Desert Island Recipe Books

Redhead56

I was on a catering course years ago I was encouraged to purchase Larousse Gastronomique. I must have about seventy other various cook books as my passion is cookery. I fell for the sales talk and purchased the book which was rather expensive.
This is an encyclopaedia about food recipes tips everything is covered. It’s so heavy and physically unpractical but I refer to it all the time. It is fool proof without doubt but I don’t think my family would appreciate inheriting it.

Is that the Escoffier one Redhead? I'd love to get my hands on one.

boheminan

It'd have to be Rose Elliot's Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking

Rose is straightforward and reliable and I’d really want her on my desert island. No way am I going to kill animals to survive!

For reading, and for tastes, (a superb challah) I’d have liked to go with Anna Thomas ‘Vegetarian Epicure’ but I threw her out in my last move as the ingredients (USauthor) weren’t in my cupboards over the years. But perhaps a desert island with fully stocked dream cupboards would be just the place.

Sago

I received Delia Smiths Complete Cookery Course as a wedding gift.

My mother was a dreadful cook, everything was served with a big dollop of resentment, meal times were a battleground.
As a result of this I entered married life weighing about 7 stone and I had a bad relationship with food.

Delia with her no nonsense attitude and sensible, affordable recipes taught me how to cook.

I still use the book although it’s falling apart.
I am now an accomplished cook, a healthy weight and I am so thankful for this culinary bible.

I have to second this one. My mother hated cooking at home, she ran a large school canteen.
When I got married I couldn't even make gravy. I sat glued to the TV watching Delia make things look easy. Her frugal cookbook would be my second that got 4 of us through three years of living off research grants.
My card covers fell off but I still have it tucked away and bought a second-hand one in good condition off Amazon.

I also loved my Delia books, I have the Complete Collection , the Summer, Winter & Christmas collection, her recipes always work out , but I admit I usually Google recipes these days and like BBC good food.

Delia’s CCC for me as well, but also the BeRo books, especially the older ones.

Delias Complete Cookery Course, Nigel Slater, Barefoot Contessa but the one I still use the most is The Paupers Cookbook by Jocasta Innes, it is 48 years old and falling to bits.

I think I'd want "1001 things to make with a coconut