What Is The Most Essential Book? - Page 2

My all time favourite is.....................

Le Repertoire de la cuisine......................... Just a great reference book

Pauli

Hi,

for myself if you want to learn right, it is the Pauli Classical Cooking the Modern Way. This book comes in tow volumes, one theoretical and the other recipes. The book explains all important basics. Well actually to mention the book is used by culinary schools in Europe to educate 15 year old young chefs since the 1930 and still today is in use.

When chosing a book, dont check out how many nice pictures it has, check the basic text and evluate it. Also to add here in the past years i have seen many books and i am always surprised, how similar they are to the Old Fashioned Pauli Book. However some of them tried to over copy it and with it lost the little important but simple points.

regards

When I was executive sous at the Grand Hyatt in the 80's my chef gave me and all the sous chefs Pauli's book Classical cooking the modern way. I have the 1979 edition and can say he was very forward thinking with this book.I use it extensively in my research for the classroom.

I agree

The only way to test a good book is to evaluate the text check the most basic recipe and if it doesn't match up forget it, as chefs we are natuarlly creative, the basics are what is needed, good stocks and sauces, and passion. So many chefs I have seen trained today and not getting the best deal for their money at colleges, bring back apprenticeships and train from the ground up. In my younger years I bled my mentors dry to achieve, then moved on and so and so forth, I am waffling and should be saying this in another thread I guess.................... happy cooking fellow chefs :smiles:

Charmaine Solomon's "Complete Asian Cookbook" is worth a mention...

I don't really like Joy of Cooking. It does have some useful information, but it hasn't dazzled me.

I found the Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques to be very useful. For more detail on ingredients, how they work and such, On Food and Cooking by McGee is great (very well-written, making it a pleasure to read just for reading's sake too).

Fanny Farmer 11th Edition - perfect for the home cook, beginner and beyond.
Ingredients listed in bold type...as they are used! No going back and forth, up and down for your ingredients and measurements. (Newer editions do not do this anymore.) Recipes included everything from boiling water (really!) to Lobster Thermidor and (I believe) are foolproof. I have over 400 cookbooks, but this is the one I use daily. I also give it as a gift to newlyweds or young kids with their first apartments (find on-line or on Ebay). I also love my "The Art of Fine Baking" by Paula Peck, which I've had for years and refer to often.

Good idea... but the #1 IS Julia's mastering the art of French cooking... everything else is #2...

ph10 by Pierre Hermé. It's THE French pastry book. Written in French only though...

although, ironically, Joy of Cooking has a recipe for 'possum. with an illustration on how to skin it! this is reason enough for me to recommend it.

but my favorite book to give home cooks ... experienced and experts alike ... is James Peterson's Esssentials of Cooking. It covers the basics brilliantly, and is about understanding, not recipes. The recipes are great, but they're given as illustrations of all the important ideas he patiently explains. It's a great resource for anyone who wants to be liberated in the kitchen and start becoming a home chef.

My Essential cookbook would be two...

After spending years trying to buy cookbooks for my nieces, nephews, etc., here's my take:

Joy of Cooking, and
Complete Techniques (Jacques Pepin). Understanding the manual skills needed to prep food takes a lot of 'fear' out of the novice, I think.

my most essential book ???

My most essential book has to be anything to do with BBQs, coming from Aussie Land, we all love Barbies here, and anything to do with them or seafood is as good as it can get.:chef:
We have heaps of great cookbooks here, from overseas to in our own country, but you cant beat a good Barbie or a good Roast, we love it all. A good beer or wine goes down really well with a great barbie, so try it, you will be sure to love it, just like we do in Australia.:beer:

I've just discovered a fascinating cookbook- A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price. Bernard Geis Associates, New York, 1965.

Price, famous screen actor, notable art collector and epicure, visited famous restaurants all over Europe and North America (he could afford it) and, being a 1940-60's superstar celebrity, apparently was able to talk a lot of famous chefs/restauranteurs into sharing recipes with him after he dined with them.

The finest 1950-60's restaurants in France, Italy, Holland, Scandinavia, England, Spain, Mexico; in the US Pierre Grill, Luchow's (alas, no more) Four Seasons, Sardi's, Le Pavillon, Twelve Caesars, Lock-Ober's, Durgin-Park (It was great trencherman fare in the 1950's, but you shouldn't go there anymore - I did and it sucks,) Antoine's, Royal Orleans, Galatoire's, Bookbinder's (yes, he's got the Turtle Soup recipe), Whitehall Club, Pump Room, Red CArpet, Stockyard Inn, The Blue Fox, Ernie's, and...

The Santa Fe Super Chief (with my family. I took the Super Chief from Chicago to LA in 1964, and he's right to include it) and Chavez Ravine, the LA baseball field.

Very many of these, though of course not all, are still going strong. My US list names about 1/3 of the US restaurants included in the book.

Hundreds of well-written recipes, anecdotes, funny comments, cooking and culinary tips as well as coffe-table quality color pictures.

Just a delight.

I can't wait to try a LOT of the recipes.

