Anyone who says “TFL” is lying. I’ve got it - it looks wonderful on the shelf, but it’s in no way functional.
Ad Hoc is really good though. If I want to do something that will impress guests but not also require a micro-mandoline, sous vide machine, deep fryer, cheesecloth, 72 hour advanced prep and trips to three different specialty butchers just for the sauce, that’s where I go.
Only one I repeatedly go back to is Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” - I happen to have the vegetarian version, but that’s much more useful; I know how to cook meat.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking - Julia Child et al.
The Joy of Cooking - Rombauer etc
After these two, I don’t use many books. I love the Ottolenghi books. Plenty and Simple.
Also Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking Book. Highly recommended! But, I don’t use many books except in rare instances.
I use Kenji Lopez et al on Serious Eats to get most of my information now. I think this is THE BEST technique and recipe site available.
I am an unapologetic cookbook junkie. I’ve read hundreds, and own more than 100. Most nights, we don’t use a cookbook or recipe. But I wouldn’t know anywhere near as much as I do about how to build bases for different cuisines, combine flavors, what technique applies best to what cuts of meat or which vegetables, the order of operations (if you will), and so many other things if I hadn’t spent the time reading cookbooks that I have. Experimenting is great. Informed experimenting is better, and reading cookbooks is by far and away the best way to NOT need cookbooks in the future. That’s the advice I give everyone who asks me how to become a better cook - read cookbooks! That and shop well. Some books I have read, I’m pretty sure I’ll never follow a single recipe from start to finish, and yet having devoured the book has been enormously helpful. If I love a restaurant and the chef has a book, I’ll buy it and read it cover to cover.
Some favorites, only those which haven’t been mentioned:
Lutece Cookbook
Hot Sour Salty Sweet
Chez Panisse Vegetables
The Silver Palate
Robuchon
Bar Tartine Technique & Recipes
Le Pigeon
Il Viaggio di Vetri
I will echo Sarah’s comments in both having a collection, and method of using cookbooks.
I will add that I use cook books for not only ideas or techniques, but for inspiration.
I cook a fair amount of Thai and Vietnamese dishes and cook books have helped me learn about the many, different regional styles.
I have Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook and Eleven Madison Park by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara. While I have not prepared a complete recipe from these books, I have used components of their dishes as elements of my own. Similar to my use of Escoffier’s Fine Art of Cookery.
I learned southern Italian cooking at the knee of my mother and grandmother. It is Marcella Hazan’s books that taught me about other styles of Italian dishes.
Of late, I have used Kenji Alt-Lopez’s The Food Lab. In a manner similar to Chris Kimball’s books, it adds the science element about why certain techniques or ingredients should be used.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat is probably the best cookbook I know. It really has made me better at cooking. Watch the Netflix show and buy the book!
And by the way, you’re all wrong. The silver spoon rather than Marcella Hazan for Italian food and there are many cookbooks translated from French that are far superior to Julia Child.
Hey Christine - Wow, Mustard’s Grill, a blast from the past. And for any of you lucky enough to see the beautiful things coming out of Christine’s kitchen, and even luckier to have enjoyed them, well you know what a great cook she is.
This is a great book and one I used often when starting to explore and expand my cooking skills.
will have to find my stained and dog-eared copy and revisit it soon.
Sunday Suppers at Lucques – So many dinner parties from this book
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking – Hard to top this for Italian
Flour Water Salt Yeast – favorite bread book
Sweet by Ottolenghi – hard to chose between his books, but this one is really fun
Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook – the go to book when I need a basic recipe
I would disagree that the TFL is unusable. It is aspirational, for sure, but I’ve made at least a half dozen items out of there and it was always fun and usually delicious.
I think we have about 75 cookbooks, but these are our top 5:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Gourmet Cookbook - surprisingly comprehensive and useful. Kind of like Joy of Cooking with more interesting recipes.
Ad Hoc - the Bread Pudding is a go to recipe for a big group
Zuni Cafe - Chicken, lamb, and great explanations of why
Flour Water Salt Yeast - I also like Ken’s Pizza book.
I just picked up an old cookbook (early 60s) by Elizabeth David, and I’m really interested to see what’s in it. I’ve heard good things.
I don’t think people read the Food Lab for the writing, compared to other books where you might want to read about a chef or a restaurants history. It’s a really good text book for cooking methods and simple recipes. I think it’s a great book for someone who is just getting into cooking. Similar but better than what America’s Test Kitchen does.
I’ve had mixed success with it. Problem is it’s too wordy and doesn’t have enough recipes to really serve as a true reference cookbook like ATK or How to Cook Everything, and spends like 4 pages on a dumbass hamburger. However some of the recipes and techniques are really good, even for somewhat “basic” things (I think it’s got one of the better biscuit recipes, for example, and his folding method is slick).
I really like Eleven Madison Park. I don’t recreate the recipes exactly (way to complicated); the book provides a lot of inspiration behind the dishes that I create.
