Books and Books
Sharon June 10th, 2009
A while back, I mentioned that I had a proposal in for a book on social issues - family, sex, marriage, population, etc…. and how they are likely to be affected by the coming shift in energy issues. Well, that book did not sell, unfortunately, and just as I was about to begin the work of actually finding an agent, and hunting around for another potential publisher (I’m both lazy and ignorant of the process, since instead of laboring in the garrett and sending out manuscripts, I actually had an editor approach me in a sort of a fairy-tale thing). But while I was getting around to that, my editor sorta asked “well, what else ya got?” (Ok, Ingrid, Goddess of the Red Pen, doesn’t actually say “ya” ;-)) And I mentioned that I’d been doing Adapting in Place classes, and in the back of my head, thinking that there was a book in there about how to make a future where you are.
Well, apparently that one hit the jackpot, and while all is not settled, it looks like yours truly and Aaron are back in the book saddle again, putting together an Adapting in Place book. The working title (which I am less fond of since my husband pointed out that it evokes a John Denver song…ooops) is “Back Home Again.” And it will cover how to make a life that is as integrated as possible - that is, one that responds both to our energy and ecological decline, but also to our need for beauty, to save money, to make our lives better now. Aaron is going to illustrate it, since I think that it is so important that we have a literal vision of what comes next.
I’ll probably call on y’all for many suggestions and critiques in the coming months (insanely enough, the due date for the manuscript is going to be March, so a crazy winter is anticipated), but one of the things that most needs doing is a good Bibliography. I included one in _Depletion and Abundance_ but in the couple of years since I wrote it, many more books have been published or come to my attention, and of course, I missed plenty of wonderful resources.
So I want your help with this - I’m going to pick a subject every week, and ask for recommendations of books I might not know on the subject. I’m also going to publish some more book reviews, as I read for this large project of telling people how to make a sustainable home where they are.
This week, I thought we’d start with one of my favorite subjects - cookbooks! I have a list of cookbooks, of course, but I want to update and expand it. So please, tell me what your favorite cookbooks are in helping you live a sustainable life, eat sustainably and enjoy your food. Please tell me the author, title and why you think these are the two or three cookbooks I really should look at!
Thanks so much,
Sharon
- books
- Comments(75)
Oh, what a great book that’s going to be!
I have a suggestion for you, but unfortunately it is very old, so I don’t know if that counts. The book is just called “the green cookbook” in my household - the proper name is “Cooking for American Homemakers”, published around 1961.
I found info here:
http://www.oldcookbooks.com/product/BCB770527/cooking_for_american_homemakers_or_cooking_for_young_homemakers_1960_1961_1962_1963_1964_1965_1966_1967_an_edition_of_the_encyclopedic_cookbook.html
This book is great - it’ll tell you how to prepare a roast, or cook up leftovers in good tasting dishes (in the days before microwaves). Just overlook the recipe for cooking squirrel, unless things get REALLY bad!
It’s best feature is that the recipes rely on simple, basic ingredients - nothing processed, mostly things that you’ll have in your pantry or be able to get, and it has instructions for things other cookbooks assume you’ll know (how to select and store various foods, for instance, and the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables).
When I need to make comfortable, familiar food, or use up bits of leftovers, or I have to cook with whatever is on hand, I reach for this one.
One of the new cookbooks I recently found is “I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage” by Crystal Godfrey. Every recipe in it is serious food storage. She also has a nice website called everydayfoodstorage.net. She is totally LDS, so the book contains a lot of religious references to support food storage, but that doesn’t bother me, I just disregard what doesn’t apply. I purchased the book to get recipes that could be used with food storage and it really fits the bill. It is short on recipes incorporating fresh stuff, but for that I love Alice Waters, “Simple Food.” Great book and great recipes!
Kathy Harrison’s “Just in Case” book is great for almost everything as are “Food Storage for the Faint at Heart” and “Gardening for the Faint at Heart.” (Can’t remember the author.)
I would like to add how much I love “Depletion and Abundance” and I am now reading “A Nation of Farmers.” I always preorder your books and read this blog religiously. You are my hero! I refer to D&P at least once a week and I can’t wait for the adapting in place book.
I live in northern Nevada where living sustainably is a challenge, but I try. I subscribe to a CSA and go to the farmer’s market when it is around. I make frequent trips to California for fresh produce and I have an egg lady here. I have a garden and I am slowly (very) eliminating lawn and going for edible landscaping. This is not the best place if things get really bad food-wise, but it is home and you do what you can. I am so glad I found your website a couple of years ago.
My recommendation is “the Wise Ecyclopedia of Cookery”… 1948 Wm. H. Wise and Co., Inc.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=the+wise+encyclopedia+of+cookery&x=0&y=0
My mother actually had this book as her highschool textbook! It covers not only cooking, but it has many, many entries like an encyclopedia explaining the definition of things you might not know…from the definition of “al a mode” to “zythum”, to wieghts and measures, and even includes some pictures. The recipes are what your mother or grandmother used to cook….
This is my “go to” book…..
Oh, goody, another book of yours and Aaron’s!!!
A lot of people ought to get alot of practical and revealing information from that kind of book. I know I certainly did from the AIP class.
I Have a 1980s (approximately that year) copy of the Joy of Cooking and also the latest Joy of Cookin ( whenever the latest one came out in the last 5 years or so) and this book is a great book not just for recipes but for info on food.
I’ll have to think If there’s others I’d recommend. I only have 3 cookbooks and several recipes from family and friends over the years; two Joy of Cooking books and the Ayurvedic Cookbook.
Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amadea Morningstar with Urmita Desai. Published by Lotus in 1990. It may have been updated or published again since then.
Good vegetarian and Indian cooking. These kinds of dishes lend themselves to solar ovens quite well. You already know that I’m sure but just my two cents worth-that phrase should be updated as copper in pennies is worth more than one cent!
Peace to All,
Shamba
Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything Vegetarian”. It’s the book I bought when I joined a CSA for the first time last year and found myself in possession of bushels of vegetables we had to eat up. Bittman begins with simple instructions on how to prepare just that item (in case all you have on hand is kohlrabi and pantry ingredients such as oil, vinegar, spices etc) and then moves on to simple preparations with a few other ingredients almost always in season, then on to actual recipes involving the vegetable. Wonderful chapters on beans, grains, vegies, fruits, eggs, dairy, tofu. Wonderful recipes, I haven’t found one dud yet. It’s a very accessible and useful book for omnivores learning to eat more vegetarian meals. If I could save only one cookbook from the flood, this one would be it.
The Tassajara Bread Book
The Tassajara Cookbook
both
by Edward Espe Brown
Rather than exact recipies, these books offer suggestions on how to cook various food (listed by food) in ways that help deal with garden bounty and left overs.
Almost any cookbook or housekeeping book published before WWII will be a big help! I collect them, so I have tons and will pick out my favorites.
I have a large collection of cookbooks, and use all of them at least occasionally. I have favorites, of course, some of which have already been mentioned. I’d especially recommend “Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way” by Lorna Sass, because it is a reference book about grains with basic cooking instructions, as well as having Lorna’s usual delicious recipes (like oat pilaf), and she includes pressure cooking instructions. Also her pressure cooking book “Pressure Perfect.” Seems like any recipe of hers I try is a hit. She has some magic going with food.
What I don’t have, and would like, is a good A-Z fresh vegetable recipe book for making the most of things as they ripen in the garden.
Ditto the Tassajara Bread Book. I absolutely love it.
Laurel’s Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, et al, is my absolutely favorite cookbook. I always find really great wholesome easy to prepare meals that uses much of my food storage. Favorite recipes include Potato Poppers, eggless banana bread, homemade salad dressings, a good basic bread recipe. Included is a good overview of how to eat well and balanced.
More with Less cookbook:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=9780836192636&atch=h&ymal=pp
Living More with Less:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780836119305-1
The More-With-Less Cookbook of course!
While I can’t say that I’ve used it yet, _Traditional Food Guide for Alaska Native Cancer Survivors_ is a wonderful, if limited, guide to eating healthy, the Native Alaska way. It is more than just a cookbook, there are sections on eating during cancer treatment and recovery, adding physical activity to your life and other wellness related topics. The guide is divided five sections (Food from the land - animals; Food from the land - birds; Food from the water; Plants; and Other Foods) and each food is listed with its Native names, ways to prepare it and nutrition information. There are recipes towards the end of the book and a section on the parts of Moose and Caribou and what ways they are prepared and eaten (I’d never have considered eating the lips and mouth tissues of a moose but then I’ve never lived a subsistence lifestyle either). It is written by Native Alaskans and punctuated with quotes from Natives around the state.
What I like about this book is that it assembles together in one place many of the major, locally available food sources used by the Native peoples. If non Native people are to adapt in place in Alaska, having a resource that talks about local food sources, however brief, is invaluable. I have other books on harvesting sea vegetables, berries and mushrooms but _Traditional Food Guide_ is the only book that offers a glimpse at traditional uses.
Kerri in AK
“Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Kraut (did you already mention him?) He has youtube videos that make fermenting leftover vegetables seem much less intimidating than just reading the cook book on its own.
I cook a lot from scratch and do serious on the fly modifications when I bake at this point in my life. But here are some thoughts — oh, and by the way, I’m looking for a good home Japanese cooking book (think pickles, stew, not sushi) in English if anyone knows one:
I don’t use Mark Bittman’s cookbooks but I do read his columns/blog and I think he has a very good contemporary but realistic approach to cooking that can be easily adapted to most diets and seasonal availability.
Deborah Madison’s books are also among my favorites.
My go to cookbook these days is a 1950’s Joy of Cooking that I inherited (including how to skin a squirrel) and if I had to save one cookbook come THEOTWAWKI that would be the one (after my recipe file). Followed by a 1940’s era American Honey Institute booklet cookbook.
I like Wild Fermentation for a get your feet wet approach to this type of preservation.
I have dozens of cookbooks but these are the ones I would save from a flood or fire!:
The Joy of Cooking (an older edition, the newer ones don’t have the canning information or how to cut up squirrels (not that I’ve done it, but while they are munching at the bird feeder I like to look at the diagram and dream))
Carla Emery’s book.
James Beard’s American Cookery. He has many different versions of some dishes and interesting historical recipes.
The Taste of County Cooking by Edna Lewis. Edna Lewis grew up on a black subsistence farm in Virginia and this book is a great read as well as good recipes organized by calendar year.
Prairie Home Cooking: 400 Recipes that Celebrate the Bountiful Harvests, Creative Cooks and Comforting Foods of the Heartland by Judith Fertig. The brownies are very rich and very very good.
Great German-American Feasts by Nancy G. Cortner and Jane Garney
Food Preservation without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage and Lactic Fermentation byt he Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante, Deborah Madison and Eliot Coleman.
Thanks
Stephanie from Prairie Village, Kansas
Many of my favourites are already here. I have and love all three Tassajara Books - they’re so adaptable since they have more suggestions than actual recipes. I also have and love the More with Less cookbook, as well as it’s companion, Extending the Table - they have some great information in them, as well as a wide variety of economical and healthy recipes.
