so no matter what I might do with the others, I'm keeping it. I suppose I could ditch some of the others since I don't do much cooking any more. Some of those old church lady cookbooks have some good desserts.

but I used it a lot and still have pages bookmarked with some tried and true

and a number I bought, the best of which was the Ballymaloe Cookery Book by Darina Allen. It's like an encyclopedia for bases etc.

everybody needs a good basic cookbook

It's just outside Cork City in the Republic of Ireland. The Allens have been multi generational.

https://www.ballymaloecookeryschool.ie/

Because I use it regularly. I kept a few others for sentimental reasons. I find that recipes online are hit or miss—despite good reviews.

definitely hit or miss! But I printed the good ones and make notes as needed

I can kill time just by reading the reviews of online recipes. There's usually some good tips.

Love them both. Basic cooking, which is pretty much where I start and then customize

Don’t use them much anymore since it’s just so much easier to go online and do a search. However, they are available for perusing and getting ideas.

I am a book nut and can’t dispose of my cherished children.

what I had given away that maybe I shouldn't have! But it'll be less for my kids to deal with later

It’s for baking. When I want to bake something from scratch, it’s my go to. The little handwritten notes inside are a treasure.

I found a basic Better Homes and Gardens binder book but decided my others like the Betty Crocker were enough

Just too many to list. I basically scan them (as in scan with eyeballs) now and then for ideas.

I got a lot of magazines at the thrift store and rather than scan them, i just removed the (too many) excess pages.

I use Paprika app, old version because I don't want to pay for the new shiny version all over again. It is very good at cleaning out endless life stories that accompany recipes on the web. And exports nicely.

Joy of Cooking sold an app but discontinued it, I think.
I'll double check.

AND I have all my Mom's recipe cards that she typed on a Selectric. Scanned them for preservation.

FWIW, I use music scores almost entirely in pdf format on the ipad pro. Some remain to be scanned.

I love this add-on to the browser. When on the recipe page, it pulls out the recipe from all the text and saves it. You then view it, take out anything you don't want (added tips, etc.), and it gets added to your personal collection on a website and it is printable, all free. I have pages of recipes now, which can be searched. Very cool and handy.

and the export to html tree allows me to share it with anyone with a browser, all on my or their disk or thumb drive.

Good that others are doing the hard work, but I dread storing my data anywhere else. I even dropped Evernote, but that's because they were bought and fired the entire U.S. staff!!

I used to run company and department computer networks.

Happy cooking! 🍝

I am up to 4188 recipes and they still sync across all my decoders and computers.

were purged years ago although I still have a bound recipe book with handwritten recipe cards and a few newspaper favorites. I do think one of my kids will want those.

I have a pack of blank recipe cards. What do I do with those?

Even if my daughter is incredibly modern. I keep a few family treasures intact. Just enough.

Over the years, I have stored ideas on all formats, including computer outliner apps and mind maps. But the larger cards (5 x 8) seem to hold just enough. Great ideas should be short and clear before moving forward with them. But I digress. I just snapped part of my bookshelf with the sampler books, if not the everyday ones ( do they exist? )

I will post later, since imgbb is dead as a doornail right now.

Lovers of books argue that having a subset of the world handy is good. The internet is overwhelming, even if one is selective.

BTW large cards make good crumb scoopers. I prefer the metal ones.

Vegetarian Epicure 1 & 2 (we aren't vegetarians but go meatless often), Good Housekeeping cookbook copyright 1963 (we bought it around 1971), How To Cook Everything (SO handy), Instant Pot cookbook. Also recipes found online, printed, and if they are good, hole-punched and put in a notebook along with recipe notes.

it had a German Gold Poundcake recipe that I used as a base for so many carved birthday cakes! Oh, the memories!

I now have a stack of 3-ring binders filled with recipes that look fantastic - and I'm SO far behind in trying them!
I really have to stop 'clicking' on those "25 best -------" lists!!!!!!

Betty Crocker’s for example. My mother hated to cook and was only too happy to pass her Betty Crocker cookbook along to me. She probably got it as a wedding gift.

I made a lot of cookies when my boys were kids and I used the Betty Crocker Cookie Book a lot. Well I still make cookies for them and they’re adults now 🙂

I have way too many others that I hardly ever use, mostly were given to me as gifts throughout the years.

are in one of the small Everyday Food magazines holiday version. Oddly enough, I got rid of a signed Martha Stewart Cookies book. Ha!

and I feel betrayed by Martha Stewart for discontinuing it. That and not continuing to sell at KMart.

