Cookbooks

Cookbooks are books of recipes and the methods behind them, from single-ingredient deep dives and baking manuals to reference works that cover a whole cuisine.

How to choose Cookbooks

  • Weights. NIST recommends weighing ingredients on a kitchen scale, since cups and spoons introduce error. Books that list grams make results repeatable.
  • Scope. A single-subject book goes deep on one ingredient or technique; a general book covers a cuisine from soup to dessert.
  • Celsius or Fahrenheit. Recipes written in Celsius need converting. Multiply by 1.8 and add 32, so 180°C is 356°F, close to the familiar 350°F.

About Cookbooks

Cookbooks are collections of recipes with directions for making them, and American recipe writing changed for good in 1896, when Fannie Farmer introduced standardized level measurements.

Level measures, set out in her Boston Cooking School Cook Book, made a recipe something a stranger could repeat, and many cooks now go a step further with a scale and grams. Weighing avoids the error that cups and spoons bring.

Moisture and acids slowly break down paper, so keep cookbooks on a shelf away from the stove, where steam and splatter warp pages. Paper lasts longest in a cool room at about 30 to 40 percent humidity.

At a glance

Main types
Cuisine, single subject, baking, reference, drinks
Label terms
Metric, weights, US cups, index
Made from
Coated or uncoated paper, sewn or glued

Cookbooks questions

Do cookbook recipes need adjusting in Denver?

Often, yes. Colorado State University Extension notes that above 3,000 feet food may need changes in time, temperature or ingredients, and water boils at about 203°F at 5,000 feet instead of 212°F. For cakes, raise the oven 15 to 25°F and cut the leavening slightly. Change one thing at a time.

Are cooking temperatures in old cookbooks still safe?

Check them against current federal charts before you trust them. Today's minimums are 165°F for all poultry, 160°F for ground meat and 145°F for whole cuts of beef and pork, followed by a 3 minute rest. Older books may give lower or higher numbers, so use a thermometer instead of the clock.

How do I convert cups to grams in a recipe?

There is no single factor, because a cup of flour and a cup of sugar weigh different amounts. NIST suggests measuring the ingredient the old way once, then weighing the result in grams and writing it in the margin. After that, the scale does the work each time you cook the recipe.

Sources: National Institute of Standards and Technology; Colorado State University Extension; FoodSafety.gov.

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