What cookbook are you reading? Part 2

The old thread was getting long, so thought I would start a fresh one.

I'm reading Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery by J. George Frederick. Not a great impression so far. The ingredients would be harder for me to find than Asian or Indian cuisine spices, oh so much starchiness! Long cooking methods. The recipes might be doable for an experienced cook, but a novice would have a hard time. The instructions are written out of order, frequently assuming knowledge that the cook may not have, and leaving out steps. For instance, on a fruit pudding, that it needs to be baked! Maybe it was dumplings which should have been steamed. I was so irritated by the time I got there I don't remember. Hoping the next section about the people will be less irritating. All he has written so far about them is that they were the first and best people in America, and aside from the people in the south, and a few exceptions in New England, the only ones who have any talent for cooking.

>1 MrsLee: Suitably intrigued, I looked up the recipes in the Pennsylvania Dutch chapter of Time-Life's 50-year-old American Cooking: The Eastern Heartland. They didn't seem inordinately stodgy, and no startlingly difficult ingredients -- not, mind you, that I saw anything there that I want to rush out and make. This one is, I believe, available to read on Internet Archive if you're desperately curious. I can only conclude that the one you're reading is best avoided.

>2 hfglen: the difficult ingredients are things like scrapple, snapper turtle, tripe, eel, sago, green corn, oysterplants (?!), calf's head, Reading butter pretzels, calf liver, chestnuts, and the list goes on. I realize I could find some of the items online, but the recipes do not seem all that different from others, nor do they fire my imagination.

As usual, I have more than one cookbook on the go. I'm feeling nostalgic for my ex's and my ex mother-in-law's cooking, so I'm devouring Liv Wan's Home-Style Taiwanese Cooking. It's worth it for the white radish and pork rib soup alone, though I'm using cucumber instead of white radish as my ex mother-in-law did. I'm also enjoying Sabrina Ghayour's Persiana Everyday. I've already made the butternut squash and tahini soup, which was simple and so delicious. Many other recipes are ear-marked...

I'm starting The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean by Paula Wolfert.

I just finished Claudia Roden's Mediterranean, which was a stunning cookbook. Now waiting for "The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever" from my library.

The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean

Claudia Roden's Mediterranean
The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever

Look What's Cooking, In and Near San Francisco by Katherine Kerry. My mother-in-law had it and maybe got it from her sister who lived in the San Francisco area. It has recipes from restaurants as well as information and history of the restaurants.

>7 MarthaJeanne: Sorry about that. When I post from my phone the touchstones don't show up unless I go back in to edit the post. I forgot.

>9 MrsLee: No problem. I just like to look some of the books up, and this is the easiest way for me, plus the next person doesn't have to do it.

Picked up a copy of the Sunset Cookbook and a local book sale for $2! Hubby has an old copy of Sunset Easy Basics for Cooking and adores it! This is a monster book but have found a lot of great recipes in it!

>11 Barbs2017: I was given the Sunset Easy Basics for Good Cooking for my wedding 39 years ago. It is still my go-to for the basics. I've never seen the bigger version though. Enjoy!

I picked up a copy of Sourdough Jacks Cookery by Jack Macbee. It's dated 1959 and even has a packet of dry sourdough started stapled to the cover! I've tried sourdough several times but each time the started flops after only 1 days of growing! Am going to get serious about the stuff in 2023.

>13 Tess_W: Sourdough is on my 2023 to do list too! My Mom gave me an old recipe from the 70's called Herman! She swears its foolproof!

>13 Tess_W: There are areas where it is tricky to get sourdough to grow. I bought Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. He explains how to catch your own yeast in the "wild" which is what I did. I think I had it easy because I live in my grandmother's house and she used sourdough for years, so the yeast is probably still floating around the kitchen. I also threw in a couple of grapes and a fig from my yard which had the yeast bloom on them. My sourdough (its name is Bob) has been growing for over five years now. Hopefully you will have success! King Arthur flour website has some fantastic recipes for using sourdough.

I finished The Land of 10,000 Plates by Patrice M. Johnson. My local library has a challenge and one was to read a cookbook written by a Minnesota author. It was an intersting read. There were stories as well as recipes.

Just bought a copy of Love Soup: 160 All-New Vegetarian Recipes by Anna Thomas.
I find her cookbooks fun to read right through.