I have a laminator and tore out the recipes I wanted and laminated them. Punched holes and put them in a binder. Ditto recipes from Cooks Illustrated.

Now I have an online sub to Cooks Country, which gives me access to America's Test Kitchen, Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country. Not only recipes, but ratings and recommendations. I print out the recipes I want, laminate, bind.

went out with an earlier purge. I sent some to one of my kids though. Had so many good tips and recipes all in one place.

Everyday Food was great. I don't have them in the kitchen anymore but I found a ton in a box upstairs. I don't know what to do with them. I'm trying to find a way to package them as a set to donate. But yes, I'll get distracted by looking at them again!

if you wanted to go to the trouble.

I have a whole bookshelf of cookbooks and will probably just pass them down to my daughter who loves to cook. An interesting one is the Housekeeping in Old Virginia cookbook - that one was passed down to me from my mom.

I'm not even sure where so many of mine had come from. Gifts probably

It shows you what to do to make a dish TASTE good not just follow a set of instructions.
The why behind the how..The balance...
She also has a chart of ingredients of regional cuisine.
Highly recommended..
m

I read this and thought I HAD that book! Then I looked on a bookcase in another room and have found a dozen or more other cookbooks including the one you mentioned and What Einstein Told His Cook, Heat, Yan Can Cook, Jane Fonda! etc.

I'll have to focus on that bookcase another day!

to America’s Test Kitchen, Julia Child (not Mastering the Art. . .), Joy of Cooking, and Betty Crocker, to dedicated Chinese and Italian cookbooks, to church cookbooks and ones we did as a promotion when I worked in radio.

I have no plans to get rid of any of them.

they brought back memories but they were just collecting dust

Seems like a lot of churches made/make them!

Saved cookbooks I had 'at home,' when cooked for family. Mostly 'home alone' now.

Julia Child, and a great Italian one with pics. SADLY missing great old James Beard.

still make some old favorites here and there but no more big family style meals

I don't think I've ever tossed a cookbook. Many of them I use, but others I find myself just reading - I find them quite entertaining and you can really see what was popular at the time they were published.

I do look up recipes online, but I HATE the endless life stories that accompany them! In a cookbook, you just get the recipe!

and someone mentioned that's how the person makes money. The longer we scroll, the more they make. But it's irritating! And most of the stories are just silly. I use the jump feature when possible!

I jump to the recipe if possible.

I recently learned that recipes can’t be copyrighted, because the mixture of those ingredients always leads to the same result. For example, you can’t copyright a cake recipe that starts with creaming together butter and sugar and then adding eggs, because ALL cake recipes start that way. That’s why online recipes have those endless stories with them.

It's wonderful to have such great resources - almost like a little time capsule.

My grandmother never spoke or wrote in English so I have my mother's handwritten translations. The quantities are strange sometimes and I find myself asking did she really means a dozen eggs in that recipe???!! They have yellowed over time but I kept them.

My son asked me for one of my recipes the other day. Honestly, it was something I threw together so I didn't really have an official recipe. I think I need to type up a few things and pass them on.

around 30 when I moved. I still use them, but also get daily recipes from Allrecipes, WP, and other internet sources. I also have 2 'books' filled with clipped recipes, handwritten ones, and notes. One from my mom and one from my grandmother. They used old Sears catalogs as a scrapbook.

I have more than I suspected. This - after an earlier purge as well.

Hang onto your personal books!

when we moved to Germany.
I'm down to 2 by Julia Child, The Larouse Gastronomy, Making of a Chef by Kamman, The Cake and Pie and Bread bibles by Rose Levbaum. One by Alton Brown.
I have been making a binder of recipies. I can pull them out and tape them to the cabinet while cooking.
A lot of online looking for stuff. Usually combining 2-4 of them to make my own.
Plus I've been having fun with the WaPo 4 day a week eat voraciously news letter. (Good for rut breaking)
Plus other stuff I just know.

and I don't recall ever making pie. I made cakes for sure but did I need entire cookbooks for just cakes? ha ha

Tons of bread baking cookbooks even though my family always wanted Italian bread and focaccia.

My husband tries some from WaPo here and there

However, while I use recipes from many of them, others I keep for intellectual enjoyment.