In general, the River Cottage books are excellent. They’re really focused on local, home-grown, and in season, and have a lot of good info about food on them, as well as concern for where it comes from and how it’s raised. His BBC cooking shows are great too - I especially like Cook on the Wild Side, where the author heads across the country foraging for food as he goes - really entertaining and inspirational, although he also has series that deal with raising meat, growing fruit and veggies, and other interesting things. In terms of growing your own, I also like Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home for a similar focus.
I eat vegetarian anyway, but given that diets might wind up being less meat based, some veggie cookbooks are always useful. Laurel’s Kitchen is just excellent. I like the Rebar cookbook for things that might be a bit more unusual (this has a few seafood recipes), and I’m a huge fan of The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and anything from Moosewood - they have great veggie recipes with fairly basic ingredients that are pretty adaptable.
I can’t wait to read your new book!!
My current favorite cookbook is “Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker” by Robin Robertson — for those of us who get home from work too late to cook from scratch! There’s always time to prepare the night before and plug it in the next morning!
My favorite cookbooks are The Real Food Daily Cookbook, Vegan Planet, and Veganomicon.
They are all great. We normally cook whole foods, but when you want something with zing! these are my go-to books.
Kim
Hi there,
I recommend “Vegetable Love” by Barbara Kafka. Since I began major veggie gardening and home cooking-from-the-garden it has been a lifesaver. The first portion is organized by vegetable type, i.e. “Beans of the New World”, “Corn” Summer Squash”, etc. So, when I have something ready to harvest from the garden I just turn to that chapter and find a recipe on how to cook, say, fava beans.
Also, the back section is excellent, all about basic cooking techniques for vegetables. I now know how to properly bake a potato!
Looking forward to this new book!
Cheers,
Lynne
From an Amish Kitchen…..all recipes that use what you would have in a well-stocked pantry or growing in your garden. No exotic items that can’t be found closer than 100 miles from our farm! My other tattered favorite is Beard on Bread. DEE who loves to read cookbooks….if you aren’t adverse to butter and sugar get some of Paula Deen’s cookbooks thru the library…..YUM. I frequently request cookbooks thru the library-ours has the years best list-Silver Palate,Golden Spoon…some such name…..then I can decide if I’d want to buy it.
Paula Wolfert Mediterranean Grains and Greens(i think you have mentioned this before). great read. interesting.
Stephanie Alexander - A Cooks Companion (most used in my extensive library of cook books -ingredients listed alphabetically, emphasis on fresh local food cooked ’simply’. she doesnt used cream of chicken soup (or similar) in any recipe.
Madhur Jaffereys - World Vegetarian. extensive. vegetarian. emphasis on fresh ingredients.
Without a doubt, “Simply in Season,” a World Community Cookbook. It’s all about sustainability and cooking locally with what is in season and I find myself reaching for it before any other cookbooks when looking to make a recipe with a freshly picked garden delight. It’s also a good book for vegetarians, flexitarians, and meat-eaters alike — it covers the gamut which is very nice in a mixed-diet family. Although not a cookbook, (but there are recipes), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is another exquisite example of local sustainability.
I go with Carla Emery; Katzen; and Rombauer & Becker. (Or I would, if I could stick to recipes … )
Definately Doris Janzen Longacre’s More with Less, and Living More with Less.
Helen Nearing’s Simple Food for the Good Life.
Extending the Table,
Simply in Season,
Uprisings - the whole grains baker’s book
The old Joy of Cooking was a good resource for how to make from scratch what you usually buy premade in North America. Not so much the new one!
Fanny Farmer Cookbook
Fanny Farmer Baking Book, both good instructional books
Susan in NJ — I’d recommend “The Book of Tofu”. It’s not just tofu, but contains all sorts of good basic Japanese staples, all from scratch. It’s also worth picking up just for the introduction…it has caused the book to be dubbed “the messianic tofu book” in this apartment.
“How to Cook Everything” and “The Joy of Cooking” (as other people have said, older editions are better) I like a lot because they’re how-to-cook books rather than recipe books. Unless I’m baking, I’d rather have general templates than recipes.
Definitely Joy of Cooking; as others have said, it covers recipes of course, but also foods, cooking techniques, etc.
The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book is my essential companion for at-home bread making of all types.
Marcella Hazan for Italian recipes.
Joy of Cooking- an older edition
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison- has recipies for pretty much every veggie one would grow or get from a CSA
Olive Trees and Honey is a Jewish vegetarian cookbook that has tons of recipes from all over the world. who knew that homemade Georgian bread could be so good…
Wow! So many good book suggestions!
I’d suggest “MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook: For the Farmgirl in All of Us” by MaryJane Butters. Part recipes, part food storage and preservation, part farm know-how, all inspirational…and beautiful photos. Butters has a small organic farm in Idaho and a mail order business for organic camping-type food and staple items. It’s a great book!
And…
“Feeding the Whole Family” by Cynthia Lair. A wonderful resource for using whole foods to make great meals for everyone. She includes ways to take part of the meal to make babyfood if you have an infant. She also has information about substituting for food allergies, as well as recommendations on whole natural sweeteners, alternate grains, etc.
These two books are in heavy rotation at our house. Thanks for the question!
A cookbook that really got me on the right track many years ago was the original “Laurel’s Kitchen.” It has a wonderful section in the beginning that talks about making do with what is on hand - about being the traditional “keeper of the keys” who makes the decisions on how to dole out what’s in the pantry for maximum nutrition and frugality. It’s good.
