Do you still have cookbooks? Do you use them?

[chowmama]

78. All of them. I still have all of them.

Including the ones I got as a kid for birthday/Christmas and a few of my mother's. Most of the ones I bought myself as a kid were in a paperback series by Bantam about other cuisines and specialty cooking. My mom, the reluctant cook, used to buy old cookbooks from the library sales when they were clearing out their shelves. Some were from the 40's and 50's. I got most of the library ones. (My sister got the Pillsbury Baking Contest books that Mom got every year.) Nobody knew why she bought them, but they made great reading. I'm still on the lookout for the early Cookoff books at garage sales. I still get books once in a while from Half Price Books and garage sales. The kids and DH have also added to my collection over the years.

I seldom use recipes from them verbatim, but I read the books regularly and consult them as a reference and for ideas. I just love old recipes and old cookbooks. The new ones, with a recipe on every page and a glossy photo on the facing page, don't interest me as much. It always seems like you're paying full book price for about 30 recipes. An older book could have hundreds. With a good imagination, you don't need pictures.

Anybody have a 1943 Joy of Cooking, wartime edition with rationing tips, that they're not using? It's on my bucket list.