New cookbook inspiration

[Deleted User]

recently bought Mary Berry's Baking Bible and its really good, plus Susan Reimers 'Muffins fast and fantastic' which was one of my Mothers Day's presents. I still have the first cook book I bought in 1962 as a very young bride and it cost me 2/6d and was called 'Cooking for Two' and I got it in Woolworths wouldn't part with it for anything

LaineyT

I recently inherited my Mum's copy of the Dairy book of family cooking, produced by the old milk marketing board, cracking cookbook and well worth hunting down a copy if you can.
Other than that you can't beat either Mary Berry or Nigel Slater imho.

snoozer

For a fresh look at vegetarian cooking try Anna Jones' "A modern way to eat" and "A modern way to cook". We're trying to eat less meat but a lot of vegetarian food doesn't appeal, especially those quasi meat products, I'd rather have the real thing.

In particular the second book has sections based on the length of time it takes to cook a meal - 15 minutes, 20 minutes etc. She also has pages a bit like flowcharts with recommendations for combining ingredients to make salads or buddha bowls.

Highly recommended.

redlady_1

I am a meat eater but am fussy as to the quality of rearing, slaughtering etc so meat books are more then welcome. Although we do eat lots of veggie stuff. River Cottage Veg is one of my favourites.

I have Deliah and the Dairy Book. I do have Nigel Slater but have never cooked from it bizarrely

Floss

I have a wide selection, but would recommend starting at the library, or even your local high street bookshop, where you can browse and find the book that holds recipes you want to cook.

For me that is Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diary - it has around 40 post-it tags in. I also have Diaries 2 & 3, alongside almost every Nigella (all well used), Delia' Complete in both battered paperback and hard back illustrated, 4 or 5 River Cottage books, several of the Hairy Bikers, Rick Stein and Jamie Oliver books. I'm lucky to have a bookcase just outside my kitchen which is very handy!

monnagran

My Delias Complete Cookery Course must be a first edition, not that anyone would part with good money for it. It has lost its back cover, most of the index pages and half the spine. What pages are left are yellowing, smeared with nameless substances and decorated with doodles. It falls open at pages containing favourite recipes such as Leek and Potato soup and Cheese Scones.
A few years ago I prised open my purse and bought the new edition. It sits gleaming on my bookself, immaculate, pristine, untouched by human hand. Go figure.

In the 70s I was also wedded to the Jimmy Young Cookbooks containing recipes sent in by listeners to his radio show. Sensible, practical and mostly using ingredients in my cupboard. An absolute boon to a financially strapped, harassed young mum.

But what I use most of all is a large box, roughly divided into sections containing all the recipes I have collected from newspapers, magazines, internet, begged from friends, scribbled on the backs of envelopes or handed down by mother and grandmother.
That box is worth more than a king's ransom to me - It has taken me almost 80 years to assemble its treasures and its mine......all mine!

ETA: This is absolutely no use to you, sorry, but I get carried away when writing.

Prinzessilein

monnagran...I have a sort of scrapbook with yellowing pages and some of the recipes becoming unstuck....many recipes are handwritten, other clipped from magazines...and they are in both German and English.

Frustratingly my Omi would write down ingredients but not amounts...so trial and error has been needed to sort those out...and she used a sort of aga, so no oven temps either.

Still, I wouldn't part from this book for the world!

monnagran

Prinzessilein: I guess most people who have been feeding their families, or even just themselves, have something similar. The sort of folk who inhabit this forum would always be looking for economical recipes, household tips, gardening help etc. Well organised, computer savvy ones will no doubt have everything neatly filed.
The rest of us will have our boxes, scrapbooks, overflowing drawers, stuffed envelopes and carrier bags.

x

redlady_1

My husband bought me a book to write all my recipes in from paper chase and it also has lots of compartments for bits collected over the years.

Does anyone else have a Bero book??

I have bought (and yet to try) the Fresh India book

I will have a look through NS Floss. I never seemed to find anything that jumped at me but to be honest I have the same old "go to" ones that I used. Persiana, Deliah, James Martin and HFW. Ottolenghi also has some good things. Oh and Sarah Raven and Demuths

Bumblebear

Just a second (or third, or fourth, of fifth!) vote for the library. I picked up two at the weekend, one looked really great from the cover and a flip through, the sort of thing I'd buy second hand on Amazon, so glad I didn't! The other was Hairy Dieters, anything by Si and Dave I'm all over

I do like family hand-me-down recipes though, and some of my favourites are random things I've found on the net (and on this forum!). I like the idea of a blank recipe book to write them down in, like redlady's.