's because the Mexican ingredients she loves are too hard to source in the UK (nopalitos, tomatillos, guajillos etc) and she uses an oven a lot (something I don't currently have in my rented apartment and I can't bring myself to use a microwave - there are so many Mediterranean and Asian dishes I can cook, and so many more to discover, it doesn't bother me much)

I too have a lot of cookbooks, the General ones (Betty Crocker,Better homes and Garden) etc. are from my parents and are Circa 1960.
I have a ton of Grilling/Barbeque books, seems like for awhile every Xmas and Birthday got a new grilling cookbook.

I dont really use them for recipes per say but more to get ideas and tips.

Thay said, I find myself looking on he web more and more when it comes to ideas.

we have probably 15-20 recipe books at home. The more the merrier I say, especially since we probably only use about 5% of the recipes from each one...

Then there's the "recipe file" which includes pull-outs from magazines, and copies of recipes from other people - that gets used more, maybe 20% of the recipes in there ever actually get used!

-- Mike

In total, counting paperbacks, 400+, an office wall and a kitchen bookshelf, including all of my mother's, some of which date from the 1920s. One shelf are in French, Spanish and Italian, the only three foreign languages I can read (mostly). Most come from "remainder" dealers, book sales and second hand outlets.

The best and most interesting are from urban "Junior Leagues" and similar organizations in the US South, with the same true of a segment of the "Church Cookbook" market, Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches and Reformed Temples, again in the South, along with cookbooks from rural "ethnic" parishes, both Roman Catholic and "Old Denomination" Protestant. Affluent Southern women, especially those born before 1940, are more likely to be serious cooks or "preservationists of tradition".

Now that a wider variety of Asian produce has become available, I use Asian cookbooks and the Asian recipes in some of the US collections more and more, while of US traditions, the multiple and intensely interesting cuisines of Louisiana could keep a cook busy for many, many meals.

The cookbooks are gradually separated into a three categories...."Unused and likely unusable", "Used, some often", and "Need to Use - Keep in sight!".

Several decades ago, for 5 years I reviewed restaurants on a weekly basis for the newspaper in a mid-sized city. After that many bad or unsatisfactory meals, I felt a need to know why....

None.

I have maybe 30 cookbooks. A number of them are local fundraiser cookbooks (one of which I instigated as a United Way fundraiser where I used to work).

The ones I actually use are my Good Housekeeping cookbook and my Hawaiian Airlines Flight Attendants cookbook (circa 1981). The rest of them are mostly thumb through to get ideas.

Older books are interesting, especially the ones calling for massive doses of monosodium glutamate :D I get a kick reading those.

ack, duplicate

We have a few. I just wanted to chime in and say I'm not sure Joy of Cooking really cuts it for much anymore. Maybe once in a great while for a basic something or other. But I have turned to the edition I got several years ago a couple of times and found it lacking.

I'm judging only by the new vegetarian version we just got, but I have to think the normal one is just as excellent: get Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything It's a huge book, but it's completely approachable. And he talks about aspects of how to shop, what equipment to use, etc. in addition to having good modern recipes. Seems to be a good all around reference that could, hm, supplant Joy of Cooking? Oh, maybe not, but maybe it *should*. ;)

I dunno how many is enough. Depends on the person entirely. Some may be happy with 1 while other with a hundred +. I'm just about to start building my cookbook library- don't have many at this point. I just purchased Anthony Bourdain's Les halles Cookbook, Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking.

Excellent cookbook.

I own a well used and well stained and very old "Joy Of Cooking" and refer to it at least 3-50 times a year. Recipes.com and food.com etc provide endless and unstained recipes and endless instructions for varied types of food prep. Cook books (w and w/o photos) are so retro anymore (unlike non-food porn)

MisterNice

One.

The Joy of Cooking.

All you need is the Larousse Gastronomique ;)

Well, I do cook from them, using 2-3 recipes at least once a week. It's kind of like a tourbook I read 6 months before visiting a new destination. I like to anticipate. Most of the cookbooks are usable. I can get Mexican or Asian ingredients with little difficulty. I have no luck with a Caribbean cookbook that seems to call for ingredients I've never seen or tasted.

I like my Joy of Cooking. I've only had it a year and prefer it for basics to any of the other standards. I also have trouble with seafood recipes, especially from Mediterranean countries. I don't know if I can really substitute catfish for everything else.

Nothing wrong with food porn.

I've got at least 50.

I mostly like to look at the pictures too, and get ideas. I rarely use a recipe exactly.

I also subscribe to 2 cooking magazines.