Favourite recipe books

[Richard Tarleton]

This lovely book is a sort of Spanish Mrs Beeton only funnier, pub. 1893 but reprinted in facsimile in 1982 (sorry don't know how to shrink it)



It even has a song about garlic soup, with the music "para los cocineros de la clase de filharmónicos".



It includes an illustrated 4-step version illustrated with cartoons about preparing an "hygenic salad", starting with picking and dressing the lettuce and ending with throwing it out of the window, which is all it is fit for.

[Barbirollians]

Jack Santa Maria's: "Indian Vegetarian Cookery" is a good basic and much used in our house
(and it's a good contrast to Fergus )

An absolute legend of a book !

[Barbirollians]

We bought it after an enthusiastic recommendation in a Sunday paper, but we have formed a judgement on it not on the basis of what some people say about but by actually using it. My reason for mentioning it is that has a lot recipe ideas that have appealed to us ..... enough for us to want cook them again.

I have a copy but I have not been impressed either - my Italian friends suggested it was very overrated and over puffed in this country . It has an enormous number of recipes - perhaps I have been unlucky in those I have tried .

My favourite Italian cookery books are those of , David ( albeit dated from 1954) Hazan , Roden and Anna Del Conte.

[teamsaint]

Anybody else got the Italian cookery book by Al Dente?

[Madame Suggia]

Three favourites:

Montignac Provencal Cookbook

The Pauper's Cookbook

Jack Santa Maria's Indian Vegetarian Cookery

[amateur51]

Tom Vernon, who gained culinary fame through his Radio 4 series Fat Man On a Bicycle has died.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24146612

He made it to his mid-70s despite some seriously rich recipes (have you tried Janssen's Temptation?) and died in his beloved France.

His recipe books are still available and they're great reading, being written in a friendly entertaining and accessible style entirely appropriate to a talented food-loving amateur rather than a professional chef.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Man-Kitchen-Tom-Vernon/dp/0563204648/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380885446&sr=1-4&keywords=tom+Vernon

[amateur51]

Browsing through my Tom Vernon books, I was reminded of another great amateur cook, Michael Smith who used to cook dishes for BBC TV's Pebble Mill at One.

Like Tom, Michael's food ideas are regarded as a bit 'old school' these days but they make great reading, even if they are rather heavy on the cream and the butter

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-English-Cookery-Michael-Smith/dp/0563204036/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380908068&sr=1-11&keywords=michael+smith+cookery

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Smiths-Complete-Recipe-Collection/dp/0563200936/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380908291&sr=1-7&keywords=michael+smith+cookery

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bean There - a superb vegetarian recipe book by Katie Wheelwright of Bridlington, who ran the vegetarian cafe of the same name. i'm not a vegetarian, but I could be convinced otherwise by these delightful and satisfying meals.

[greenilex]

I have some of my great grandmother's handwritten recipes.

A favourite of mine is Robin Howe's Balkan Cooking from 1965. The slipcover is a mess!

[Barbirollians]

Anybody else got the Italian cookery book by Al Dente?

I could never get my teeth into it .

[gurnemanz]

I could never get my teeth into it .

I didn't have the thyme.