Customer Reviews

The New Doubleday Cookbook

5 star:		(41)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I consider myself a fairly accomplished cook, so that when someone gave my wife and I a copy of this "basic" cookbook for our wedding, I was initially disappointed, thinking that I didn't need this book.

How WRONG I was! :-)

I have found this book to be completely invaluable in my kitchen.

What I found was that I often know how to make more complex recipes, but when I needed to make a more "standard" recipe - I was often at a loss.....how DO you cook a pot roast? Make a mint julep? What temperature DO you cook a yam at, anyway? All this and much more is in this book. This book has easy to find sections on meats, fish, poultry, drinks, desserts and much more, and many many recipes. It also has a provides a fairly exhaustive definition of almost anything cooking related from types of crabs to buy all the way to the various types of sugars available on the market.

When I'm at a loss for what to serve for dinner, I just flip through this book for ideas. The same goes for when I am experimenting and creating some new japanese-creole dish to subject my family to! :-)

This is a LARGE book, with no flashy pictures or anything like that (there are some basic drawings - for example, what part of the cow gets cut up for what kind of meat. Things like that), so you are getting a lot for your money.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys spending any time in the kitchen. I enjoy it so much that I'm buying another copy as a gift for my little sister's wedding shower! :-)

This is a later printing of the white, one-volume 1985 revised edition, itself greatly expanded from the original two-volume edition of 1975. If you have either of the earlier versions, you probably want to replace it with this one even if you haven't yet wore your old copy out.

Page for page, this content of this volume is identical to other printings of the 1985 edition, but the format is greatly improved. The coverboards are colorful and studier; the binding is stronger; the type is about a point larger and sits on pages an inch taller and almost an inch wider; and the paper stock is considerably heavier--the book as a whole is nearly half again as thick as older versions of the 1985 printing, even though the only addition is a single blank leaf between the main body of the text and the index. The volume is actually sturdy enough, that you might hope to pass it on to your children or grandchildren. Meantime, the larger type is really much easier for aging eyes to read!

If you don't own an earlier version, I wholeheartedly recommend that you acquire this one, whether you like to cook quick or gourmet or simply to read. It seems to me by far the best general purpose cookbook on the market. I did use Betty and Joy and Fannie before I latched onto it, but I don't any more. The Doubleday cookbook has more recipes and a wider variety of recipes from around the globe; its directions are straightforwardly helpful not padded with angst-causing hocus-pocus; best of all, the recipes are reliable. They turn out, they taste good, they are faithful to the traditional taste proper to each: they work.

If before exile to a far away place I were forced to choose between the New Doubleday Cookbook and all of the specialty as well as general purpose cookbooks on my shelves, taken together, I would choose the Doubleday without hesitation. It's that good.

My wife and I both like to cook. I first purchased this book back when it was a white hardcover in the 1970's and repurchased the expanded edition with the cover shown in this ad in the mid 1980's. We have since given this cookbook as a gift to my mother in law for Christmas, and will purchase it again from Amazon for the first anniversary gift of my stepson and his wife.

This is the Encyclopedia of cookbooks. It has hundreds, perhaps over 1000 recipes (I've not even tried to count), but what makes it really good is its comprehensivness. It will take a meat like chicken, and tell you all about chicken, the different ways of cooking chicken, giving you tips. In the veggies section, you'll learn a bit about the history of each vegetable, and various ways of cooking them.

We have LOTS of other cookbooks. Our second most favorite cookbook is "The Joy of Cooking", but I assure you this one is better.

My wife, who is doing most of the cooking, almost always turns to this book if she needs to learn how to cook something new, or needs to refresh her memory, or needs to remember the estimated cooking times for turkey per pound, etc.

There is so much information in this tomb as to defy the imagination. Using just one example from how to boil an egg: this book tells you to avoid the green discoloration around the yolk--put the eggs in cold water, and start the boiling process with a cold start. When the water FIRST begins to boil, turn off the heat and let the eggs cook for varying periods of time (depending on whether you want truly hard boiled eggs or are trying to achieve slightly runny yolks with firm whites, etc.)Finally when the stove timer goes off, you pour the remaining hot water out, and put cold water on the eggs, stopping the cooking process.

As a result your hard boiled eggs come out perfect each time with no green edge discoloration.

This is just ONE tip out of literally hundreds, if not thousands, in this book. This is NOT a book written in 14 point fonts. This book has multiple columns, a fairly small font, and is about three inches or more in thickness, so it truly is a mini encylopedia.

As I said, we've got LOTS of cookbooks. But we'd likely take this one, and "The Joy of Cooking", "Beard on Bread", "The Joy of Cheesecake", and could do just fine. These books are our ESSENTIALS: all the others are just kinda nice to have around.

I bought an earlier edition of this book when I got married in 1976. Over the past 25 years, it is the book I have most often reached for (together with Joy of Cooking). It is similar to Joy of Cooking, but contains different receipies, and slightly different, but complimentary information. I will buy this book for my dauther when she gets married.

I've been cooking for nearly 40 years and have a library of over 50 cookbooks. If I could only keep one, this would be it! An essential for anyone who wants to know how to do more than boil water. Everything you need to know to cook--and cook well--is in this book.

This is my all purpose wedding shower gift. I am a professional chef and no one has ever exceeded Jean Anderson's extraordinary skills in recipe writing for clarity, editing and successful results across the entire spectrum of the culinary arts. It is my basic reference, though I have hundreds of other cookbooks.

I gave my old copy of this cookbook to my sister then lost my new copy (don't ask how). So I asked her for it back thinking she probably never used it. Imagine my surprise when she refused to give it back stating that she has 2 shelves of cookbooks and this is the only one she now uses. Today I am buying a new copy.

I bought my first copy of THE DOUBLEDAY COOKBOOK when it was first published in the mid-70s. It's been the kitchen resource I turn to most for answering questions and for ideas about a recipe. I own many all-purpose cookbooks, including JOY OF COOKING, which I've always found difficult because of the way the recipes are layed out on the page. THE NEW DOUBLEDAY COOKBOOK is more sophisticated, and when Nancy Evans was publisher of Doubleday in the late 80s, she ordered a big overhaul of the book and it was redesigned and re-jacketed. The results were even more impressive. I often give it as a wedding gift. The selection of recipes is vast and covers just about all the great classics. Jean Anderson is one of the great unsung heroines in cooking. The information she provides on everything from ingredients, cooking, storage, equipment, alcohol and wines, preserving, and so much more is what makes this book have pride of place in my cookbook collection. You can find out how to boil an egg, prepare lasagne, bake a loaf of bread, or stun your guests with Lobster Americaine. Indispensible.

In over 20 years of owning this cookbook I have never one time made a bum recipe from it! As a young bride it was the cookbook that taught me the most about cooking, and to this day if I need to find a recipe, chances are it's in there. I will get one of these for each of my children when they get married.

This is by far the best, most useful cookbook I have! It not only has wonderful recipes like "Veal Lyonnaise", "Herbed Skillet Scallops", and "Turnips Au Gratin", but you will also be able to learn how to do just about anything in the kitchen from this book. It even tells you how to get the sand out of clams before you steam them! It makes a welcome gift for new brides or anyone just starting out on their own. I have had my copy for nearly 15 years, and it is always the first one I pull off the shelf when I'm looking for a recipe or instruction.