Oh! I’m so glad to hear there’s another book by the two of you coming soon(ish). I just finished A Nation of Farmers. Loved it!
Why not simply call your forthcoming book Adapting In Place? Back Home Again is a bit kitschy-sounding. But whatever you end up calling it, I’ll get my library to order it, as I did your last two books.
I have to chime in to support the suggestion of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It is really excellent, as Ann said. I also like Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian (better than Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, imo). She’s good with fresh flavors and has a way of jazzing things up to make them seem fresh and new, without insisting upon impossibly obscure ingredients.
I would urge you to think about a cookbook that focuses on the potato. Given that potatoes will grow just about anywhere, and the fact that familiar grains and their derivatives may well be in short supply, I suspect we’ll all be eating more potatoes in the future. This will be an adjustment for most of us, and some guidance on that process will probably be helpful. I can definitely tell you that Potatoes: from pancakes to pomme frites, by Annie Nichols is not your title; good ideas that the experienced cook will adapt/simplify without trouble, but much too fancy-schmancy for novice cooks and busy people. Nor is One Potato, Two Potato, by Roy Finamore: lots of ideas, many good recipes, but poor editing that will frustrate novice cooks.
You might want to include some gluten free cookbooks, for those of us who are gluten challenged
A couple of my favorites (often used) are:
Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread by Betty Hagman
Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods by Betty Hagman
Wheat-Free Recipes & Menus by Carol Fenster
Each has good descriptions of the flours and binders used in gluten-free cooking as well as yummy recipes. Sometimes I just flip through the Comfort Foods book to inspire a meal. But with a growing number of people diagnosed with celiac disease or wheat/gluten intolerance, it might be worth mentioning how to adapt food storage with funny flours and oddly named things like xanthan gum.
Some of my favorites have been mentioned (some repeatedly!) but I’d like to give a nod to three more: The Thrifty Cook from Farm Journal (many other great ones from FJ), and Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American (other titles). This book groups recipes by food item (oyster dressing is in the chapter on oysters - we eat this at T’giving). Last, but not least, Putting Food By from the 70s covers absolutely every aspect of preserving food.
Congrats on the new book!
Fyi - The song Jim Nabors sings before the Indy 500 race is “Back Home Again (in Indiana)”. I grew up in IN.
I like “Adapting in Place” or something like “Making the Best of Staying Put”. ;0 Good luck.
just another vote for “Simply in Season” - its what I go to first when I have an excess of some veggie or fruit. Organized by season, and a great index by ingredient - and the recipes are simple, very few exotic or expensive ingredients. And all of the ones I’ve tried have tasted good!
I also really love “Without Canning or Freezing . . . ” from the French gardeners of Terre Vivante.
My most-used cookbook used to be Mom’s, the Farm Journal Country Cookbook (1959). This was from before prepared pie filling and refrigerated pie crust were common.
My latest is more for fun - the Totally Nuts Cookbook, Helene Siegel. Salads, spreads, breads, and sweets.
The cookbooks in my kitchen getting the heaviest rotation at the moment are:
Stephanie Alexander, _The Cook’s Companion_ : already mentioned above, but I second it as a comprehensive resource for a beginning cook. It goes through ingredients alphabetically, tells you what each thing goes with so it helps in the first steps away from relying on recipes, has a very good glossary as well.
Maggie Beer, _Maggie’s Harvest_ : Not so much of a beginners book, and uses some ingredients that may be hard or expensive to find (verjuice, for example). But it is arranged seasonally and the recipies are delicious and inspiring. I’d recommend it for someone coming into self-sufficiency from a foodie angle.
_Silver Spoon_ - Italian cooking bible, with a surprisingly comprehensive preserves section.
Both these books are big, heavy and rather expensive - but you can find them reduced at sales (which was how BB and I got ours).
I can’t remember the names or authors, but my Indian and Provencal cookbooks are also favourites - mainly for their emphasis on cooking from scratch including making your own curry pastes and preserves.
For simple kitchen basics, the older home economics textbooks handed down from parents are my best bet. Regional difference show here - my standby is _The Golden Wattle_, BB’s is _Commonsense Cookery_ - each from a different state in Australia. Both books have been reprinted recently and can be easily found. _Golden Wattle_ in particular slants towards life in the country where you might be faced with a whole sheep and need to know what to do with every bit of it.
I second the How to Preserve Foods Without Freezing or Canning, it has many many recipes for food storage that don’t involve pressure or water bath canners, freezers, or expensive equipment. It also gives ideas for using the foods you’ve preserved.
Since we live in the Southwest, we try to eat a diet that contains foodstuffs that grow easily in our climate so we can eat local and fresh for much of the year. With that in mind, our favorite cookbooks are:
Lorenza de Medici’s Tuscany the Beautiful Cookbook. It’s got simply amazing recipes in it and is truly a feast for the eyes as well. Fabulous full color photos of both the foods and the region.
The Best Ever Indian Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar, Rafi Fernandez, Shehzad Husain, and Mahisha Kanani. I use this one weekly it seems.
The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. It has preservation methods from the region as well as history and recipes. No photos but packed with information!
It’s been said many times, but I’d panic without my 1975 edition Joy of Cooking (2nd copy-wore the first out and scored a second at a yard sale this year).
Anything by Deborah Madison. We also use our Moosewood cookbooks a lot. Considering we’re not vegetarians, it says something that they’re among our favorites.
One book I haven’t used much, but find fascinating for its creative uses of very simple ingredients and wild ingredients is Darina Allen’s Irish Traditional Cooking. Not for those who fear cholesterol or who keep kosher (one reason I haven’t made many recipes is that I’m allergic to pork and many of these dishes would not be the same without the bacon) but a fine example of taking what’s available locally and seasonally and creating some yummy things.
