Do we really need more than 100 cookbooks?
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- April 21, 2022
- 817
“Do we really need more than 100 cookbooks?” My wife was asking a rhetorical question, but it’s one we ask each other frequently, especially when faced with the endless chore of packing all of them, along with a few hundred more books on other topics, for a move to another house.
“I think we both know the answer to that question is always ‘yes,’” I answered.
“Yes, we need all these cookbooks,” she agreed.
This is something people should take into account before marriage. Find a potential spouse who knows how to answer your trial balloon questions correctly. Maybe pastors should incorporate this into counseling in the lead-up to nuptials. “How many cookbooks are OK?” The answer is “all of them.”
We actually finally tossed one with dubious Civil War recipes and a two-volume collection from a now-defunct cooking magazine. But that still leaves more than 100, which I thought was a sinful number until I joined a social media group for cookbook collectors and learned where the real sinners hang out. Some of the members have thousands of cookbooks, and I have no doubt their children are alarmed and have a dumpster company on speed dial for when mom and dad are gone.
In the midst of all this, I found more cookbooks to buy. One is a collection of seafood recipes from the 1970s, which I lost in a move several years ago. I made many dishes from the book including a delicious poached skate, but I couldn’t remember what it was called, only that it was part of a set. One of those online collectors posted an image of their shelved collection, and I was able to zoom in on a collected set and identify the book. It should arrive in about a week, post move.
The other is an entirely unjustifiable one I am still talking myself into: “Martha Lloyd’s Household Book; The Original Manuscript from Jane Austen’s Kitchen.” Apparently, Lloyd was a close friend of the author and a good cook, and the book is a peek into the daily life of the family. See? Hard to justify such a thing.
Recipes from prior to about 1930 are a vague business with instructions that are difficult to translate into 21st century kitchens. Exact measurements for cooks are a somewhat recent development, really. How do you have any kind of success with measurements like “an egg-sized piece of butter” or a “coffee cup filled with sugar?” Show me five different coffee cups and they will all be a different size.
Such a book is not something you can really cook out of, which makes it a waste of money unless you’re just going to look at the pretty pictures once and shelve it. I have enough books like that.
If we were to be honest with ourselves, we probably actually pull out and cook from about a dozen of the cookbooks we have with any regularity. Some are just more useful than others. I use “The Joy of Cooking” quite a bit, mainly to make sure I’m making pancake batter correctly. The absolutely stunning books by chef Thomas Keller, while fun to look at, never get used as cookbooks. “Baking With Julia” is used so often the covers are loose. The same applies to all of our Julia Child cookbooks, truth be told.
I have a thick cookbook by James Beard I’ve never cracked open. There’s a beautifully illustrated Charlie Trotter book filled with seafood recipes, but I mainly look at the pretty pictures and put it back because Tuscarawas County is not the greatest place for home cooks to find uncommon fish species fresh from the boat, as is required.
We could pare the collection down to a dozen, surely. I pointed this out last week and asked, “Should we do it? A move is a good time to toss things. Do we really need more than 100 cookbooks?”
“We definitely need all these cookbooks,” she replied.
She always knows just what to say.