My son-in-law's copy, bought at a charity auction, is leather-bound and is inscribed to a "Linda" by Mary Price on the overleaf. The signature matches a facsimile signature a couple pages later in the book. A similar one will set you back about $250 on the internet.

I don't really need the inscription.

And, the format includes first a full-page picture of the dining room of most of the restaurants, than a picture of a spread of the dishes described, and a double-page image of the menu when Price was there (many of them, in Europe, hand-written.)

The early-1960's menu prices will make you weep. :eek:

Mike :roll:

Hi: You may want to try The joy of cooking all new all purpose. It is published by Simon & Schuster and is retailed at $28.00.

Culinary Artistry

I have been cookning for 21 years, and I have found that most cookbooks are aimed at moms and paps. A professional does not need to be beaten on the head with recipes, but more inspired!

CULINARY ARTISTRY is my favorite book by far!

good luck,
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

For all those who have mentioned Joy of Cooking: I just got the newest (2006) update, and am very pleased to report that it has pretty much returned to its purpose of being a helpful teaching tool for home cooks who want to cook American food with its most popular imports. The writing is back to the way it was before 1997 -- homey, explanatory, standing-by-your-side to help you. What a relief!

I'm so glad to hear that this new edition gets back to the Joy most of us knew and loved.
However :o apparently there are some errors in the recipes! Some are mentioned in a reader's comments on Amazon and others are noted on the Simon and Shuster web site:
http://www.simonsays.com/content/fea..._id=407&tab=15

I just wrote to the publishers asking when (or if) a corrected version will be released. At the very least, I'd like to see a single web page with all the corrections listed and not stumble across them on my own. :eek:

sorry if I sound grumpy. But I was so excited when Suzanne posted that the new Joy was out and then so disappointed when I started reading about the mistakes.

Another vote for Joy....

Count me in on the Joy of Cooking. I give it as a wedding gift to young couples. It's a great resource for a home cook.

Delia Smiths Complete Cookery Course is the one for me.
Nigel Slater-Appetite is also good.
The Silver Spoon for Italian cooking is excellent.Often given to Italian Brides as a wedding gift!:lol:

I use the Professional Chef 8th edition from the Culinary Institute of America. Best reference book I have.

I'm currently reading Shirley Corriher's Cookwise. This is a great book for a broad range of serious cooks, from the occasional home cook to the restaurant chef to the production kitchen managers.

It goes into the science of cooking from a different (and complimentary) angle than Harold McGee's On Food & Cooking, with more focus on the controlling the results of recipes. It contains a slew of excellent recipes, but they are presented almost as lab projects to illustrate and reinforce the textual lessons.

It's also very readable, a true bonus, even though it's packed with information.

i only own the fanny farmer cookbook. and it hasn't seemed to let me down....i just adapt whats in there, to what I'm doing.

I agree wholeheartedly ,It never leaves my kitchen worktop.
I also love "The French laundry"

If only two...

I give two books as gifts for someone wanting to dive into cooking but who doesn't have much background....

Joy Of Cooking and The Professional Chef. The tome that is the Professional Chef may sound like overkill as it also contains several chapters that are totally useless to the home cook, but it makes a great companion to the Joy Of Cooking and you simply can't beat the sections that cover the fundamentals. What the Joy of Cooking is lacking in illustration and photography the Professional Chef makes up for in spades.

I have always thought about buying a real good cook book and well it seems like i could never find it. I guess i wasnt looking in the right places. It seems like most of you have agreed upon that The Joy of Cooking is the way to go with a good cookbook. Thank you everyone im about to go buy me The Joy of Cooking.

After reading this thread, I guess I need to buy the Joy Of Cooking

Can someone tell me which volume to get?

I did a little research and I am getting the 1975 version was re-released in 1985.

ISBN: 9780026045704

Would this be the volume to get?

A lot of people feel that one is the pinnacle.

I have the one from the 90s and I still like it but I can see where people were perturbed with it.

A also have the current version which I admit is better than the one from the 90s.

Thank you. I will look for it

I don't know if you have these in the US or abroad, but here in Western Canada many, many of the local community leagues, farm co-operatives, etc put out small local printings of cookbooks. They were and still are a god-send...I haunt garage sales, flea markets, used bookstores, etc for these gems...

They are Fannie Farmer..which I have my grandmother original 1849 edition...in a plastic bag...cause it's literally fallen apart.. and the newer revised edition that came out about 10 years ago, and the Joy of Cooking (I have the 1975 edition) all rolled into one.

If you can find them..no matter the shape, missing pages or covers KEEP them always...you can NEVER go wrong with them!

I have been having trouble deciding which cookbooks are for me. Fortunately, the book stores allow returns.

The only cookbooks , thus far, that I have not returned for something else is Better Homes and Garden's red-checked cookbook and King Arthur's baking books (whole wheat and the original book)..everything else has been a disappointment.

Now I have store credit and don't know what to get.

My husband likes simple food

I want recipes which will cause people to say they have never tasted better

Do the books with the James Beard Award tend to be better than other books?