Pulled out my Cooking with Friends. From the TV show. It's a fun read with quotes and photos from the show and every recipe I've tried so far was a keeper! Today was Hummus for Doctors and Other Dates. Delicious!

I just came across this discussion thread and got of excited. For the past two years I have been skimming old cookbooks and pamphlets that are in public domain. I find these interesting both from a recipe and historical perspectives. Even if I do not find any recipes I at least get insight into gastronomy of the time.

Three right now, in search of inspiration for tomorrow's supper: Evita's Kossie Sikelela, Fig Jam and Foxtrot and Return to Corriebush. The first is by Evita Bezuidenhout, South Africa's answer to Dame Edna Everage (but "she" cooks good food, which may be sampled at her restaurant, Evita se Perron (this is a typically Pieter-Dirk Uys Afrikaans pun: perron = (train station) platform); sure enough the restaurant is in the disused station at Darling, Western Cape. (It includes a collection of concrete sculptures in an area labelled "Boerassic Park", and in one of the buildings is a "nauseum" of political debris from the previous government. If I go with Evita supper will be chicken.

The other two celebrate the village of Pearston (setting of The Plains of Camdeboo by the late and much missed Eve Palmer), across the mountain from the Mountain Zebra National Park in the Eastern Cape. Here I'm thinking tomato bobotie, which would be an interesting hybrid between two Cape Malay dishes.

I just re-skimmed Betty Crocker's Frosting Secrets. Technically more of a cake decorating book than a recipe book. This has some good introductory cake decorating methods that don't require investment in lots of cake decorating tools just regular silverware and for the intermediate techniques very few cake tips. There a few diffenent methods I will want to try out. If you have looked at many cake decorating books and have been intimidated like me, this might be a book thats worth a look. (It's avaliable on Project Guttenberg.)

I like to cook from my books. This week I have been using The complete Low-Fodmap Diet by av Sue Shepherd and Peter Gibson. It's a diet book with a lot of recipes and I don't like it, neither the diet which I think is too restrictive or the recipes which I think are too much of a tortuous inconsistent mix. Next week I'll try "Bullens kokbok" in three volumes from the 1930:s. Erik "Bullen" Berglund was a swedish actor who also published several cookbooks and had a radioshow about food, and is nowadays mostly known by a disgusting conserved sausage which is named after him Hopefully the recipes in the books taste better.

I just re-skimmed Homemade candy—sweet and dandy. After starting to look at it, I realized this recipe booklet was printed to advertise for Karo corn syrup years ago. Although at present I don't like to utilize corn syrup except in pecan tarts, this did remind me of some classic candies. Most of these candies in this booklet there are other recipe versions that can be found that does not use corn syrup. So overall the booklet was good for inspiration. (It's avaliable on Project Guttenberg.)

I have been reading Hershey's Chocolate Memories by Nao Hauser . I bought at a thrift store.

>24 mnleona: That sounds interesting. Do any of the recipes look like they have edible results?

>25 hfglen: The recipes look great.
I had no idea who Milton Hershey was and what he did. He built the town for his workers and helped people in so many ways. I am not sure how to put a link so here is my review. On GR, there are 3- 5*, 5-3*, and 1-2*.
More than recipes, this is a story of Milton Hershey and a "Through the Years" cookbook.
Introduction to Chocolate Memories
1899 to 1909 Candies
The Teens:Cookies
The Twenties:Beverages
The Thirties:Puddings, Ice Creama and Other Treats
The Forties:Pies
The Fifties:Cakes
The Sixties:Frostings, Fillings, and Sauces
The Seventies:Breads
The Eighties:Microwave Sweets
Recipe Index:Special HersheyHints; Photography Credits
Each decade has a short story of the history of events and recipes.
Gay 90s Pulled Taffy, Nickelodeon Peanut Butter Bars, Jazz Age Eggnog, Top Hat Custard Ice Cream, Big Band Black Bottom Pie, Pony Tail Pound Cake, Moon Walk Peanut Butter Sauce, Disco Berry Loaf and for the Eightes: Kiss Me Quick Teacakes.
Milton Heshey and his wife Catherine, did so much for their employes like building the town for them but also others of need.
He said "What I want to do is find a practical use for what I have and put it to work in a way to benefit others".

>26 mnleona: Sounds very interesting! Definitely putting this on my list to read.

Hi new here. I have the Cat Who Cookbooks i've made several of the recipes. I haven't loved any of them. I'll keep trying. I'm not a good cook.

