Come on...fess up.

How many do you have in your house?

I know you might not believe this but the only one in my house is the one I wrote myself. I hate keeping books around and never use a recipe anyway if I can help it...I do see new recipes online sometimes or in magazines but don't save those either..

I have several but hardly use them. My honey cooks; I don't. Occasionally I cook a dish from my Vegetarian Cajun Recipes cookbook or my desserts cookbook; that's pretty much it. I can't remember the last time I used one; I hate cooking. When my partner is out of town, I exist on microwave dinners.

Hmmm, I must have around 10 cookbooks. No, we don't use hardly any much anymore. Maybe 1-2 recipes per cookbook or so.

We have 3 cookbooks focused specifically on Northwest Pacific cuisine. A couple on Asian traditional cuisine +1 with nouveau fusion combined with French cooking styles. Some of them, I get specifically for authentic dishes or techniques..if I don't learn them from mother.

Hi JJ,

OK, I confess, I collect cookbooks. I love 'em, though anyone who knows me personally will tell you I never make any recipe exactly as it's written, and I never make the same recipe twice... For me, cookbooks are idea starters and cooking is a highly creative endeavor which I really enjoy...

The oldest cookbook I own is "The Fannie Farmer Junior Cook Book," which was my mother's when she was a girl, and my grandmother gave it to me when I was in about 3rd grade. It's roughly 200 pages, published in 1942. I made many of the recipes as a girl, and this is a real keepsake...

Another old favorite is called "Be Milwaukee's Guest," and it consists of recipes collected and tested by the Junior League of Milwaukee. It's copyright 1959, but my copy is from the 4th printing in 1970, and came from my mother on the occasion of my first marriage. I don't make many recipes from this book, but it is fun to read, and contains an excellent recipe for German Potato Salad...

Perhaps the oddest book in my collection is called "My Favorite Recipes from the Wild," and it's by Helen R Wilke. This cookbook was a gift from my father, who knows I like unusual recipes -- though I am not sure I will ever have a need for a recipe for "Dandelion Coffee," or "Raccoon with Bacon."

The most interesting thing for me about this book is the preface, which tells me that Margaret shared her recipes over the years with Euell Gibbons...

I remember Euell used to be on a TV commercial for Grape Nuts cereal. Does anyone else remember that?

Orchid, I'd love to know more about nouveau fusion cooking styles.

Anne, I collect cookbooks too.....I can't resist them...when my kids were growing up every school they went to, every sport they played all seemed to create and sell cookbooks as fundraisers ...so many of my recipes are in those books...and I always give 2 or 3 of them as part of any bridal shower gift. Over the years I began to collect cookbooks whenever we traveled to a new place...and now I have a bookcase filled with cookbooks...each one tells a story...

So JJ...after a long winded lead up ..the answer to your question
about how many cookbooks I have... 217!!!

Nancy, you and I share a love for them. I have so many. Let me see....I doubt I have one for cooking racoon, but I do have one that I co-authored with my company to raise funds for Alzheimer's one year, and it has how to cook an elephant in it. Elephants top racoons, Anne...sorry!

I feel like a whimp compared to you, Nancy, I only have 49! Ewww...an uneven number. Quick! Somebody send me a cookbook!

Send me your address JJ and I will gladly send you one!!

I forgot one: I have a cookbook our local Humane Society published a couple of years back. It has recipes for both humans and animals, plus lots of information on what not to give pets and what plants and foods are poisonous.

At least 40, plus I have GOBS of loose recipes that, mostly, I don't even uses. My faves are used often.

You know Di, I didn't even think to count the loose recipes I have. OMG...back to the drawing board.

I recently went through all my cook books and got rid of all but about six of my favorites. It's old, but McCormick Spice had a great one back in the 70s. Still my favorite because all the recipes have great spice combinations in them.

Hi Di and Jaw Jaw,

I have gobs of loose recipes too, not to mention that the recipe box I received at a wedding recipe shower back in the 70's has all but give up the ghost... I keep it together with rubber bands! So most times, a few of those recipes are out of the box, as well.

I need to get some sort of 3 ring binder and start over...