I use ‘How it all Vegan’ (and its sequels ‘Garden of Vegan’ and ‘La Dolce Vegan’) by Tanya Barnard & Sarah Kramer and ‘Vegan with a Vengeance’ by Isa Chandra Moscowitz for lots of ideas for tasty, basic vegan meals (minus pre-packaged faux meats), & baking from scratch. If I were only buying one for ‘adapting in place’ purposes, it would be ‘How it all Vegan’, for the easy, scratch recipes for soy milk, rice milk and seitan. The authors assume you have a blender & food processor of course, but recipes easily be adapted for lower tech households.
I also use the new 75th birthday edition of ‘Joy of Cooking’ (with canning info restored!) as a reference book on all kinds of cooking, preserving & storage.
I agree with Susan, ‘The New Book of Middle Eastern Food’ by Claudia Roden is a fabulous resource - lots of great instructions for preserving & using high-nutrition pantry storage items like nuts & dried fruit; as well as very tasty, frugal recipes.
I just skimmed the entries, but More with Less, by Longacre is an oldie but goodie. Simple pantry ingredients for almost all of the meals.
We gave my ten year old daughter “Simply in Season Children’s Cookbook” for her birthday. She can’t wait for the beets to be ready in the garden so she can make the “Secret Chocolate Cake.” With any luck she’ll become at least a little interested in the garden and in learning to cook.
More With Less, as already mentioned a few times, is great as well as The Oats Peas Beans & Barley Cookbook.
La Varenne Pratique - Anne Willan
This book is to French cuisine what Fanny Farmer, Joy of Cooking and James Beard’s book are to American cooking. So much of French cuisine starts at the farm door. All of this haute cuisine really is from scratch and “feeds into” basic cooking technique.
Sorry Sharon, but the next two are not, strictly speaking, very kosher. Nevertheless, both are worth a look, even if not for your kitchen. Vegetables are all well and good, but meat will still be prized on the back side of Hubbert’s peak, and sustainably raising meat animals will be one way to make ends meet.
Pork and Sons - Stephane Reynaud
How to do pigs…not cellophane-wrapped packages of pink but the whole hog! Kill it, break it down and turn it into blood sausage and pig ear terrine and ragout with lentils. Yea! This is the way the French in Saint Agreve handle pig. I am having great fun with this this year as our pig was 325 lbs hanging…one big hog! The pig illustrations are a hoot; funny and ribald and poignant. Great country cooking - real.
Charcuterie - Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn
The craft of salting, smoking and curing. Pates, duck confit, terrines, 3-4-5 forcemeats, sausages, cured, fresh and smoked, rillets…it is all here, scaled for the home cook. This book is a great match for Pork and Sons
Hard to find but I live by the CWA cookbook. The CWA is an association called Country Womens Association and was forged in the isolated areas as a group to offer support and self development to women who settled in isolated geographical areas of Australia. They began to ask their membership for recipes which they published in a compendium.
The beauty of these is that they are recipes from a time where everyone grew, preserved and used up everything. The number of dishes you can cook with stale bread crumbs is startling.
They have amazing things like making coffee substitute (wartime recipe) and how to make blacking for your woodstove. Lots of very old fashioned things like savoury and sweet dishes cooked in a pudding basin. These basins are filled, sealed and boiled to cook the food inside and were very popular when ladies washed in boiling water over a fire because you popped the basin in the boiling water at the end of a big wash day and your pudding or meat loaf cooked with no extra effort.
Now mainly available from 2nd hand stores. Traditional, filled with eggs, milk and meat but applicable to the survival gardener.
Two of my favorites are Helen Nearing’s Simple_ Food_ for the Good Life_ and Jeanne Lemlin’s book Simple_Vegetarian_ Pleasures.
Another interesting cookbook is Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White_ Trash_Cooking which even got a good review by Bryan Miller in the New York Times. Aside from the recipes, the photographs themselves make the book worthwhile. Some harken back to the Depression era, and the photographs made famous by the WPA photographers of the time.
This one is brilliant;
Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using…
by The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante
also:
The New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat
by Rose Prince
Thank you for the recommendation, Sarah.
I also want to recommend Diana Kennedy’s mexican cookbooks. The one I have is Regional Cuisines but there’s an earlier more general one. One thing she does is discuss the traditional way foods are prepared and the traditional implements. I wouldn’t recommend Regional Cuisines to the novice cook but these books are very interesting to read and the food is great. I also like The New Spanish Table by Anya von Brenzen, good reading and very good directions, also going through Spain region by region, with suggestions for adapting non-vegie dishes to vegetarian. Many of recipes are adaptations of local specialities or traditional favorites but some are adaptations of restaurant dishes. One thing about the latter — you have to know what exotic ingredients (truffle oil) can be omitted. Lots of ideas for things to do with potatoes.
My Mom has an older version of The Mennonite Community Cookbook. http://www.amazon.com/Mennonite-Community-Cookbook-Favorite-Recipes/dp/083613625X
It’s full of old style recipes made with ingredients found close to home. There are recipes for each course, canning and preserving, candy making and even a chapter at the end of the book that includes how much food is necessary to bring to a barn raising. (You wouldn’t believe the amounts suggested!)