In the latter category, for instance, I have books from Willam Shurtleff /Akiko Aoyagi regarding tofu, miso and tempeh. They are not merely recipe books, but informational and historical re the manufacture of these foods

I gifted The Food Lab to someone recently and it reads like a science book in a good way

Korean vegan cookbook, Marcella Hazan, etc. I don't have room for them but I'm keeping them anyway.

Purging books is the hardest part!

This century except for the vegan ones and I’m not vegan. Your post makes me feel better about it thanks lol

And no, I am not a Luddite. As a botanist (retired) I was on my computer every day.

I do look up recipes and other food related subjects and love chef driven YouTube videos but I do love my books.

I have over a thousand cookbooks. Some from my great grandmothers, grandmothers and mother. I have served dishes made from theses older books and my friends rave at this new (to them) dish (from the 40's).

I did, recently, cull some. My son also took some. The used bookstore in Jacksonville that I contacted likes cookbooks.

I think I got some from a cooking school teacher when she was purging but now I just want them in the hands of someone who will use them. My house is too small for a thousand cookbooks but I love the idea.

(since my library has saved me from spending hundreds of dollars on books.)

I was able to look at a digital version of a Mediterranean cookbook from the library before I decided to just buy it.

I look at the book and think : meh and return it and don't buy it. Or sometimes I copy a few recipes on index cards from it.

In fact, I just bought a new one, "Tasting History" by Max Miller based on his YouTube channel.

We have most of the standard cookbooks, Julia Child, Betty Crocker, etc. The first one I ever had is called "The Starving Artist's Cookbook" which was the perfect first one to have as it had lots of fundamental lessons with recipes like how to make ice cubes, boiling water and my favorite, how to make filet mignon, ("You can't afford this so make up with your parents.&quot . Another favorite is the Silver Palate Cookbook.

I also have a three-ring notebook that I've filled with recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines. It's a real SCRAPbook!

My wife sometimes looks online for new variations. She's also fond of the Townsends YouTube channel.

that must have gone out with the last cull.

Haven't heard of Tasting History and I must not google, must NOT google!

Max Miller is quite entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/@TastingHistory

Enjoy!

Love to cook and refer to the shelves often. I especially enjoy the “church ladies” offerings where many recipes start with a stick of butter or a can of cream of mushroom soup. 😄. I have a couple from my mother-in-laws kitchen, complete with her spatters. 🥰. The list of contributors from the 1950 and early 1960’s were always Mrs. John Smith, etc. By the 1970 this list used the woman’s actual name, ie Betty Smith or whatever it was. I have my mother’s over stuffed recipe box - when my daughter saw that she exclaimed “Grandma cooked?”. The main thing my kids remember about my mom’s cooking was that she disliked cooking and really wasn’t very good at it. But she made The. Best. Rice Krispie bars. I also have the recipe box I started as a 4-H member in about 1957. It too is crammed full. Actually pulled a recipe out of it today to make Blackberry Jam with Chambard. Jars just came out of the canner.

My kids have asked about some recipes but I was really into experimenting in the kitchen so much of what I made can't really be repeated. I can give them an idea though.

I do have a funny memory about a recipe. Early in my marriage I attended a bridal shower for one of my husband's nieces. Aunt Joan made a veggie pizza she called Spring Pizza and it was a big hit. I got her recipe and made myself a little recipe card. Over the years, I made it several times for family gatherings and people always commented on it. Many years later Aunt Joan told me how much she enjoyed it and I said well I got it from you. She absolutely denied ever making it! Here I am with a recipe card called Aunt Joan's Spring Pizza!

Not much. My recipes are in my head. I might see a new idea from the Kitchen or video's.
For instance corn in the husk in the microwave. Easy to clean the husk and silks.

it's a great tip!

Recently I moved a senior who I packed 3 boxes of cookbooks. She is 80 years old and I doubt she would be doing much cooking. And the cookbooks were untouched from the last time I moved her!

The memories are still there *sigh*

My go to these days is America's Test Kitchen Cookbook. I like the why's and wherefore's.
Joy of Cooking, of course. I think mine is of the vintage that still has a recipe for beavertail.
Japanese Cooking A Simple Art. An excellent resource first published in 1980.

Regards,
Sorghum Crow

But not many cookbooks explain the way some of them do.

