How many cookbooks do you own?

[Jenise]

Jeff and Barb talking about the website Eat Your Books spurs this question.

Did a rough count of the books on the shelves behind me and then added 25 per shelf for 3 shelfs in the kitchen to that number, which gives me a total of around 175. I believe this same question was asked here about 10 years ago and I estimated between 150 and 200, best I recall, which says that my occasional culling does a decent job of keeping things in check. I probably only add about three new books a year, that is, and I'm ruthless at tossing out stuff I haven't looked at in a long time. Of course, you have to look at a book to realize you haven't looked at it in a long time and that's probably where most people fail, but I don't have endless storage and when a new book comes in, I try to earn it's place by moving something else on.

[Robin Garr]

Fun question! At one point I had literally hundreds, bolstered by a lot of cookbooks I didn't really treasure but got as publishers' review freebies as a food writer. Moving to NYC in 1990 and back in 1994 prompted me to give a lot of those to the public library, but I hung on to a pretty good number until we re-did my office/library a few years ago. At that point I realized that I rarely used cookbooks any more. The combination of gaining confidence in my own recipe-planning skills over the years with easy access to a world of culinary ideas online meant that the books I had left were gathering dust.

At that point we did another major cull, and basically I hung on to the old treasures that had been with me "since the very start," or for a lont time anyway: The original Marcella Hazan Italian books, Prudhomme's Cajun. Julie Sahni and Madhur Jaffrey Indian books, the Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey books. Some Chinese favorites, mostly not the familiar names, and a couple brought home from France and Italy in the original language. McGee and Oxford and some odds and ends. Like the Joy of Cooking, one of Mary's faves. Short answer, I've pared down to about 50, I don't cook with them much any more, but I enjoy picking them up and looking at them.

[Jenise]

I don't cook with them much any more, but I enjoy picking them up and looking at them.

Interesting you mentioning your own "recipe planning skills" as being in part responsible for the change in your use. I've never thought of cookbooks as tutorials, more like reference works that put someone's unique perspective about food on paper. Like the Coyote Café book from Mark Miller that's here on my desk--books like this help pry me out of ruts I don't even realize I'm in until I open a book like that. Some days, I just say "today I'm going to make something out of a book"--sometimes I even ask Bob to choose the book and the recipe. Fun to take my own biases out of the process. But back to you, I would guess that becoming vegetarian took a lot of old interests out of play, even though you'd still have some interest in cooking "in the style of" a given chef or cuisine.

My wife is a very active collector of cookbooks. Her job is pretty stressful and thumbing through a new cookbook has always been something that relaxes her. We accordingly have a room that has one wall of built in floor to ceiling shelves stocked with cookbooks. On the other side of the room are several freestanding bookcases fully stocked with cookbooks. On the floor of that room are a number of stacks of cookbooks. Last time I tried to do an estimate, we had somewhere north of 1000 of them.

We couldn't possibly cook out of all of them, but that's not really the point.

When we moved nine years ago from Maine to New Hampshire we donated 200 cookbooks to our library. About a dozen ended up on the shelves and rest evaporated quickly at the next book sale. We now are in possession of 235 cookbooks.

The most recent addition is a used hard cover edition of "Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Cookbook." My old paperback edition completely disintegrated in my hands!

My preferred bedside reading except in January and February when I am glued to the seed catalogs. I have around 150 and would likely have more but space makes me cull for the annual library sale , from which I always pick up a few more

[Jenise]

My wife is a very active collector of cookbooks. Her job is pretty stressful and thumbing through a new cookbook has always been something that relaxes her. We accordingly have a room that has one wall of built in floor to ceiling shelves stocked with cookbooks. On the other side of the room are several freestanding bookcases fully stocked with cookbooks. On the floor of that room are a number of stacks of cookbooks. Last time I tried to do an estimate, we had somewhere north of 1000 of them.

We couldn't possibly cook out of all of them, but that's not really the point.

Makes perfect sense. I think most of us here probably read cookbooks that way, but may borrow a great many of them. Your wife also has another reason to own--the daughter who loves to cook. What a great reference library for her!

Haven't counted, but I have probably 75-100.

I'd be surprised if I don't have 100+ but it's too depressing to try and count them -- there are boxes up in the attic, plus several shelves of cookbooks down here. And while I have many favorite recipes that I return to, and I can generally remember which books those recipes are in, the irony is that my normal approach is to use Google to find a recipe.

