If you own only one cookbook, make it Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking. And there is a brand new fully revised edition!
I own about 100 cookbooks. No kidding. I love cookbooks: Ina Garten, America’s Test Kitchen, Rachel Ray, regional Junior League cookbooks,The Gourmet Cookbook, and many others. But the truth is that in this day and age, I rarely use them. Occasionally I’ll page through one to find an old favorite recipe. But I can find so much with a simple google search, or a virtual stroll through Pinterest. Can’t remember how long to bake a chicken breast? Google it. Or looking for a skinny butternut squash soup recipe? The internet is my friend.
But the great thing about cookbooks, unlike the internet, is that they give you ideas for food you didn’t know you needed to make. More than just an instruction manual, cookbooks introduce you to foods you’ve never thought to make, and certainly haven’t thought to search for on the internet.
Cookbooks also have credibility. Ina Garten — how I love her — isn’t going to mislead you in her instructions. How many Pinterest recipes have you tried that have been epic fails? Any fool with a computer can post a recipe. (Ironic for that to come from me, isn’t it?) But you can always rely on recipes in America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks, or from The Gourmet Cookbook (from the now defunct Gourmet Magazine).
But my very favorite, my go-to, the one I can’t do without, is The Joy of Cooking.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may make a small commission if you purchase something through the link. You don't pay a cent more than you would otherwise.
An oldie but a goodie
The Joy of Cooking was first published in 1931, and has had seven editions since then. I have the 7th Edition, published in 1997. At that point I had been married three years, I had my first child, and I became a stay-at-home mom. Suddenly I wanted to cook; I wanted to eat and serve homemade food, not take-out every night. I remember buying this book. It was heavy and relatively expensive, and I felt like a real grownup.
It’s a workhorse.
My Joy of Cookiong long ago lost it’s shiny cover. The binding is held together with tape.
The pages are stained and a little crispy. Here’s a picture of a dirty and worn but popular page in our house, with the recipe for homemade pesto sauce — still the best pesto I’ve ever found.
You can find it all here.
I flipped open the section called “Meat.” “Meat” has 100 pages. You can read about beef grades, cuts, tenderness, and methods of preparation. The subsection “About Steak” explains the various cuts of steak, and gives simple directions for grilling and broiling, and even discusses steak knives. And then you get to the recipes: Spice-Crusted Sirloin with Lemon Garlic Butter, Grilled Open-Faced Steak Sandwich with Quick Pickled Onions, Pepper Steak with Brandy Cream Sauce, Hoison-Glazed Skirt Steak with Scallion Ginger Slaw, and even Chicken-Fried Steak are just a few in the many steak recipes.
(I wasn’t planning on “meat” for dinner tonight, but now I think I will! You see — I didn’t even know I needed to make these recipes until I flipped through the book.)
My Joy of Cooking has 1136 pages. I have read that there are over 4000 recipes. It also contains measurement charts, detailed nutritional information about virtually any ingredient, and a very useful index. There’s a reason that more than 20 million copies of this book have sold.
New edition coming for 2019!
When I sat down to write this post, I had no idea a new edition was on its way in a few days! I was doing a little background research, and Amazon told me that a fully revised edition was released on November 12, 2019:
I hate to give up my old edition. But after using it for over two decades, I feel like I’m ready for an upgrade. I will be asking for this for Christmas.
A fun connection to Cincinnati — and to wine
Sitting in my little kitchen in Mason, Ohio — a suburb of Cincinnati — I love the fact that Irma Rombauer made her home in Cincinnati. You don’t have to live a glamorous life in Paris, New York or San Francisco to be a great cook. It is possible even in the great midwest.
And I’ll give you one more interesting piece of trivia. If you’ve ever had the popular wine from Rombauer Vineyards, you might have noticed that the cork is inscribed with “The Joy of Wine.” The founder of Rombauer Vineyards, Koerner Rombauer, was Irma’s great nephew, and the winery pays homage to her legacy on their corks.
For some of our favorite recipes, please see:
