- Key People:
- Ina Garten
- Thomas Keller
- James Beard
- Linda McCartney
- Jacques PĂ©pin
cookbook
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What is a cookbook?
A cookbook is a collection of recipes, instructions, and information about food preparation and serving. Cookbooks have been written in almost every literate society and are a chronicle of the art of cooking.
The printing press revolutionized the culinary arts by making cookbooks widely available. The first cookbook written by a woman was Hannah Wooleyâs The Queen-like Closet; or Rich Cabinet, published in 1670. Fannie Merritt Farmer, in 1896, was the first to standardize the methods and measurements in her recipes, assuring reliable results for her readers. Cookbooks have become a mainstay of the publishing world.
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What kinds of recipes are usually found in a cookbook?
Cookbooks contain recipes, instructions, and information on preparing and serving food. Early cookbooks, like The Deipnosophistai, featured recipes for dishes such as stuffed vine leaves and cheesecakes. Over time, cookbooks have evolved to include a wide range of recipes, from soups to delicacies like frogs and snails.
The advent of the printing press made cookbooks more accessible, leading to a surge in publications catering to the rising middle classes. Fannie Merritt Farmer's The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book standardized recipe methods and measurements, ensuring reliable results for readers. Modern cookbooks showcase national and regional specialty dishes, reflecting a growing global interest in cookery.
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How are cookbooks organized to make finding recipes easier?
Cookbooks are organized to help readers find recipes easily. They achieve this through various methods, such as including a detailed table of contents and comprehensive indexes. Recipes are often grouped by course, ingredient, cooking method, or cuisine. Many cookbooks also feature cross-referencing and indexes to help readers locate recipes based on specific ingredients or techniques. Some cookbooks also include helpful visual cues like color-coded sections or tabs.
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Who writes cookbooks and who are they written for?
Cookbooks are written by a variety of individuals and organizations, including amateur and professional chefs, cooking schools, and the food departments of major food producers and popular magazines.
Throughout history, cookbooks have been written in almost every literate society and are collections of recipes, instructions, and information about preparing and serving food. As the rising middle classes gained interest in better food preparation, cookbooks became more widespread. One of the most successful and popular cookbooks of all time was produced in the United States in 1896, when Fannie Merritt Farmer took on the editorship of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
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How have cookbooks changed over time?
Cookbooks have evolved from ancient treatises like Deipnosophistai to widely available printed collections. Early cookbooks, such as The Form of Cury, featured French-influenced recipes. The printing press then revolutionized culinary arts, and cookbooks became more accessible.
Hannah Wooley's The Queen-like Closet marked the emergence of female cookbook authors. Standardized methods were introduced by Fannie Merritt Farmer in The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. The 20th and 21st centuries saw a surge in cookbooks, including Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Today, cookbooks are a publishing staple, with numerous amateur and professional chefs contributing.
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cookbook, collection of recipes, instructions, and information about the preparation and serving of foods. At its best, a cookbook is also a chronicle and treasury of the fine art of cooking, an art whose masterpiecesâcreated only to be consumedâwould otherwise be lost.
Cookbooks have been written in almost every literate society. One of the most famous of the early ones is the Deipnosophistai (âThe Learned Banquetâ), a treatise on food and food preparation written in the 2nd century bce by Athenaeus, a Greek gourmet. The treatise is presented in the form of a dialogue between two banqueters, who talk for days and relate recipes for dishes such as stuffed vine leaves and several varieties of cheesecake. Athenaeus was by no means the earliest Greek writer on cooking; he mentions more than 20 authors who preceded him, one of whom, Archestratus, produced his masterpiece, HÄdypatheia (âPleasant Livingâ), in 350 bce.
Another famous gourmet of the ancient world was Apicius, a wealthy Roman merchant of the reign of Tiberius (14â37 ce). Apiciusâs colossal banquets eventually drove him to bankruptcy and suicide, but he left behind a cookbook so prized that it has been preserved, in numerous editions, down to the 20th century.
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The gastronomy of early China is preserved in a number of treatises, one of the most interesting of which is called The Important Things to Know About Eating and Drinking, by Huou, master chef of the imperial court of Kublai Khan (1215â94). Huouâs collection consists largely of recipes for soups, but it is also a useful encyclopaedia of household information.
Medieval Europe also produced cookbooks. Among the earliest in English was The Form of Cury (the word cury is an obsolete term for cooked food), compiled in the 12th century. It consists of 196 recipes, many of which reveal their French origin in names such as âBlank Manngâ and âPayn Fondewe.â One of the first French books, called La MĂ©nagier de Paris, was published in 1394 and contained recipes for such delicacies as frogs and snails.
The printing press revolutionized the culinary arts by making cookbooks widely available. The first known to have been printed, in 1485, was produced by an Italian, Bartolema Scappi, who mainly recorded recipes for marzipans and other sweets.
Cookbooks proliferated as the rising middle classes gained interest in better food preparation. The first cookbook written by a woman was Hannah Wooleyâs The Queen-like Closet; or Rich Cabinet, published in 1670. The secrets of French cuisine were made available to a wide public by the cookbooks of great chefs like Alexis Soyer of the mid-19th century, whose Shilling Cookery for the People sold more than 100,000 copies. One of the most successful and popular cookbooks of all time was produced in the United States in 1896, when Fannie Merritt Farmer took on the editorship of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Farmer was the first to standardize the methods and measurements of her recipes, assuring reliable results to her readers.
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The 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed a prodigious burst of interest in cookery, including thousands of national or regional specialty dishes that were previously unknown outside their own countries or areas. Some well-known cookbooks published during this time included Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 2 vol. (1961, 1970), by American cook Julia Child and French cooks Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle; James Beardâs American Cookery (1972), by American culinary expert James Beard; and Gordon Ramsayâs Passion for Flavour (1996), by Scottish chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay.
Cookbooks have become a mainstay of the publishing world, with scores produced annually by amateur and professional chefs, cooking schools, and the food departments of the major food producers and popular magazines.