Cooking & Recipes

This Pathfinder is no longer being actively maintained by ipl2.

General Information

This guide is designed to help in finding more information about cooking, recipes and food preparation.

This guide will provide you with resources that give guidance, advice, and inspiration. They are organized into two main categories: Internet resources and print resources. This is not an exhaustive list, but is designed to provide a good starting point.

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Print Resources

Books

There are several pre-eminent classic cookbooks as well as some very popular and useful current titles. There are books that cover everything in one volume as well as those that focus in on special topics within cooking and food preparation. Many public libraries will have these books, as will most bookstores. They also can be purchased on-line through Books-for-Cooks.com (http://www.Books-for-Cooks.com/) or amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/)Some useful keywords for searching cookbooks are: cooking, recipes, culinary, kitchen and cuisine. Some examples of classic cookbooks are:

Joy of Cooking
by Irma Von Starkloff Rombauer, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker (MacMillan, 1975)
Julia Child says it's the one book she'd keep if she could only have one English title on the shelf. It includes nearly 5,000 recipes organized by meal and ingredient with well-explained cooking instructions. Nutritional information, as well as a list of measures and equivalents is also included.

The Moosewood Cookbook
by Mollie Katzen (Ten Speed, 1992)
Considered to be "among the most influential cookbooks of our time" is great source for lighter and healthier recipes.

The Way to Cook
by Julia Child (Knopf, 1993)
Another thorough and highly regarded cookbook. It contains over 800 recipes and is instructional by nature.

How to Cook Everything
by Mark Bittman (Macmillan, 1998)
"A bestselling cookbook covering all the basics in a contemporary context".

There is also a wealth of other specialized cookbooks. Here are a few on specific categories of food to start with:

The Meat Cookbook
by Burce Aidells and Denis Kelly (Houghton Mifflin, 1998)
This book gives a great review of each of the main types of meat: beef, lamb, veal, and pork. It provides maps and pictures of the different cuts, correct cooking temperatures, and typical cooking styles and recipes for each of those identified cuts. In addition, there are many dry and wet marinades included that can be interchanged with a variety of the cuts. Beyond the recipes, it helps the cook understand what to buy and how to generally prepare meat.

Vegetables Every Day
by Jack Bishop (Harper Collins, 2001)
This book does a nice job of reviewing a majority of the vegetables found in the supermarket today, which is no easy feat! There are pictures, season schedules, selection criteria, general preparation and cleaning, and some basic recipes. This is a great reference and tool through which to experiment with new vegetables.

Cooks Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry
by the Editors of Cooks Illustrated (Clarkson Potter, 1999)
Great book for Chicken and other poultry products!

The Good Cook/ Time Life Cooking Series
by Time Life Books
This series is discontinued, but any of the series is exceptional and worth scouting around the used book stores!

Libraries and bookstores are also good sources for these resources. Most public libraries in the United States use the Dewey Decimal Classification; some call numbers of interest are:

641.5 General Cookbooks
641.56 Cooking for special occasions
641.58 Cooking with special appliances
641.59 Regional / Ethnic Cooking

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Magazines

* indicates some content of title available online.

*Bon Appetit Los Angelos, CA: Conde Nast Publications Inc. http://eat.epicurious.com/bonappetit/

*Cooking Light Birmingham, AL: Southern Progress Corp. http://www.cookinglight.com/

*Gourmet New York: Conde Nast Publications Inc. http://eat.epicurious.com/gourmet/

*Vegetarian Times Glen Allen, VA: Sabot Publishing. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/

*Cooks Illustrated Brookline, MA: Boston Common Press. Limited Content on http://www.cooksillustrated.com/

*Food &Wine American Express Publishing Corp. Limited Content on http://www.foodandwine.com/

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Internet Resources

General Food Sites

Epicurious http://eat.epicurious.com/ is a fabulous site! It is divided into the main topics of Eat, Drink, Learn, Shop, Recipes, Restaurants, Bon Appetit, Gourment, and TV. It not only has a comprehensive collection of Recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines with an easy-to-use search engine; but it also has online lessons with video, a food dictionary, and technical advice.

Food Network http://www.foodtv.com/ This website is a complement to the Food TV Network. It includes all the recipes from the programs on throughout the day; lists of recipes by holiday, category, season, and show/chef; and also includes techniques and video instruction.

Veggies Unite! http://www.vegweb.com/ A great vegetarian recipe site supported by contributions by voluntary members. The non-commercial atmosphere is a bonus.

BBC Food http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/ is a really nice food site. It includes a Glossary, Chef Focus and weekly contributions, Healthy Eating by food category, Seasonal foods, Chat, and more.

Global Gourmet http://www.globalgourmet.com/destinations/ breaks food down by country and provides both background, general eating habits, book recommendations, and recipes.

Top Secret Recipes http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/ "This is the place to get the very best original receipes for cool kitchen clones of your favorite brand-name foods." This site is also arranged alphabetically by brand name. If you know what you are looking for, this is a great resource.

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Food Search Engines, Directories &Newspaper Sections

Chef 2 Chef http://www.chef2chef.net/ is an unbelievably powerful site! It has more categories in its directory than can be listed, but doesn't feel overwhelming to visit. It breaks food down into larger groups such as Health, Regional, Reference, Shopping, Science &Technology, Cooking and Business. Within each grouping are many, many listings that are linked to searches for that sub-category. Try it out for yourself!

Yahoo has many categories in this area: Yahoo! : Society and Culture : Food and Drink : Cooking : Recipes

Google also has many categories in this area: Google : Home : Cooking

Cyber-Kitchen Newspaper &Food Sections http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/index/html/gp28.html Mimi has put together a good collection of US Newspaper Food Sections. Check them out and sign up for newsletters!

This pathfinder created by Craig Rominski. Updated by Sena Roth.

You may also wish to see IPL General/Reference Collection: Food (http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/static/ent30.00.00.html)