My husband and I got a chuckle looking back at one of our favorite recipes from a Food & Wine cookbook. We thought it was so hard when we made it all those years ago. But now that we have a ton of experience (old) it doesn't look difficult at all!

because they're from people I trust. Kenji Lopez Alt's The Food Lab, ATK's complete cookbook (whatever it's called), Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread book, Fat Salt Acid Heat, and Jacques Pepin's New Complete Technique

Oh, I forgot Fagioli....it's a book of Italian bean recipes....I belong to a bean club and I'm always looking for new ideas.

That sounds interesting.

I like to give The Food Lab to young people starting out. It's fantastic at explaining things.

I spent like 3 years on the wait-list to get in. Every 3 months they send out 6 1lb bags of heirloom (dried) beans and it's been a revelation to me--i always thought I hated Lima beans because my mother used to buy frozen packages of them when I was a kid and they were mealy and tasted no bueno, but the heirloom limas, properly cooked, are just fantastic. And that's just one example.

The owner also has a thing called "Project Xoco" that supports small farms in Mexico by paying living wages to farmers, buying their beans, and helps keep scarce breeds from dying out (most of their beans are indigenous to Meso America.

But I love them so I made for the family. My kids both love them now and my husband eats them too.

Bean Club sounds so cool. Heirloom anything is hard to find. And project xoco is so worthwhile. I am happy you responded because I love hearing about things like this.

I use them for inspiration....

but I don't want to keep so many things around anymore.

taint pretty, but tastes good.

Especially in the original form.

i added marachino cherries + craisins to the oatmeal cookies. sooooo good. + will try cherry toms for the spaghetti sauce.

onions + bell peppers in the 'bbq' sauce really worked.

I not only have mom's, grandmothers' and great grandmother's cookbooks, also great aunt's. My husband and I used to go to auctions, and several times I ended up getting the cookbooks, pamphlets, and handwritten recipes treasured by the family. I keep the heirloom cookbooks, in case I ever need help cleaning and cooking game, and I keep others that are interesting or helpful.

I bought a band cookbook years ago that has a recipe for seviche and a recipe for baklava. I have a Diamond walnut recipe pamphlet, and there is a recipe for spiced walnuts that everyone loves and is gluten-free. I wanted to try making salt-rising bread during Covid and the only recipe I found was in The American Women's Cookbook. I have other cookbooks with other recipes I use at least annually.

I think one of the most peculiar items I have is a spiral notebook that belonged to a local undertaker's wife. It is stuffed with poems about death, eulogies, newspaper clippings of obits, and food recipes associated with the different families in the area. It is a treasure

That you remember all of these and where they are. The last part is fascinating! I'd say that is very much a treasure.

I keep them together in my storage room. I'm trying to shift all of the paper to that room. Slow but sure

And my box of hand me down recipes on index cards. The AFC book is a wealth of basic cooking information as well as tasty vegetarian recipes.

And then I've taken a few classes on bread-making from a local culinary place that I took copious notes in, but now I'm pretty much making my own cookbook. A few years ago, Walmart sold some Trapper-Keepers, and I bought one as a lark. Before I had a bunch of recipes I had programmed a database-driven website for, but I took it down. I reformatted those, categorized them, and printed it out. Lots of family recipes but also ones I've come up with as well as ones I get off the web that I put into my preferred format. It's easy to add to. Just need a 3 hole punch.

Including the ones I got as a kid for birthday/Christmas and a few of my mother's. Most of the ones I bought myself as a kid were in a paperback series by Bantam about other cuisines and specialty cooking. My mom, the reluctant cook, used to buy old cookbooks from the library sales when they were clearing out their shelves. Some were from the 40's and 50's. I got most of the library ones. (My sister got the Pillsbury Baking Contest books that Mom got every year.) Nobody knew why she bought them, but they made great reading. I'm still on the lookout for the early Cookoff books at garage sales. I still get books once in a while from Half Price Books and garage sales. The kids and DH have also added to my collection over the years.

I seldom use recipes from them verbatim, but I read the books regularly and consult them as a reference and for ideas. I just love old recipes and old cookbooks. The new ones, with a recipe on every page and a glossy photo on the facing page, don't interest me as much. It always seems like you're paying full book price for about 30 recipes. An older book could have hundreds. With a good imagination, you don't need pictures.

Anybody have a 1943 Joy of Cooking, wartime edition with rationing tips, that they're not using? It's on my bucket list.