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Summary: it's the book of everything
Review: my mom used the doubleday cookbooks growing up, and for christmas she really surprised me with this new edition. it has everything in it, from beverages to desserts, and i can still enjoy recipes from my childhood with this book. its recipes are easily explained, so even the tough dishes aren't hard to make. the variety of dishes you can make with this one book is awesome-it beats having 20 cookbooks, when you just need this one.
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Summary: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Review: 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.
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Summary: One of the Best
Review: The most comprehensive and easy-to-understand cookbook I've owned and I have a collection of a couple of hundred. Great for the experience cook and great for the beginner!
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Summary: Anderson & Hanna's New Doubleday Cookbook
Review: 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.
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Summary: Wow! I love this cookbook!
Review: 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.
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Summary: Simple, basic, fancy, GREAT!!!
Review: This is the best cookbook I've ever seen. Many old standby recipes with ingredients you will have on hand. Many fancy recipes for the adventurous cook. I will buy this for my daughters as their next Christmas present.
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