Meanwhile, Georgia, you are right, elephant does trump raccoon.

Wanted to jump back into this conversation, as I read an interesting column in the Chicago Trib Food column today: A list of the top cook books all cooks "should" have. Yikes, I've been "getting by" all these years with only 2 of those books in my personal possession.

Here's the link. The columnist wants to know what books we readers think are missing from the list. Here 'tis:

Chicago Tribune List of Top Cook Books We Can't Live Without

Anne

Dotsie,

How bold of you to cull your cookbook collection. Mine takes up an entire bookshelf in my pantry, and spills over onto the floor. Good thing the pantry has a door!!

I agree, there are only a few books I use on a regular basis, and I'm a great one for searching FoodNetwork.com whenever I decide to try something new..that's where all my loose recipe sheets come from...

But like AvalonBlondi, a lot of these books represent a memory of a place we've visited, a person who gifted me with the book, or a special interest -- like authentic Scandinavian cooking -- and I don't think I could give them up...

Anne

But for me, like

I love my "Calling All Cooks" book which is done by the telephone companies. Also, Mrs. Mary BoBo's book (a boarding house in Lynchburg, TN, home of the Jack Daniels Distillery)...Then I have a Campbell's book which has yummy recipes for all of their soups...

Another fab is my "restaurant" one which has the secret recipes from all of the restaurants we know and love to frequent...

So many cookbooks...so little flour.

I, too, recently gave away 15 cookbooks. Dennis' PCA can't boil water without a disaster, so I thought she would make better use of them than I have over the past two years.

I kept:
Joy of Cooking, Part one and two
A James Beard cookbook - I have had it so long, it's torn in half and the covers are missing, so I can't tell you which one it is.
Sundays at the Moosewood Restaurant for my vegetarian cravings
6 assorted specialty cookbooks - Thai, Indian, etc.

At one time I owned 12 books on baking bread. That was a lifetime ago.

I actually fantasize about making homemade breads. I would have sold my front row seat in Hades to have had those books. Sigh...

My mother has sets of cookbooks from all around the world, she has been collecting them since she was a girl plus inherited the ones my grandmother, her mother collected...

My two sistrs squabble who is getting them BUT mother has it in her will THEY ARE ALL MINE...

I am the only one whose cooking she likes to eat and says I use all natural ingredients and nothing processed like my lazy sisters do...LOL!

We have a tall,narrow shelving unit in the corner of the kitchen/dining room...it holds only cookbooks, many very old from my Mom and various aunts. Some of the aunt ones have hand-written notes and I can't bear to give them away. I keep trying to sort the books out to give some away, but can't seem to give an entire shelf's worth away, so end up keeping them all in order to keep the other books from toppling over. LOL. Some excuse, eh? But the only one I really use anymore is the green binder full of recipes I've either copied off of the Internet or old family recipes that I've typed up.

I do have a passion for buying cookbooks from charity organizations. I have so many of those from various churches, cancer and other charities. I rarely ever use them, but love collecting them.

I'm the same as you Eagle, I love collecting cookbooks...I have over 200 now and I can promise you that I haven't tried recipes from each one..but after seeing the movie Julie & Julia I vowed to my husband that one year after we retire I will make a meal from a different cookbook each day for a year...:) In the meantime I love to read them...some of the homespun cookbooks written by organizations as fundraisers have some great ideas in them..and other simply remind me of a nice visit to a different town or a great restaurant where I purchased the cookbook.

My brother and I each have a hand written recipe book from our grandmother, Ho Ho (Hulda). She used tons of butter, chocolate, and bacon fat! She loved to cook and eat and she showed it!

She baked bread and cinnamon rolls to die for. I don't remember the dough recipe, but the filling was -

a pound or two of butter - large blobs every half inch of dough
brown sugar - thick layer across dough
Roll up, cut and place in pan lined with brown sugar and blobs of butter.

I baked bread in my 20's and 30's. My father took it up in his 70's. It's a family thing.

Anno, that's true with my old cookbooks too, lots of butter and lots of sugar! My tendency now is to browse through the books, get an idea, then turn to the Internet to find a more up-to-date, healthier version.

