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I’m an ebook kind of girl. But there is one kind of book I will still buy in paper and that is cookbooks.
There’s a reason why I’m writing about them on this date. I’m finishing this on February 13th (my beloved Karl’s birthday) and publishing on February 14th (Valentines Day). He’s been dead since 2008, but I can't go through these two days without remembering our lives together. And when thinking about Karl, one has to consider cooking, as he was the main cook in our family. So consider this diary as a tribute to my love. Cooking is all about love, in any event.
Now for me, cookbooks need to have several attributes. First, and critically important, is that they need to have pictures of many of the dishes. If I make a recipe, I want an idea in my head as to what it will look like when it is ready.
Another key for buying a cookbook is that I have to have seen at least three recipes I want to make that are not repeats of recipes I already have. Cookbooks are meant to be used, and I want to make sure I will use them before I pay for them.
When cookbook shopping. I enjoy looking at types of cooking I am less familiar with or that use a particular kitchen tool that I want to get better at using. (The Instant Pot comes to mind - well, it did when I first got one.)
The very first cookbook I remember cooking from was the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls. I must have been about 11 or so. My mom got a job working shifts, and, suddenly, I had to learn to cook if I wanted dinner when she was on the afternoon shift.
Now, my mom wasn't much more than a basic cook. She didn't collect cookbooks. She generally didn't look at recipes to cook, either. She had her five or six recipes that she repeated ad infinitum. Mom set about to teach me how to cook her way: no measuring, no slavish dedication to following directions exactly, it’s done when it looks right (hence my need to have pictures in my cookbooks). She got me that first cookbook more as a suggested starting place. What else she taught me about cooking a recipe was that the two most important things were time and temperature. You could vary the ingredients and the spices, but if it said 30 minutes at 400 degrees, you needed to follow that, mostly, give or take the vagrancies of your individual oven and how well done you liked things. I was a picky eater back then, often I would have to throw out or substitute ingredients. Really, that casserole doesn't need bell peppers, so omit them. Substitute the hated beef with the much tastier chicken. Out of basil? Use oregano. Out of salt? Go to the grocery store. There is no substitute for salt.
I’ve always found it amusing when people say they can't cook. Can you read? Then you can cook. There are millions of directions in thousands of cookbooks (and now websites) for how to cook everything from hard-boiled eggs to Baked Alaska. Very few human activities are more documented than the techniques and recipes for cooking.
Cookbooks often tell a story as well as give recipes. I love ethnic cookbooks and they often explain something about the history of the cuisine, how to use the specialized tools, where to get the specialized ingredients, and so on. You will find pictures of spice markets in Morocco, olive groves in Greece, vineyards in California, plazas in Mexico City. You will learn about epazote, preserved lemons, Ras el Hanout, Green Hatch Chilis, couscous, types of pasta, and so much more.
I divide my cookbooks into several types. First, for most American cooks, are standard American-type cookbooks like the Betty Crocker Cookbook. You will learn basics like roasting a chicken, making potato salad, baking potatoes, grilling hamburgers, maybe even a casserole or two. (My mother would have considered making a casserole to be an exotic technique; I am not the same kind of cook as my mother, for me they are basics.) These are useful cookbooks for the unadventurous cook who just wants to get the family fed fairly easily or the beginner cook. Ingredients are readily available in almost every grocery store. Since I am a fairly advanced cook, I haven't opened one of these cookbooks in years. If you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, this is the kind of cookbook which is likely the staple of your collection. A more modern take on regular American cooking are the cookbooks written by the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. If you want to get a take on her cooking before investing in a cookbook, she has a show on The Food Network.
A subset of the standard American cookbook is the self-printed church/PTA/Ladies Auxiliary cookbook where all the members contribute one or more of their favorite recipes. This are often an amusing glimpse of a historical era. Books created in 1950s will include recipes we no longer cook (Like Jello with meat in it, what were they thinking?) and those created today would likely have a broader scope in ingredients, ethnicities, tools used. We are a more diverse culture now, and it shows in our recipes. We all know when you flip through one of these, the recipes with food stains are the best ones.
