With the increasing popularity of TV cooking shows, food blogs and online recipe websites in recent years the traditional hard copy cookbook looked like it was becoming obsolete. But on the contrary, the cookbook publishing industry is booming worldwide with new titles appearing every month. And it’s not just the latest trends in cooking and cuisines or glossy coffee table books that are popular. Many cookbooks originally published 20 or 30 years ago are still in print — some have been reprinted a number of times — and are handed down in families from generation to generation.
Aspiring home cooks and food enthusiasts are turning to these classics to explore the basic foundations of cooking or intricacies of a particular regional style of cooking. These cookbooks have stood the test of time because they are original, informative and have reliable solid recipes.
Here we look at five “vintage cookbooks” that every home cook should have in their collection.
A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1968)
Author: Claudia Roden
When Egyptian-born Claudia Roden first published this book in her adopted country of Britain it almost single-handedly paved the way for the growing interest in Middle Eastern cuisine that continues apace today. Roden wrote the book to evoke the lost heritage of her Egyptian childhood and in the process, introduced readers outside of the Middle East to ingredients such as preserved lemons, tahini paste, pomegranate molasses and orange blossom water.
Roden’s book was also remarkable for its structure and elegant prose — by weaving together recipes, anecdotes, Arabic poems and sketches of the souks and markets of the region.
Couscous & other Good Food from Morocco (1973)
Author: Paula Wolfert
When Paula Wolfert first went to Morocco some 50 years ago she described herself as an American beatnik in search of “The Other”! But instead of spiritual enlightenment she became entranced with “the seductions of Moroccan cuisine”. The result was this book on Moroccan food and culture which is still in print (and recently repackaged and enhanced as The Food of Morocco in 2011).
In the original book Wolfert introduced readers to the mysteries of couscous (with some 20 different ways of preparing the grain which is much like India’s cracked wheat) and the exoticism of Bisteeya — a pigeon pie made with filo pastry, eggs and raisins among other ingredients. There are also recipes for tajines — named after the distinctive conical clay pots the dishes are cooked in — including chicken, preserved lemon and olive tajine and fish tajine with creamy onion charmoula. And there is a whole section on bean and vegetable dishes and vegetable tajines known as ‘Maraks’ — a speciality of northern Morocco.
The Key to Chinese Cooking (1978)
Author: Irene Kuo
Much like Chinese cuisine in India has been adapted to Indian tastes so too in the United States Chinese immigrants in the 19th and early 20th Centuries found themselves adapting the food of their homeland to suit the American palate.
But Irene Kuo’s The Key to Chinese Cooking marked the beginning of a much more sophisticated understanding of the complex nature of Chinese cuisine in the US… its ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques.
The book is divided into two parts — Cooking Techniques and then the Recipes section with more than 300 examples. One of the highlights of the book is the section on making Chinese Steamed Buns and Dumplings with carefully drawn illustrations to help the reader understand the various techniques.
Kuo’s book paved the way for a new generation of Chinese American food writers such as Ken Hom and Grace Young whose publications are also worth investigating if you are interested in modern Chinese food.
Cooking Delights of the Maharajas (1983)
Author: Digvijaya Singh
There have been efforts in recent years in India to bring back and preserve the royal cuisines of the Maharajas… many of which were threatened with extinction along with the demise of their princely states following Independence.
Whilst these initiatives today have been largely led by five star hotels and the publication of a series of grand and often expensive coffee table books, one of the most impressive efforts to preserve the cuisine and cooking traditions of a particular region occurred more than 30 years ago with the release of the Cooking Delights of the Maharajas .
The book, which is now in its 15th edition, features recipes from the princely state of Sailana (now in Madhya Pradesh) and surrounding states. Perhaps more surprisingly it was written by the then Maharaja of Sailana himself, Digvijaya Singh. Apparently the Maharaja’s father began the tradition of recording recipes from the palace kitchen and his son continued this interest to the point where the late Rajmata of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi described him as “not only a gourmet but a superb cook!”
The book contains both veg and non-veg recipes and one of my favourite dishes is sabj murgh — a chicken curry with whole green chillies and coconut milk — made even more appealing and Moorish by the addition of ghee-fried almonds and raisins.
The Cook’s Companion (1996)
Author: Stephanie Alexander
Former librarian, self-taught chef and highly successful restaurateur Stephanie Alexander is one of the matriarchs of Australian cuisine. When The Cook’s Companion was first published over 20 years ago it was an instant hit… despite being 1,125 pages long with close to 1,000 recipes and retailing at around AUS$ 100 (₹5,000)!
The Cook’s Companion is now in its second edition and has sold over 5,00,000 copies… which in a country with the population about the same size as Mumbai is no mean feat. The book lists ingredients alphabetically from abalone to zucchini with related recipes for each one along with practical advice on kitchen equipment and techniques on cooking from around the world.
The writer is a collector of new and vintage cookbooks and is a communications consultant.