Oh yeah, I love my CWA books, also the terre vivante book, but The one at the top of my “to buy” list at the moment is Bill Mollison’s “Ferment and Human Nuttrition”, possibly one of the most startling and useful books I have run across. Apart from the astounding discussion of things edible in other cultures (bugs and guinea pigs), his explanation of how microbial cultures are collected, enhanced and stored has put my mind at ease on the question of how do I make cheese, or wine, or tofu, or soy sauce, or bread, without mail order cultures, and a freezer to keep them in. Absolutely fascinating. Like others here, I also collect old cookbooks, and find them far more useful than their glossy modern counterparts.
This is great - keep ‘em coming. Some of my favorites listed and some I’d never heard of - Kerri, I particularly am interested in how the recipes from that Native Alaskan foods book comes out.
Edward, I’ve no prejudices against pork myself at all - I grew up eating pork and shellfish, and know them to be extremely tasty, so no, things don’t have to be kosher to be on my list ;-).
Susan, I had no idea Anya Von Bremzen had a Spanish cookbook - I love, love, love her books, though, so that’s on my list of things to check out, even if not for this bibliography.
Liz, my kids *love* cookbooks, and yes, I’m planning a list of kids cookbooks with the Simply in Season cookbook right at the top (surprisingly excellent, the Green Eggs and Ham cookbook which is all Dr. Seuss recipes, is actually pretty good - Georgeanne Brennan who is another favorite author did it, and the food is quite impressively good).
Sunflower, I will definitely put them on the list, and perhaps should do it quickly, and see if perhaps I can still slip them into the manuscript for Independence Days - thanks for the reminder.
Keep ‘em coming - I’m excited about all the excuse I’m going to have to go to the library.
Sharon
I wasn’t able to read all the comments so far but skimmed them and was amazed that I didn’t see _Nourishing Traditions_ by Sally Fallon. Please don’t pass this one by.
ARTISAN BREAD IN FIVE MINUTES A DAY
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/
This is a must read for anyone who does not have the time to bake their own bread.
As someone who is allergic to dairy and whose dd was allergic to eggs as a toddler, I have a LOT of vegan cookbooks, mainly for the baked goods. These are the ones I go to for main dishes too:
_Vegan with a Vengeance_ and _Veganomicon_ by Isa C. Moskowitz
_Nonna’s Italian Kitchen_ by Bryanna C. Grogan
_World Vegetarian_ and _World of the East Vegetarian Cooking_ by Madhur Jaffrey
_Cooking Free_ by Carol Fenster (dealing with multiple food allergies and food rotations)
_Vive Le Vegan_ by Dreena Burton, worth it for the Homestyle Chocolate Chip cookies alone, my kids devour these and love eating the raw (egg-free) cookie dough…
_Joy of Cooking_ both the old version and the new version
LisaH
And thank you Sharon, I had no idea that Anya von Bremzen had more cookbooks! Now I have something (more) to keep an eye out for.
I second Nourishing Traditions. It has great recipes for traditional foods; lots of very clear instructions for lacto fermented dishes; and very interesting beverages. I’ve made the Beet Kvass and the Ginger Ale many times.
Also, The Brilliant Bean, by Sally & Martin Stone. The name says it all.
another vote for Simply in Season: http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Season-World-Community-Cookbook/dp/0836192974/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244730796&sr=8-1
i love this cookbook and use it often…it is great for using with my csa membership and i end up using it many times a week. the author also includes small meditations on food sustainability and social justice, which i find very thought provoking.
Goats Produce Too! by Mary Jane Toth, has more than just cheese recipes and since goats are easier to keep than cows for most people this insures that the temperatures are correct.
Homestead Cooking, Eating What you Grow from the Homestead Heritage community in Texas. This is a book of wonderful recipes (everything - cheese, bread, duck, Middle Eastern, main dishes, pastries and desserts) put together by women who live the life of homesteading organically and teach it to others.
Woodstove Cookery by Jane Cooper
The Shaker Cook Book by Caroline Piercy
Good Meals and How to Prepare Them - Good Housekeeping Institute 1928
Stocking Up III
Cooking with Stored Foods
More Make Your Own Groceries
Breads of the La Brea Bakery (sourdough breads and starters)
Making the Best of the Basics
Better than Store-Bought
Freezing and Canning Cookbook
Preserving Food
Whole Grains
Keeping the Harvest
Beans by Green
Boutique Bean Pot
The Versatile Grains and Elegant Beans
Appalachian Cookery
Magic Beans
Joy of Gardening Cookbook
Cooking with Honey by Hazel Berto and Putting it Up with Honey - these recipes are hard to find!
For your other resources:
Everything by Elliot Coleman - garden
The Home and Farm Manual Classic Edition by Jonathan Periam
The Draft Horse Primer by Tellen
Everything by Nancy Bubel - garden
USDA Yearbook series before 1958 on plant diseases, insects, etc.
Everything by Pat Coleby on Herbal Animal Care
Everything by Lynn R Miller on Draft Horses (Yes some of us will be adapting in place in the country or on a lot large enough to have animal options - great when the neighbors all need their large gardens plowed)
Seed to Seed
Morrison’s Feed and Feeding
Storey Guides to Raising…(all animals)
The Field Guide to Edible and Wild Foods
Growing Fruits and Vegetables Organically - MY GARDEN BIBLE! (And I have hundreds of Garden Books)
Where there is No… (Doctor, Dentist, Vet, etc.)
Any farm and garden book put out by Acres USA
If there is one magazine that you could recommend it should be Country Side - cover to cover applicable articles!
Susan, my two faves of hers are _Please to the Table_ which was marketed as “a Russian cookbook” back before the fall of the Soviet Union, but is really a whole FSU regional cookbook, and superb, and _The Terrific Pacific_ cookbook, which covers most of the Pacific Rim - stupid name, lovely cookbook. She’s got others too, but those are the ones I own.
