The New Doubleday Cookbook

This is a later printing of the white, one-volume 1985 revised edition, itself greatly expanded from the original two-volume edition of 1975. If you have either of the earlier versions, you probably want to replace it with this one even if you haven't yet wore your old copy out. Page for page, this content of this volume is identical to other printings of the 1985 edition, but the format is greatly improved. The coverboards are colorful and studier; the binding is stronger; the type is about a point larger and sits on pages an inch taller and almost an inch wider; and the paper stock is considerably heavier--the book as a whole is nearly half again as thick as older versions of the 1985 printing, even though the only addition is a single blank leaf between the main body of the text and the index. The volume is actually sturdy enough, that you might hope to pass it on to your children or grandchildren. Meantime, the larger type is really much easier for aging eyes to read! If you don't own an earlier version, I wholeheartedly recommend that you acquire this one, whether you like to cook quick or gourmet or simply to read. It seems to me by far the best general purpose cookbook on the market. I did use Betty and Joy and Fannie before I latched onto it, but I don't any more. The Doubleday cookbook has more recipes and a wider variety of recipes from around the globe; its directions are straightforwardly helpful not padded with angst-causing hocus-pocus; best of all, the recipes are reliable. They turn out, they taste good, they are faithful to the traditional taste proper to each: they work. If before exile to a far away place I were forced to choose between the New Doubleday Cookbook and all of the specialty as well as general purpose cookbooks on my shelves, taken together, I would choose the Doubleday without hesitation. It's that good.

I bought an earlier edition of this book when I got married in 1976. Over the past 25 years, it is the book I have most often reached for (together with Joy of Cooking). It is similar to Joy of Cooking, but contains different receipies, and slightly different, but complimentary information. I will buy this book for my dauther when she gets married.

I've been cooking for nearly 40 years and have a library of over 50 cookbooks. If I could only keep one, this would be it! An essential for anyone who wants to know how to do more than boil water. Everything you need to know to cook--and cook well--is in this book.