It is so convenient -- if I have red bell pepper, kale, and ground turkey, or beets and goat cheese, or a sweet potato and pork chops, or okra and tomatoes -- I can just type in the ingredients and I get several choices, at least one of which will be interesting.

I'm reading (listening to) Mark Kurlansky's book "Salt" (which is wonderful) and I keep saying "Oh, I have to buy Chinese preserved duck eggs" or "salt cod" etc. etc. as I hear about how those things are made. And I think I can probably find a great recipe for baccala, salt cod, just by Googling, whereas I am not sure which cookbook I would look in for that. Well, maybe "Bruculinu, New York" or the early version of "Joy of Cooking." But when we were in Padua I had a great "pasta fazool" (pasta fagioli) that was made with baccala. And I might like to eat that dish again.

[Jenise]

I'd be surprised if I don't have 100+ but it's too depressing to try and count them -- there are boxes up in the attic, plus several shelves of cookbooks down here. And while I have many favorite recipes that I return to, and I can generally remember which books those recipes are in, the irony is that my normal approach is to use Google to find a recipe.

It is so convenient -- if I have red bell pepper, kale, and ground turkey, or beets and goat cheese, or a sweet potato and pork chops, or okra and tomatoes -- I can just type in the ingredients and I get several choices, at least one of which will be interesting.

I'm reading (listening to) Mark Kurlansky's book "Salt" (which is wonderful) and I keep saying "Oh, I have to buy Chinese preserved duck eggs" or "salt cod" etc. etc. as I hear about how those things are made. And I think I can probably find a great recipe for baccala, salt cod, just by Googling, whereas I am not sure which cookbook I would look in for that. Well, maybe "Bruculinu, New York" or the early version of "Joy of Cooking." But when we were in Padua I had a great "pasta fazool" (pasta fagioli) that was made with baccala. And I might like to eat that dish again.

Frank, I'm guilty of that, too. Never, probably as with you, a "don't know what to do with that" dilemma but a deliberate choice to do something I wouldn't do if left to my usual devices, which might not be to fall back on some usual recipe (I rarely make the same thing twice) but to stretch my thinking beyond it's usual playgrounds.

I have the Salt book but haven't read it yet. But speaking of salt, I was told the other day about roasting beets covered in salt. Roasted and served unpeeled, the salt extricates moisture and intensifies flavor and texture while they cook. As soon as I heard that I thought of a beet they served at The Willows a few weeks ago and realized that was exactly how it was prepared. It was almost chewy, and I loved it.

Do you cook much with bacalao? I've bought and used some but found it quite fishy, where in Iceland the salt cod dishes were mild and delicious. I brought home some Icelandic salt cod and had terrific luck with it--so, seems to be a source issue. But since I don't like 'fishy', I no longer take a chance of what's available locally.

I'm not really a cookbook person. I have nine, plus Mom's old recipe box, which gets used about as much as any of the cookbooks.

Jenise -- I suppose a little thread drift won't hurt -- I remember salt cod fondly from my youth and I know I have made it a few times but not within the last 5 years, and I'm working up an urge to try it again. There is evidently higher and lower quality salt cod, and some that is not "cod" at all. The real stuff should be "hay colored." I bought a box of Bacalaitos mix recently -- this is kind of like pancake mix with salt cod crumbled up into it, popular in Puerto Rico and maybe other hispanic countries. I fried up a batch of cod fritters and took them to a party.

Anyway what I am thinking is to buy some (it's expensive nowadays) and make some old New England style codfish cakes with potatoes, which my wife and I probably both ate as children.

By the way of course Thomas Keller has the classiest approach. He has you buy the best fresh cod you can find -- and then salt it yourself, and then soak it. This is for a recipe in Bouchon for Brandade de Morue. Hmm, I -did- make that dish when I first bought the cookbook and I would have made it with purchased salt cod so I take it back about the five years. Or has it been five years since the book came out?

[Jenise]

Yes, about five years since the book came out. Time passes too quickly, no?

I have the Bouchon book but don't remember the recipe--it certainly would have intrigued me. Speaking of which that book is overdue for me to assign myself the task of pulling a recipe or two out to get around to in the next few days. Will take this as a providential nudge....

You can't go wrong with Keller's recipes. For what it's worth -- La Tienda sells salt cod made from the best part of the fish, at a high price, but the reviews by customers sound wonderful (scroll down).

http://www.tienda.com/food/products/se-01.html