The next kind of cookbook is one dedicated to learning how to use a particular cooking tool. I have several cookbooks for the Instant Pot (one of my personal favorite cooking tools), for instance. You can get a plain cooking cookbook for the Instant pot, but my favorites are all ethnic ones. Instant pots are a little tricky to use at first, so I highly recommend you get a cookbook and carefully read the introductory material. You can make a lot of amazing dishes, but by all means cook chicken/pork to pull for tacos, sweet potatoes, and Korean Barbequed Beef. (Perhaps not all for the same meal.) The Instant Pot really shines at cooking meat. If you are not a vegan, this is an essential kitchen tool. (Not that there aren't good vegan recipes, as well.) And risotto is perfect in the Instant Pot with no continuous stirring.
Another tool that I bought cookbooks for was the slow cooker. (My Instant pot has a slow cooker mode, so I now use those cookbooks as Instant Pot cookbooks)
The Bread Machine and Ice Cream Maker are two other tools that you should have cookbooks for. Look for ones specializing in your particular brand.
And if you have a clay pot, you must have Consumer Guide’s Clay Cookery cookbook. And you must, absolutely must, try the chicken with forty cloves of garlic.
The next category of cookbooks are those concentrating on a particular ingredient or category of ingredients. I have a cookbook with just quinoa recipes and probably half a dozen on soups — find one with curried celery soup, you won't be disappointed (I no longer need the recipe, so I’m not sure which one it is in). I got The Simple Art of Rice cookbook by Johnson for Christmas. (Mmm, Arroz con Pollo, Limping Susan, Herbed Rice. ) One of my favorite cookbooks of that type is one called Cool Beans by Yonan that I got a few years ago when I wanted to learn more about cooking beans. Beans are a lot more versatile than you probably think!
Must take a writing break because I’ve gotten hungry.
That was yummy. Feta cheese marinated in flavored olive oil with fennel seeds and scallions atop crostini bread. I’m sure I got the basics of that technique from a cookbook, but couldn't tell you which one. I read cookbooks to get ideas more than to follow recipes. A legacy of being taught to cook by look and taste more than directions, I’m sure. Where was I?
Ethnic cookbooks are a favorite category of mine. I currently own Israeli, Thai, Chinese, Portuguese, Turkish, Mexican, Indian, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Lebanese, and Brazilian cookbooks. And some which cover multiple ethnic cuisines. You can probably tell, I’m not much for plain American cooking. I love spices and learning to cook with them has expanded my willingness to try ingredients I would have eyed with suspicion as a young person. With ethnic cookbooks, the ingredients may not be readily available locally. I assure you that you can find just about anything on the Internet, though. The best spices are found at Penzeys, which, incidentally, is an unabashedly liberal company.
An easy category to get into when you are first trying to expand your recipes is Food Network Star cookbooks. If you watch the tv shows, then you have a good idea what you are getting if you buy the cookbook. Pati Jinich is one of my favorites in this area. I thought I disliked Mexican food until I found her and found out Mexican food was more than beef, cheese, and beans in some sort of tortilla. I’ve tried many of her recipes and not found a bad one in the bunch. One of my favorites involves baking several kinds of cheese until the edges and bottom get crispy and topping the whole thing with sautéed mushrooms, peppers, and onions. My mouth waters just thinking about it. (For the record, this recipe is in the Treasure of the Mexican Table cookbook.)
Cookbooks often contain far more than just recipes. Sometimes they tell the story of the author’s immigration to another country, their formal training and the restaurants they have opened, or, best of all, their family history, as told through food. A recent purchase, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks by Wilkinson, is more a history of black women cooks in Appalachia than a cookbook, although there are recipes. It reminds us that cooking is inherently about family, and much we know has been passed to us by past generations. And if not our own past generations, then the past generations of the authors of the cookbooks we choose recipes from.
So now it’s your turn. Talk about your favorite cookbooks, you favorite recipes, or your favorite family cooking story.
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