How many cookbooks do you own?
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
United States
April 20, 2007 8:06pm CST
My gram loved to collect cookbooks and that was the one thing I wish I could have had of hers when she passed on, but unfortunately my grandfather remarried quickly and the woman "cleaned house" of anything that wasn't of any financial value, those included.
I have probably upwards of 20 cookbooks but have stopped collecting them as my new house has an extremely small kitchen and no storage space.
My favorite is one given to me by my exhusband's grandmother who is now passed. It was an old Grange cookbook and had so many REAL recipes in it! It was put together in 1972 and a picture of it is attached to the discussion. You can't find them anymore either as I've looked on the Grange sites to see.
8 people like this
19 responses
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I wnet and counted them and I still have and use the Betty Crocker Cook Book with the red cover that I got for a Christmas Gift in 1970. I bought my daughter the same book in 1981 with the same cover and recipes which she still has.
3 people like this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
OMG... I LOVE my red betty crocker book! That was a gift to me too, from my mom for Christmas one year to put in my cedar chest for when I got married.
1 person likes this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
22 Apr 07
It was a really, really popular cookbook! I've seen a lot of them at garage sales or used stores here locally. I think it was a great book too because it had microwave recipes, something that most books didn't really have yet.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
22 Apr 07
Wow.... you could go crazy with all those recipes! And to have them in authentic format with various languages! Awesome!
@peaceful (3294)
• United States
21 Apr 07
Dispite that fact that I'm a contest cook and I'm in the kitchen almost everyday...
I only own about 5 cookbooks, the most used being The New York Times Cookbook, which I consider to be the "ultimate grimoire" of cooking...
How about going over to Library Thing and getting a free membership... someone over there might have what you are looking for! :)
http://www.librarything.com
Good luck, and let me know how you do...! :)
2 people like this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I sooooo miss my books. I haven't re-purchased any that have been damaged in our flood but the grange one is one I want to replace because I used it often. That and my red betty crocker.
@kgwat70 (13388)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I have two cookbooks and they are very small cookbooks. They just sit in my bookshelf as I have not used them since I first moved into my house. I will have to get a new cookbooks that has more recipes and ideas in them. As you can tell, I do not cook very much but am trying to get into the habit of cooking. Eating out gets quite expensive after a while.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
And once you get in the swing of making your own stuff, it will just become second nature to you.
@Marie2473 (8512)
• Sweden
21 Apr 07
I do not own a single cookbook, sad but true. Whenever i need a recipie i go online looking for it =)
My parents also never used them, they cooked all from the heart and never followed a recipie =)
1 person likes this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I dont' think that's so strange in today's world though. I think as we go on, we may find that we use less and less "in print" style cookbooks and go for the ones we have on the computers. Most everything you want you can find on the net anymore for cooking recipes!
@Alexandria37 (5717)
• Ireland
23 Apr 07
I don't really like cooking and I tend to stick to basic recipes for which I don't need a cookboook. I had lots of cook books when my children were young, but now that they are no longer living with me, I have given away all but one of my cookbooks. When I need to check up on a recipe, rather than search for it in the cookbook, I will just check the internet.
1 person likes this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
24 Apr 07
I tend to use my saved recipes and internet recipes more so anymore also, since I moved and never unpacked the cookbooks and then lost many to flooding. I have to say the internet has become an awesome source to find ANYTHING you want for recipes!
@kiiizu (1901)
• Estonia
21 Apr 07
OMG! I never counted them actually, perhaps I should. I have a nice collection, about 100, I guess. The oldest one is from 1903, it's a classical Russian cookbook. The recepies don't begin FE with "take 5 eggs" but with "give out 5 eggs". For a long time I didn't understand what it means. Then, couple of years ago I suddenly did understand: the lady of the house or a housekeeper does give the cook and other kitchen staff them for preparing, and doesn't prepare them herself. There are some very delicate recepies but the fact that I have to calculate the amounts - they are using old Russian units of measurements, and we are using metric system - makes the usage of the book difficult.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
Oh how funny! It must be very neat to see the various recipes and know they are "authentic Russian" recipes! I have never actually collected any authentic ethnic cookbooks but that would be a neat thing to collect indeed!
