Many years ago, I was invited into the home of a well-known cookery book author. Her walls were lined with shelves of cookbooks. There was a huge bookcase in the kitchen, I glimpsed some on the landing, I’m sure there were more throughout the house. They were pressed together in rows and slotted horizontally into every space. I think she had more than 4000, she’d probably stopped counting.
My eyes are always drawn to books, I was distracted from the other things going on. I could have spent hours, even days, immersing myself in their pages. She confided that she knew a previous relationship wasn’t going to work out when her new husband walked in and said “well some of these will have to go.” The cookery books won.
Parting with books is painful. The uncertainty caused by the worldwide COVID pandemic (which is hard to imagine now) was the catalyst for our sudden decision to leave Dubai after living there for a couple of decades. Before I left I donated a lot of books to charity. When we unpacked in the U.K. I took eight enormous boxes to Oxfam. It was real wrench, like shedding bits of my life, my identity, volumes of memories.
When we had moved into our new home in Dubai 22 years earlier, I had a modest number of cookbooks. Over the years I bought and had been gifted many others and after a couple of decades (even with the odd clear-out), there were hundreds. Two huge, solid wood bookcases dedicated to storing them were bursting at the seams. While packing up, I sat on our kitchen floor making a pile to save and a pile to let go of. It was the hardest thing in the whole move. The first pile(s) grew and grew.
Our belongings were in storage for quite a while in several parts of the globe. I rejoiced when unboxing this precious culinary cargo (along with some kitchen utensils I’d really missed - see below). I took a few cookbooks to the charity shop, very reluctantly, but the rest are stacked in a stout, wooden bookcase (which I’ll admit I saved for the purpose) on the dark landing. A ravaged severely depleted collection of about 130 - I actually feel a slight twinge of pain as I write this!
KP finds clearing out liberating but he knows not to question my hoarding of these remaining cookbooks. Insisting on removal might not be the cause of divorce but things would definitely get a bit frosty - permanently…
So why are all these so dear to me? Like many people, I cook from a core of favourites. I reach for others for certain beloved dishes. Some I have never cooked from - and perhaps it will stay that way. I realise they fall into some very loose categories.
Generally useful
These are books that I use most frequently (or have done so in the past). They have a good range of well-written recipes and usually use ingredients that are all within the same season. The authors give clear directions or guidance and I know what I cook will always be tasty and turn out as I expect. Often they will give some context or description which makes me feel like I am stepping into their kitchen. The pages of these books are splattered, the corners turned down, the spines loosened as I turn to them again and again.
Three favourites: How to eat - Nigella Lawson, A-Z - Tamasin Day-Lewis, Simple - Ottolenghi.
Digging deeper into a process or ingredient
I can get pretty nerdy about food and some topics deserve greater investigation. Books dedicated to this are thorough, leading me down a rabbit hole, often making me question the way I’ve been cooking something, always fascinating. Some are encyclopaedic, all are incredibly detailed.
Three authorities on a topic: herb - Mark Diacomo, The Sourdough Whisperer - Elaine Boddy, Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking - Paula Wolfert.
Understanding a culture through food
Siting round a table eating food cooked and eaten by locals is the best way to really understand a country, its people and its heritage in my opinion. A cookbook is a passport, a guidebook, a lens to the history and evolution of a culture. Mine concentrates on the Middle East but not exclusively. I’m most likely to be tempted by books in this category and have to sit on my hands to stop clicking the ‘add to basket’ button.
Three that transport me to a place: Supra - Tiko Tuskadze, The Iraqi Table - Raghad Al Safi, Summers Under The Tamarind Tree - Sumayya Usmani.
Historical reference
Again these are often about a food culture but how it evolved, drawing from a past that is often forgotten and neglected. Sometimes they were written in the past when those traditions and methods were taken as normal.
They often fall into the next category too.
Three that take me back in time: French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David, Honey from a Weed - Patience Gray, Sherbert & Spice (the complete story of Turkish sweets and desserts) - Mary Işin.
Bedside reading
Some of my favourites make it from the kitchen to my bedroom regularly. The introductions to each recipe serve up a slice of life, experience or expertise. I lose myself in their culinary journey.
Three that make me put my light out later than planned: A Tale of 12 Kitchens - Jake Tilson, My Kitchen Year - Ruth Reichl, A Bird in the Hand - Diana Henry.
Sentimentality and nostalgia
You could argue that the majority of my collection falls into this category. Are they just relics of the past and when I get rid of stuff is it scary because my memories become intangible?
Three that I’m not sure why I’m holding on to but can’t imagine parting with: The Cookbook - Terence and Caroline Conran, Pru Leith’s Cookery School, Raw Energy - Leslie and Susannah Kenton.
The ones that got away and I wish they hadn't!
A series that I really regret giving away. During the late 1980’s Sainsbury’s supermarket sold a series of paperback cookbooks. Small enough to fit in the hand, cheap enough to add to your shopping basket without thinking, they were written by a plethora of famous authors. This was before celebrity chefs really raised their heads. These little gems were recipes from some of the food writing legends, from Jane Grigson to Patricia Lousada to Elizabeth Luard. I collected the lot. In a fit of uncharacteristic decluttering a few years ago, I gave them away. Online, they are now listed as vintage and collectible - but they are more valuable to me as a narrative of learning to cook a whole range of different foods and dishes as I was building me confidence in the kitchen. Deep breath…
Do you relate? Are you a cookery book hoarder? Or do you cook without recipes like one of my daughters? I’d love to know…
I’ll pull out some of my favourites from the shelves and let you know quite why they are so dear to me soon…
I’m a complete sucker for cookbooks. I have more than I will ever make use of but I love browsing the cookbook section of bookstores and like you take favourites to bed and read them like novels. I particularly love a cookbook that creates a sense of place and transports you into a different world
A mouth-watering post, Sally! I love my (small) collection of cookery books, but the ones I covet are Mum's handwritten family ones - so very special.