My life's discretionary spending habits can be grouped into 3 eras. In my teenage years, I spend most of my money on video games, movies, and music. In my early to late 20s, I spent most of my money on kitchen gear, cookbooks, and eating out. In my 30s, I spent most of my money on travel and culinary school. While my spending on cookbooks has been more limited in recent years, it was due to hitting a critical mass as to what I could reasonably store in the tiny apartments I've lived in. At any given time, I still have a bunch of cookbooks in storage or at my parent's house. Over time, I've come to appreciate some more than others even though I'll occasionally swap out books from storage to keep things new. Below are my go-to all-purpose general American cookbooks.
The Professional Chef
This is the textbook we used at the Culinary Institute of America. It's hefty and comprehensive. The pictures are nice and the format comprises a general information section on each topic, followed by a standard ingredient list and directions. The biggest downside to this cookbook is that the recipes are mostly written for larger batches of 10 servings. It makes sense when you're at school and making larger recipes that will go towards feeding others, but as a home cook, you'll most likely need to scale the recipes down unless you regularly feed a crowd.
The Food Lab
This may be due to recency bias, but The Food Lab has only been around for 5 years or so. I bought this book because I was a fan of the author, who I followed on the food blog Serious Eats for years. He takes a more scientific approach to cooking, which utilizes his nerdy MIT degree and time as a test cook and editor at Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen. The format of the book is a little more scattered compared to older publications but also is able to inject more personality of the author. The sense of humor isn't for everyone. I would roll my eyes at times, but I am still a fan of his work and easy to understand explanations on the science of cooking.
The Joy of Cooking
There's not much more to say about The Joy of Cooking that hasn't been already been said. It's a classic and one of the best selling cookbooks of all time for a reason. If you want to see some old school recipes and techniques this is your go-to. While the lack of pictures and old school packed pages may turn some readers off, it makes up for it in historical significance as a book that inspired millions of people to cook better.
Honorable Mentions
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
While I don't personally own this book, it's a book that I would have easily gotten if it came out a few years sooner before I severely started to limit my collection. I enjoyed the Netflix show of the same name, and the author is a Chez Panisse alumni who is also known for teaching Michal Pollan to cook.
How to Cook Everything
This was one of the first cookbooks I bought but didn't test that many recipes. Although the writing tone isn't the most exciting, it provides a solid basis for foundational cooking. There have been countless iterations on different cooking topics over the years.
The Science of Good Cooking
Cook's Illustrated Cookbook
Both books are by Cook's Illustrated. It's a publishing company out of the Boston area and is well respected for being thorough in its recipe testing. If I was still living in Boston after culinary school, I would have applied to work there as a test cook.
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