Sharon
Kate, one book that isn’t perfect, but I really like is Georgeanne Brennan’s _Down to Earth_ - its focus isn’t just on potatoes, but on root vegetables in general, which is good. It is perhaps a little too fancy for novice cooks, but lovely nontheless.
I don’t like the title _Adapting in Place_ - it will be part of the subtitle, of course, but my concern is that it isn’t evocative enough for the degree to which it isn’t self-explanatory - that is, good book titles seem to fall into two categories, either the kind that evoke a feeling and are explained by their subtitles, or the kind that explain themselves upfront. “Depletion and Abundance” is one of the former, “Simple Breads” is the other. I don’t think AIP is sufficiently clear to people who don’t read my blog and deal with this stuff to draw people in via way #2, and it isn’t evocative enough for #1. But lord knows, I’m not using anything associated with John Denver and Jim Nabors, so the search for a title goes on ;-).
Sharon
I don’t know whether anyone’s mentioned these yet, but two of my favorites are:
From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide To Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce by the Madison [WI] Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition
A book of recipes gleaned from farmers, local chefs, and a variety of other sources, arranged by vegetable. They also give you a short botanical history on each, and provide nutritional information and basic storage and preparation tips. Pretty much every veggie you can imagine is in here. There’s also a section in the back of recipes arranged by season. If I have an ingredient I’m not sure how to use, this is the book I go to first.
The Joy of Simple Cooking by Alice Waters. She’s serious when she says simple - this book is all about method, using very few, but very fresh and local, ingredients (which of course is her M.O.). While I like Deborah Madison, I find that a lot of her cookbooks call for ingredients that have to be trucked in from somewhere else. Not so with this book, at least in zone 5.
It single-handedly made enthusiastic and competent cooks out of my husband and me.
And since no meal is complete without beer ;), a brewing book my husband really likes:
Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher.
BTW - shoulda probably mentioned that Asparagus to Zucchini is available on Amazon, if it peaks anyone’s interest.
I third the suggestion of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. We’re vegan, and there are tons of recipes in there that do not rely on animal products. He’s also just really really good at giving you the basic skills to tackle it all: the hows and whys of bread - how to substitute flours, how to cook most any grains and beans, etc. Really good at giving you confidence to come up with things on your own, because his recipes are so simple - and I LOVE that he includes tons of variations on his recipes - it feels like a license to experiment (lots of cookbooks lack this).
I also like Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson as well as her Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. Crescent Dragonwagon’s The Passionate Vegetarian is also GIGANTIC, has lots of variations and vegan recipes (and cute stories/anecdotes). Mmm…I want her cornbread right now!
Does this mean you won’t be doing any more AIP classes? Because I was really hoping to take that one next.
I have bought several cookbooks lately and as yet have not actually cooked anything from them, but they hold great promise and I wish to share them here.
Cooking With Sunshine: The Complete Guide to Solar Cuisine with 150 Easy Sun-cooked Recipes by Lorraine Anderson and Rick Palkovic. This book includes not only recipes but directions for making and using solar cookers. Of especial interest to the rank beginner like myself is a chapter entitled “Warm-up: Easy recipes to show what your solar cooker can do.” The “What’s for Dinner?” chapter includes vegetarian fare as well as the usual meat and fish dishes, beans, grains and breads. “What’s for Dessert?” offers a variety from chocolate cake to butternut squash pie. “Menu Ideas” covers a wide range – easy, one-pot and last minute meals, meals for cloudy days, vegan and wheat free meals. Overall, it appears to be an excellent book!
From the Cook’s Garden: recipes for cooks who like to garden, gardeners who like to cook, and everyone who wishes they had a garden by Ellen Ecker Ogden. Okay, you’ve got a garden full of luscious vegetables, or your share from the CSA, or maybe you’ve just come back from a trip to the local farmer’s market. Now what do you do with it all? This book offers simple recipes for garden produce along with tips on the best tasting varieties to grow. The last chapter offers a few suggestions for “Preserving the Bounty,” but mostly this book is about eating what is fresh and in season.
While not strictly cookbooks, two books by Rosalind Creasy have found their way onto my bookshelf: The Edible Flower Garden and The Edible Herb Garden. Both books are lovely to look at and worth it for the pictures alone. These books cover the whole gamut – from garden design, cultivation, and preservation to an encyclopedia of plants and recipes for beautiful, eye-catching dishes.
I use the Tassajara Bread book all the time.
I also have a very worn copy of American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldbeck, which was out of print for a while but can now be found on Amazon. It’s vegetarian and has lots of really good bean recipes. Good vegetable, main dish and soup recipes, too.
The best vegetarian cookbook I have is Horn of the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan. It has the best of all soup recipes, as well as salads, breads, etc. It can be found used, but it must be a collectors item now because Amazon’s used booksellers have some copies priced at around $30.
I found The Practical Produce Cookbook last summer at a local farmstand. It’s an A to Z cookbook of vegetables and fruit compiled by Ray and Elsie Hoover, to help their customers learn how to use and preserve the produce they sell at a Wisconsin farmer’s market. It can be ordered by calling the Hoovers at 715-687-4558.
Elise
Forgot the pickle recipes. Very good pickle book: Pickles and Relishes: From Apples to Zucchinis; 150 recipes for preserving the harvest by Andrea Chesman, available from Amazon.
Definitely include breads..the Artisan Bread in Five Mins book is good.
More with Less.
I also have a couple on Mediterranean style cooking that are good.
Include Cooking With Sunshine and the Dutch Oven Cookbook (there are others out there) as you discuss alternative fuel cooking sources.