>28 IPWitch169: Welcome! I love the Cat Who mysteries. Didn't know there was a cookbook. As a person who has been cooking for about 50 years now, just keep cooking. Sometimes things turn out great, sometimes they don't, but the more you cook, the better you get at knowing which recipes will work for you.

Thankyou for the encouragement! I love the series too. I read the entire series every fall. It's like visiting an old friend.

>28 IPWitch169: Welcome. I have not heard of these books but will check at my library. A lot of cozy msyteries have recipes.

>28 IPWitch169: I found these on Internet Archive, and tried one or two of the recipes. Like you, not impressed.

I am thrilled to have found A Book for Cooks in the Friends room at the library ($1 for hardbacks!) and I didn’t know it even existed before today.
Each page is a double spread featuring a classic cookbook, showing the binding and three, sometimes four, scans of inside pages and then a column of commentary.

I will scan the contents page to share with you later.

>34 2wonderY: That is quite a list of names. Great find. My library also has books in the lobby area and a box for putting money.

On You Tube (free to watch) I watch Glen and Friends. He has old cookbooks and makes recipes from them. Sometimes the recipes are a flop. People send him old recipe books and the other day, someone sent him a box full of some so old, they fell apart.

"Glen cooks historical recipes from Pre-WW2 Cookbooks, Depression era recipes, and recipes from his cookbook collection back to the 1600s."

>36 mnleona: I think I watched one of his episodes when I was trying to figure out pork cake from my grandmother's recipes.

Any list of cookbooks which includes Fannie Farmer and those inspired by her is just sad. Fannie Farmer was a big part of the trend toward the uninhibited and frankly unthinking use of more fats/oils in cooking, as well as so many refined sweeteners used in ever-increasing portions, as if any of that was a good thing for human health.

So what recent cookbooks do I recommend? How about the historically accurate Tasting History:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tasting-History/Max-Miller/9781982186180

A propos of that, I keep asking myself the same question when I read the family copy of the 1905 edition of Mrs Beeton, and history books citing Edwardian menus: what size were the portions? It's fairly obvious that Edward VII was, er, gross, but most of his associates weren't.

I started Chinese Techniques by Ken Hom last night. Loving it so far. Very precise information with lots of black and white photos to illustrate the techniques. I love that he doesn't only tell you how, he explains why. His inspiration for the cookbook was Jaques Pepín (sp?) and his books of French techniques.

Taste Just Like ...
A spiral bound book I bought at my local thrift store. No author name but the book looked like one from a church or group.
Some great recipes in it that are copy cats.
A-1
Applebees
Arbys
Arthur Treacher
A & W
Baby Ruth Candy Bar
Benihana
Boboli Pizza
Burger King
Carl's JR.
Chilis
Chinese Imperial Palace
Dennys
Entermann
Famous Amos
Girl Scout
Good Seasons
Grandma
Hard Rock Cafe
Hardees
Harley Davidson Cafe
Heinz 57
Hersheys
International House of Pancakes
K.C. Masterpiece
KFC
Kraft
Lawry
Little Caesars
Long John Silvers
McDonalds
Mrs. Fields
Nabisco
Nieman Marcus
Olive Garden
Outback Steakhouse
Pace Picante
Papa Johns
Pizza Hut
Planet Hollywood
Progresso
Rainforest Cafe
Redf Lobster
Reeses
Seven Seas
Schlotsky
Shilling
Sunshine
T. G. I. Fridays
Taco Bell
The Soup Nazi
Tony Roma
Wendys
White Castle

There's also 1979's book (Harper & Row, NY), Better Than Store-Bought, 325 pages, available used in a hardcover edition. I like their recipe for bran muffin mix, although nowadays oat bran could be substituted for wheat bran. There's also too many pickle recipes to count, prepared horseradish (I just substitute ume vinegar for the vinegars they recommend), a fresher and more delicate recipe for curry powder, vanilla wafers, candied pineapple, the best recipes I have seen in print for mung-bean sprouts and soybean sprouts, also detailed recipes for sauerkraut, grape leaves, curried almonds, dried sweet corn, green (spinach) noodles, sprouted wheat bread, Jewish "corn" bread, cinnamon raisin bread, soft pretzels, and much much more.

>42 MaureenRoy: Candied pineapple sounds good. One of my favorite fruits.

Today I start Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi.