@bonbon664 (3466)
• Canada
21 Apr 07
I have tons of cookbooks, and seem to go to the old favourites over and over. I have a "Five Roses" flour one that I use over and over. I have a lot that I need to look over and decide which are keepers. I have one that is recipes from the southern US, where there is a recipe for squirrel pie. I think I'll pass on that one....LOL I think altogether, I have about 40-50 cookbooks.
1 person likes this
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I used to have one from an old tv show that shared all the Mayberry recipes. One of the recipes was Aunt Bea's Kerosene Pickles, from an episode where she made pickles and they truly tasted like kerosene. LOL Another one was Gomer's Oppossum Pie. Needless to say, most were "jokes" with a few authentic recipes thrown in for good taste!
@sherrir101 (3670)
• Malinta, Ohio
22 Apr 07
I have probably got 150 cookbooks. It is one thing that I do collect. My favorite to collect being the community or church cookbooks. I have got one from the Yahoo group MS Friends that is my absolute favorite though. It is thick and has everything in it!
1 person likes this
@gemini1960 (1161)
• Philippines
21 Apr 07
actually my wife loves to cook but she have no cook book..she cook our food to recipes that was taught to her by her parents when she was single..
@lordwarwizard (35747)
• Singapore
21 Apr 07
I don't cook so it would be strange if I own any cookbooks. I will answer for my Mum if I may. :P
She has several old and tattered copies that she bought when she gets into the occasional fit of whipping up some new dishes. I thought her cooking is pretty decent though she always laments otherwise.
She doesn't like cooking that much anyway so you can understand how her enthusiasm will get fired up and then wane quickly enough. Just a few copies. The rest of the info is stored in some cells in her brain. :PP
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
The older books are always loaded with fun stuff too. Always interesting. I'd say most mums tend to cook from their head and not by using the cookbooks that often. We tend to look to them for new ideas.
@lightningMD (5931)
• United States
21 Apr 07
I love cookbooks. I have about 25. I look for ols ones at yard sales every summer. I have a bunch of my grandmothers old ones and her hand written recipes too. I love just reading through them.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
21 Apr 07
My favorites tend to be the ones that are created by various groups and sold. They tend to have "real" recipes that people will make, like casseroles and such.
@Windrunner (477)
• Pakistan
21 Apr 07
i own about 5 cookbooks but i hardly ever refer them. i usually cook with my moms recipes. i even have made my own cookbook from internet recipes. i also collect recipes from magazines and other cooking channels.
@aweins (4199)
• India
23 Jun 07
i love cooking and cooking is my genes. i have got it from my family. both my mom and dad loves to cook. my grand mom too loves cooking. my mom makes different variety of dishes and sweet dishes . i just love her way of cooking. i also love to cook different variety of items but i am not that fast to cook any dish as she is. my dad is also a very good chef. he makes wonderful cookies . i have 4 books of dishes including one salad making and one of soups. but at present i am having only one because now i am married and my stock of books is at my place in my room at my parent's house.
i am a vegetarian so all the recipes are veg.
@worldwise1 (14885)
• United States
23 Jun 07
I have accumulated many cookbooks over the years also, hockeygal, but I rarely use them. I have been cooking for so long, that I find it unnecessary to use them anymore. If I really need to find a recipe now I just go to allrecipes.com and find it. My great-aunt had a wonderful old cookbook which came with her old woodburning cookstove back in the '40s. It had really great recipes in there. I would have liked to keep it, but, unfortunately it was destroyed when our old home burned down.
@scarywhitegirl (2766)
• United States
23 Jun 07
I have two cookbooks, but I almost never actually use them. I have a notebook where I have written down some of my favorite recipes, and I am much more likely to use that. Every once in a while, I will search through my cookbooks for a new recipe to try, but I am more likely to find a new recipe on the internet, and copy it into my notebook if I like it.