Natural Meals in Minutes (Bingham) is vegetarian, basic, with breads, breakfast, soups, salads, sandwich fillings, etc; also includes sprouting, making yogurt, yogurt cheeses, powdered milk cheeses, etc.
The one I actually use most often, week-to-week: Campbell’s Great American Cookbook. OOP, unfortunately, but findable on ebay, etc. I favor simple, tried-and-true comfort food recipes, and there are plenty of those in here. The recipes work, I’ve not had a failure yet.
Two encyclopedic references that I count upon when I need them, even though I don’t necessarilly use them that often: Joy of Cooking and Fannie Farmer Cookbook.
For Food Preservation: Ball Blue Book, Putting Food By, and Food Preservation Without Freezing and Canning.
I’ve recently been using the America’s Test Kitchens Family Cookbook and Family Baking Book. Much of the material is a little too “gourmet” for my time and money. However, the recipes are based on very thorough research to find the best way to cook food, and they are very well illustrated. I like being able to see what something is supposed to look like before I try it, and I like being able to see step-by-step how to do something I haven’t done before.
I just came across another one on Amazon.com that looks really promising.
_Greens Glorious Greens: More than 140 Ways to Prepare All Those Great-Tasting, Super-Healthy, Beautiful Leafy Greens_ by Johnna Albi.
Greens are usually easy-to-grow, available nearly year round, and super nutritious so this looks like a good addition to the self-reliant cook’s bookshelf.
Index includes not only homegrown greens but wild ones as well (ie dandelion, chickweed). According to blurb, “The authors explain their subjects’ virtues and shortcomings (steamed broccoli rabe served solo can be unpleasant); how to choose them; how?and how long?to keep them; how to clean them; and, in more than 140 recipes, how to cook them. Greens need a little help, they say, and many of the recipes lean on a smattering of olive oil, garlic or raisins to bring out the flavor.”
“The Victory Garden Cookbook” by Marian Morash. Now out of print, and a bit pricey to get used on Amazon. It came about in 1982 as a companion to the PBS series. Arranged alphabetically by vegetable. Best thing is the introductory section for each vegetable, which summarizes growing techniques, preservation options, what to look for if buying fresh, along with lots of handy conversion factors. The recipes, from basic preparation to more involved dishes, all work out correctly, too. My copy is falling apart, it has been used so frequently. Highly recommended.
OK, no one has mentioned a home winemaking book yet. Here’s the one we’re using:
The Joy of Home Winemaking, by Terry Garey
You can use sugar or honey (a good reason to keep bees), and the recipes include ones for fruits you can grow at home, like elderberries. We made elderberry wine from our elderberries last fall, can’t wait to taste it!
Also, of course, The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. You’ll want some beer too …
Oooh, here’s MY suggestion for a great cookbook:
_Prairie Home Cooking: 400 Recipes that celebrate the bountiful harvest, creative cooks, and comforting foods of the American Heartland_ by Judith M. Fertig.
Not only is it a lot of great recipes (including a section on pickling and jam-making, which tends toward the short-term keeping, non-long-term-processed, but could easily be adapted by one used to preserving larger harvests for longer-term keeping), this book has a lot of great anecdotal information, stories, trivia, menu ideas….. A lovely book to read through, just for the reading. The ONE drawback is that there are no color pictures. But then again, as thick as this book is, as it is, it’d probably be TOO dang big, if color pictures were included.
Now I’m gonna go see what everybody else recommended. I’ll probably find this book mentioned previously, as well.
I third Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions.
This cookbook is packed with great info on proper nutrition, not what the USDA ( big ag ) leads many to believe.
Can’t believe no one has mentioned this one - The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. “Practical advice, invaluable information, and collected wisdom for folks and farmers in the country, city, and anywhere in between. Includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals , make sausage, can peaches, mild a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more.”
Mine is the ninth edition, and also, in addition to tons of recipes, includes info on sewing quilts, living self-sufficiently, gardening, foraging, grasses and grains, orchards, preserving, root cellaring, raising, doctoring and butchering animals, improving soils, making cheese, etc, etc.
The Boxing Clever Cookbook by Jacqueline Anne Jones and Joan Kathleen Wilmot is from what I’ve gleaned the best of the Veg Box/ CSA glut-minded books- really creative and delicious recipes. From Scotland. Can’t find my copy…. It should have had a larger print-run, perhaps its moment is more now than 2002….
And may I please put in a good word for the great classic European Peasant Cookery by Elisabeth Luard. Really rooted, local, historic recipes that are infinitely adaptable because they come from traditions of parsimony and seasonality. I love this book- it’s the one i would give as a gift to a dear (non-vegetarian) friend who really wanted to learn to cook.
I use a number of the cookbooks mentioned here but for the past year or so I have used another one very frequently that has stood me in good stead. “Eating Off the Grid - storing and cooking foods without electricity” by Denise Hansen, MS, RD. I personally do not use dried milk or eggs but those are easily substituted. Her recipes are practical, tasty, often historic and frugal. It was in this book that I read a few sentences on cook box cooking that revolutionized my kitchen! I got so excited about it that I wrote a 50 page e-book (which perhaps you might like to include on your cookbook list as well since cook box cooking is a marvelous skill, nutrition booster, and fuel saver) and we made a couple of videos on the subject. The first dish I made in our cook box came from “Eating Off the Grid.” She includes nutritional info for each recipe which I never pay the slightest attention to but other people must because I keep seeing it included in cookbooks these days! You can get “Eating Off the Grid” on Amazon but I found it cheaper on USA Emergency Supply.
Leslie