The Plantastic Cookbook
by Gwen Kenneally

Right now I'm reading the edition of "Hemmets kokbok" (Hem means home) that I inherited from my mother in law. She bought it in her 60ths and as she lived more than a hundred years it was very well used and worn out with a lot of extra papers with recipes and notes put in everywhere. I believe it's a good edition of a standard cookbook, enough modern to be practical to use but still focused on a lot of recipes and not on illustrations, and not a lot of exotic ingredients. Tonight I will be making raggmunk which is a kind of potato pancakes served with fried pork and lingonberry jam.

>44 MrsLee: An update. I finished this and it is a lovely book. The recipes seem very home friendly, apart from a few unicorn ingredients, most of which she gives substitute advice for. If you want to become well versed at making a variety of curries, I can recommend this book.

I'm starting Masa, which I picked up last week. I happen to have a lot of masa harina lying around and want to get into more cooking with it, so this seems like a good opportunity for me.

I do surveys and this was on Tellwut this morning.

How do you organize your collection of cookbooks?
7%
Alphabetically by author or title
8%
By cuisine or type of food
12%
By frequency of use
4%
Other (please specify)
33%
I don't organize them
31%
I don't own cookbooks

>49 mnleona: I have my most frequently used cookbooks on a kitchen shelf, organized by cuisine or type of cooking. The rest are in another room, on the shelf as they fit.

>49 mnleona: I certainly don't organize alphabetically. My cookbook organization is a loose combination of size (3 shelves of different heights), theme (cuisine, ingredient or appliance focus, medical diet, dining/food writing, etc), and frequency of use.

Mine are a hodgepodge and not organized so I guess I would be part of the 33%.

I finished reading Mastering Fermentation. A lovely book if you are interested in learning about the subject. The recipes and products are very artisinal. Is that a word? My phone doesn't like it. Anyway, these are things I would love to try my hand at someday; cheeses, meats, soy and fish sauce and kefirs. For now I will stick with my easy vegetable ferments and sourdough. Easy and uncomplicated is good.

Began reading Food Pharmacy: A Guide to Gut Bacteria yesterday at the doctor's office. It is pretty basic and somewhat condescending. I hate the "cute" little dialogs the two authors have with each other, but the information seems sound. I haven't read very far in it, but it doesn't seem to be pushing an all or nothing lifestyle, so that's nice.

I did not care for the Food Pharmacy book in >53 MrsLee:. Too bloggy, the information was pretty basic, but if someone didn't know much about diet and gut bacteria, and they liked the chit-chat nonsense that bloggers use to fill space, they might like the book. The information seemed sound.

Sweet Enough by Alison Roman.

I've seen Alison Roman on Adam Liaw's show on Australian TV, and in the New York Times food section when I briefly had a subscription. I picked up this book out of curiosity at the library, and it looks like a pretty decent book — I like the basic idea of "sweet enough but not too sweet", and I thought this was pretty spot on: "Gestures that demonstrate joy can exist just to exist, a simple but valuable reminder that desire is as important as hunger, wants as important as needs." (Although if you like, I'd agree that the quoted sentence is really a rather long-winded way of saying that pleasure is its own justification.)

But I have an issue with the design. The recipes are set out in the now-common format of two columns: a narrow column of ingredients down the side of a page, and the "method" as a wider one to its left or right. I don't have any problem with that. But in this book, the ingredients lists are in about 8-point (I'm guessing) sans-serif orange type. Who thought this was a good idea? Suppose I'm making a recipe and have the book on the bench. Even if I'm organised and do my misé-en-place before starting the mixing, I'd have to keep picking the book up to read the ingredients.

I have by me two of Adam Liaw's books, published by the same publisher. They are in the same double-column format, but the ingredients are in the same type size as the instructions (or close to it), and are in black, same as the instructions. Much better. The two Liaw books are designed by the same designer (George Saad). The Roman book is a UK and Australian edition of a book originally published in the US, so may simply have inherited the US edition's design.

>55 haydninvienna: I would hate that. Especially as I age, colors other than black in a book are more difficult to read, and the last thing you want in a recipe book is difficult to read ingredients.

As a one time maker of a cookbook, and having designed three other books for my family history, I will say that every time I do this I make the fonts, size and colors simpler and simpler. I still use italics to try to convey my own words vs. original words from letters and such, but I don't love that solution. Better than the blue font I used for that purpose in my first book though.