Some people think coffee table books have to have big, pretty pictures. They haven’t seen my coffee table. It’s covered with old cookbooks my wife has picked up at garage sales and antique stores.
Some of the most popular posts here — perfect brownies, banana cake, peach cobbler — started out from one of these books.
Where do you get your recipes? (You can choose one or two answers.)
Loading ...Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
Subscribe to comments on this post
26 Comments
I quit buying cook books when I discovered the wealth of recipes posted online for free. As much as I love the ones I have, I can’t justify purchasing something when I know I can get the same thing for free.
I’m inspired by recipes from my old and new cookbooks as well as from the web. I’m gluten sensitive, so I have had to learn to take these recipes and make them work with gluten free grains/nuts/seeds/legumes. That’s the reason I started blogging!
I have to say, I’m VERY jealous of your cookbook collection!
I collect recipes which I get from blogs, cookbooks both old and new, purchased, borrowed and checked out from library, websites, magazines, friends anywhere I can find them. My friends always say that if you need a recipe……….she has it.
Oh, that’s not the whole collection. I just laid out enough for one layer on the table. I’ve got about twice that still downstairs, including a few like The Practical Encyclopedia of Baking
and Italian Cooking Encyclopedia
, two absolute monsters. I’ve made very few recipes straight out of them, but they’re so comprehensive I can always use them to double-check my other recipes before I make them.
what about those of us who don’t use many recipes or have them committed to memory from family? I have a few recipes, but most of what I make is from memory, or just poking around the kitchen and seeing what will work together. Several of my friends get frustrated when they ask for one of my recipes and I don’t have one. I will however remake the dish and write down approximations and such for them. Does that count?
Sure it counts. I never wrote anything down until I started doing this blog.
Definitely allrecipes.com They’re tried, tested, and people leave suggestions on how to make it even better!!!
Some of my best recipes used to come from the Pillsbury Bake Off booklets — back before they just became a collection for using convenience foods. I used to buy the booklets and make every recipe in them (with 4 kids, even the failures got eaten). Now, most of my recipes come from cooking blogs. I use Living Cookbook software to keep my recipes, about 700 personally collected. Even recipes I don’t make anymore because they make too much food for 2 people remind me of the good friends I collected them from and I enjoy looking at them.
When I was a youngster, I remember seeing my grandmother sitting in our kitchen… just reading through a stack of cookbooks. And I used to think, “That lady needs to get a life!”.
Now, I do the same thing!
I like to use old cookbooks.
They don’t ask for things I don’t have on hand, like star anise, or chinese five-spice powder, or even jarred caponata (whatever that is!) They just usually ask for nice, on-hand ingredients, and I can use fresh fruit, veggies, etc.
My favorite type of recipe book is those compilation books like you get for fundraisers for church things. Boy, do those ladies know how to cook! It always tastes great, but not always so good for you. Small portion and more green salad, that’s what we say around here!
There’s no choice for a Google search. At this point, I just put in some ingredients and see what comes up that sounds good. I mean, there are certain sites I gravitate towards, but for the most part I just “Google.”
Great survey and I’m so gonna put my cookbooks on my coffee table now
I started with my Nana’s ” Joy of Cooking “when I was a new bride, then moved onto newer cookbooks like “Company’s Coming” and used those for years. Then I broke outta my rut and bought new cookbooks, subscribed to Everyday Food (LOVE IT), Cooking Light, etc. Now I use online sites more often but still adore my cookbooks. Nothing better than eating your lunch and scanning thru them.. am I the only one that does that?
I have two sets of cookbooks, too. One batch sits on the shelf where I have easy access to them; the others are in a cupboard below. I use those less often. Then there’s the manila file of recipes I’ve cut out from magazines and newspapers. Of course, I have a recipe file folder on my laptop, and there’s an older recipe file on the desktop that I rarely use – except to print a recipe…. You get the picture!
I get my recipes from many sources;
My mother, aunt, friend
Like your wife, I like to buy old cookbooks so from there
new cookbooks
internet cooking sites
cooking shows (food tv, pbs etc)
out of imagination and lack of ingredients new recipes are born
I use all of the resources on the list, but I love the cookbooks I have and continue to add to my collection. Some are found in vintage bookstores and second-hand shops, some are new. I continue to buy recipe books even though there are so many online – because I can read a cookbook like a novel. Very happy to sit on the sofa of an evening, trawling through my latest purchase. A lot of my favourite cookbooks are like travelogues or memoirs as well, such as Roast Figs, Sugar Snow; Falling Cloudberries; Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, or Tamarind and Saffron. My most used book is one an American friend gave me when she went back to the States (I’m British), called the Southern Living Cookbook – the pages are falling out, it’s got food splattered all over it, notes, amendments, suggestions written in the margins but I couldn’t do without it.
I tend to read the occasional blog, watch the occasional program and look at a few menus, and just generally ponder good combinations. Then with the ingredients I have just imagine what style/flavours to go for. If there is some part that I don’t remember how to make (or suspect it is happier if the proportions are more accurate than some, blob or splodge) I will google for ideas. generally I just imagine a flavour combination and (as my godmother taught me) “make it up as I go along” it usually works and often has another outing a few weeks later with minor modifications. I am borderline chronically incapable of not modifying a recipe too!
