Joy of Cooking Story

[BakerAunt]

Here's an interesting discussion for all of you Joy of Cooking fans:

http://www.bonappetit.com/story/vintage-joy-of-cooking-cookbook-shopping?mbid=nl_nl20170515am_recipeoftheday&CNDID=44882808&spMailingID=15089777&spUserID=MTUxNzk4ODA4MTg3S0&spJobID=983393322&spReportId=OTgzMzkzMzIyS0

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[Mike Nolan]

I'm a 'Joy of Cooking' collector, too, I think I have over a half dozen copies of various editions, the oldest of them from 1943, though it is the 1946 edition that I consider the best for cooks, so that's our 'go-to' edition. I bought a 2nd '46 a while back that still needs to be rebound, but at least I only paid 50 cents for it.

I thought the book changed directions in the 1960's, after the death of Irma Rombauer, and again in the 1990's, IMHO neither was a change for the better.

If you've read Julia Child's autobiography, "My Life in France" or seen the movie "Julie and Julia", she was quite disappointed with her meeting with Irma Rombauer.

[aaronatthedoublef]

What a great article. I have my mom's 1953 edition that does, indeed, describe cleaning and skinning a squirrel! This was not the one she used daily which was a bunch of pages (the covers vanished long ago) barely held together by tape.

I had a 1973 edition as well that I lost in a bad breakup.

The other cookbook my mom lived by was The Settlement Cookbook which was a staple of Midwestern Jewish ladies.

[Mike Nolan]

Although my wife still uses the Nebraska Centennial Cookbook (her mother was the editor and her father was the publisher, nearly every recipe in it is one that her mother tested on her family), these days my wife has been using a lot of recipes out of the KAF Baker's Companion, which is probably one of the best 'recent' general books for bakers. I don't use it quite as much, though there are several recipes in the KAF Whole Grains book that I use a lot, but mostly because I've been working on recipes out of Michel Suas's textbook and am starting to work on recipes out of the copy of the 5th edition of Wayne Gisslen's textbook that Cass sent me.

But for non-baking, I often start with the '46 Joy and then see if Julia Child has a recipe in MTAOFC 1 or 2. Then if I have time, I'll check my James Beard books and maybe Graham Kerr.

[BakerAunt]

I only recall making one recipe from an edition of The Joy of Cooking that my mother had (and did not use), and that was for a plum coffee cake in an effort to use up a bumper crop from our plum tree. I have my mother-in-law's copy, which I think is from the 1960s. Hm. I may have used that one for a peach pie this summer, so perhaps my total is two. My mother either went to her red and white checked Better Homes & Gardens, or a bunch of little cook booklets that were in an Encyclopedia of Cooking binder. I have some of those booklets, and I broke down and bought a binder at an estate sale. (One of my sisters has the other one.)

I'm currently going through some stacks of Bon Appetit magazines and pulling out any recipes that I think that I might cook or bake some day. I stopped subscribing in the early 2000s, as there was too much in the magazine that I would never use. Now that we are packing to move at the start of July, I need to lighten the load as much as possible.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.

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