I have a hand written gathered from the years which book which in turn my daughter has copied ..I always added who and where I was given a recipe..
Also a WRI cookery book.The WRI is a rural womens group of long standing in Scotland.Calendar Girls film is the English version.
These recipes are comprehensive..and very Scottish.Sometimes several versions of one recipe are given.This may be due to the original book was by people donating recipes and may be to include each WRI group.
I have many books and like others fund raising here promote books..so I always add another when the chance comes up.
I believe some of the former day recipes using butter /sugar etc
were in vogue at a time when less aids were in the home..vacumn cleaners washing machines and easier run furnishings like duvets have meant less calories are burned doing housework.
My WRI recipes would be used by farming women where the men would need fuel to work hard so modifying these recipes for health reasons is a good idea..

My Treasure

My hardback handwritten recipe book
Used most days in the distant past
Referred to when memory hides
Is a treasure I hold dear

A Morris print in blue and pink
On the shelf beside the sink
Inside a wealth of day gone by
It shows indeed how time does fly

A splash of liquid who know what
A thumbprint from an Icing splurge
One Christmas past in faded red
That cake was pretty so they said

No price can buy that self same book
Whose name beside a recipe tell
Of friendships.. former times.. regard
Who nurture still my soul and heart

Okay, I just tried to sit down and go through my cookbooks to see what I could toss. An effort in nostalgic futility! I mean, even if I could manage to clean out one shelf, what else would go there in its place? Hubby's junk? Forget it. Some of these cookbooks are ancient. Maybe if my niece ever comes to visit, I'll let her take a browse and see if anything interests her. But for now, I've put them all back where they belong and they're staying put!

MA, your poem affirms my decision! I swear I can see the thumbprints of Mom and precious aunts, and can hear the squeals of delight as those pages leapt to life around tables long-since gone.

Yes, true if the lst recipe version is too rich/sweet, then I'll hunt down something else similar.

Or I just adjust the recipe, particularily on the sugar side. Usually if I reduce even 1/8-1/4 c. of sugar for cake crumb area etc., it doesn't affect the sweetness much...which meant the recipe was originally too sweet! It's abit horrifying (to me) to read recipes for frostings, icings. Hence, we don't use those recipes at all.

But then I rarely bake anything these days. He tends to make the special occasion desserts and he makes up 60% of it based on an original recipe. Usually it's now a chocolate mousse (he makes a nice soy-based version) with his homemade fruit compote --usually made from fresh/frozen raspberries, blueberries or blackberries, with wine, maple syrup..he's even use raspberry balsamic vinegar. It works!

Anno..that recipe sounds DELICIOUS!!!

I mean..maybe just a FLING now and again..I think that I just might give it a try..

MMMMMMMMMMMMM...

oh, girlfriend, it is delish!!!!!

When my grandmother cooked or baked, people ran to consume. She also was about 5 feet tall and probably weighed around 250 pounds. Her cooking and baking were second only to her love of eating. She was a joy!

She sounds like my Grandmother Anno...such wonderful memories!!

Same here. Me and MamMaw made everything from scratch. Okay, not true. MamMaw did...I just ate it. I want to cook all the time now. Mother accused me of waiting for people to die so I could take over a pie....that is SO not true. Really. It isn't. I swear.

But...if you feel ill, call me.

Whattttttttttt?

Anno, I would give anything if you lived near me so you could give me baking bread 101....I want to be the world's best bread maker. I have a bread machine, but phooey...who wants to use that? I want to get my hands dirty, you know?

Go for it JJ...get your hands dirty and knead that bread!!! You will be the toast (sic) of the town before you know it!! (wink wink)

Will do! Just hope I don't burn out (bawwwhahahah...ahem)

Hey JJ, when the time comes for me to inherit all mothers cookbooks I will pack them up and send them to you. I never wanted them in the first place and know you would appreciate the countless recipes inside... Oh, but my mother plans on being 100 so don't watch for the UPS guy anytime soon!!!

In that case, I hope I never receive them...may she live to be 150! We love our moms...indeed!