I have to say I don’t own many cookbooks (2 from being a small child with lovely illustrations, one student one with good flapjacks and one that was a wedding present) but perhaps I should extend my “book-rescuing” to cookbooks too
)
I modify just about every recipe I use. I have a picky-eater family, so I don’t have much of a choice. *grrr*
Well, hmmm, if I took all the cookbooks out that I’ve collected plus inherited from my mom, I’d need a library shelf! Hmmm, and I know just where I’d put it, now that I’m thinking along those lines!
Even though America’s Test Kitchens isn’t your favored site, Drew, I love their cookbooks because of the “story” that goes with each recipe. Christopher Kimball can spin a tale about what they want to acheive, what they’ve tried, and what succeeded.
And online? I collect recipes… I don’t care if I have 15 recipes for Chicken Divan, I will collect the next one I see! I have thousands collected since 2003! I have even collected all of yours, Drew, since I started getting your emails. Online favorites are AllRecipes, MyRecipes (Cooking Light etc), Cooking.com, Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country (I subscribe to their videos).
So, how often do I use actual recipes? Rarely. I read them, pick and pluck what I want from them and then do the dish myself!
But on the rare occasion I follow a recipe… I follow it to the T… measuring everything and making notes afterwards. I even take pictures, Drew!
I mostly make family recipes that have never been written down. Although, I don’t think I’ve ever made the same exact thing twice. I don’t always have the same ingredients and cooking needs tweaking to make it even better. Even when I do use a recipe, mostly those found online lately, I make adjustments to suit my taste and what I have on hand. I generally cook with local seasonal ingredients and refuse to grocery shop just to follow a recipe. Necessity, is a mother of an inventor.
You really needed a “D. All the above” option.
Heh, I almost did add a last option of “Yes”.
I have collected vintage cookbooks the last 20 years. A handful are over 100 years old. Inside I have found a victorian era dance card filled out and complete with teeny pencil, graduation announcement from 1941 with photo, a WWII ration card, a victorian seed pearl pin, some penny post cards, a couple wedding invitations, and some interesting newspaper recipes. I have found more but can’t think of them all right now. I think vintage recipe books tell a story about the times, the person using it, and a piece of history too! For example: eggless chocolate cake recipe during the depression as well as vinegar pie. Or, the Pillsbury bake-off’s when they went from sctatch to incorporating”boxed or prepared” food into their recipes (most of which are no longer made so you are unable to make the recipe without it) That started in the late 60′s and early 70′s when the women’s liberation movement went into full swing, and women got jobs outside the home. I even have a couple of old ones from England with Imperial measurements that I have to decipher. There is a connection between you and the person who owned it before, you can see their favorite recipes by simply looking at the worn and slightly stained pages. I wonder about that person, who they were, how they lived and what they went through in their life. But most of all, I wonder why I now have it, did their family not know or realize what a true treasure they gave up? It’s really sad in a way, But I know I am now their guardian and I will take care of them, and cook and bake to my heart’s delight!!
Love your Site! I have so many cookbooks and love finding older ones. My husband and kids are just ready for me to put them to use more. LOL Your blog has inspired me. It reminds me of the homecooked meals I grew up with and the great family times I had with my grandparents. We often replace them with the fast easy made prepackaged meals. Then what is missed is a good memory making opportunity to have time with your family and a wonderful meal. I am trying to stretch meals and learn to use what is in the cabinets. I cooked a turkey in order to make a few meals from it and the recipe you had with high temp up front was wonderful. I am a crispy skin person too. Enjoy the simplicity and the laughs because sometimes we need the basics reminded or never knew to begin with.
God Bless
~Leigh Ann~ TX
I get the majority of my recipes from Fine Cooking magazine. Not only is every issue glorious food porn, but similar to your blog, it’s REAL food. It’s seasonal cooking from scratch. The recipes use full fat, full calorie, full FLAVOR ingredients I can find at my local farmer’s market or grocery store. Given that a little bit of a good ingredient goes a long way rather than using a lot of a mediocre one, most of the recipes are nutritionally sound too. The cooking without recipes section is my favorite. For example, they provided a basic (and delicious) cheesecake recipe and gave directions on how to create different variations with add ins, fillings and toppings. I read each issue cover to cover. I also love Cooks Illustrated magazine from America’s Test Kitchen. Their blurbs about why they chose a particular ingredient or technique help me understand the recipes. These two magazines help me fool my family and friends into thinking I’m a cooking superstar when really, I execute awesome recipes.
Kandice, I like Cook’s Illustrated, even though I’ll rarely follow one of their complete recipes. The analysis of the techniques, though, is brilliant. I’m more interested in how they develop the recipe, and how to analyze my own, than it any one “perfect” recipe.
I am a cookbook and recipe addict. I get my recipes from a wide variety of sources – family (especially Mom), friends, magazines, cookbooks (new & old) and online. I also often cook things using a combination of recipes or figure out what to put together based on what I have on hand. I find the more I cook, the less I depend on recipes (even though I love them) and the more I am guided by intuition.
2 Trackbacks
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by DrewKime and Alltop Food, Caterham Business. Caterham Business said: Where Do You Get Your Recipes? http://bit.ly/bAxflT [...]
[...] then, in one of the old cookbooks my wife found, there was this recipe for a “banana boat”. They’re crazy good for how easy they [...]