An indispensable, can't-live-without cookbook, my very first cookbook from my mom when I went to college. It's battered, splattered and torn, not very pretty, but very, very useful. It even has advice and pictures for pumpkin carving!

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Product Description

Since its original publication, Joy of Cooking has been the most authoritative cookbook in America? the one upon which millions of cooks have confidently relied for more than sixty-five years. It's the book your grandmother and mother probably learned to cook from, the book you gave your sister when she got married. This, the first revision in more than twenty years, is better than ever. Here's why:

• Every chapter has been rethought with an emphasis on freshness, convenience, and health.
• All the recipes have been reconceived and tested with an eye to modern taste, and the cooking knowledge imparted with each subject enriched to the point where everyone from a beginning to an experienced cook will feel completely supported.
• The new Joy continues the vision of American cooking that began with the first edition of Joy. It is still the book you can turn to for perfect Beef Wellington and Baked Macaroni and Cheese. It's also the book where you can now find Turkey on the Grill, Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles, and vegetarian meals.
• The new Joy provides more thorough descriptions of ingredients, from the familiar to the most exotic. For instance, almost all the varieties of apples grown domestically are described -- the months they become available, how they taste, what they are best used for, and how long they keep. But for the first time Joy features a complete section on fresh and dried chili peppers: how to roast and grill them, how to store them, and how long they keep -- with illustrations of each pepper.
• An all-new "RULES" section in many chapters gives essential cooking basics at a glance: washing and storing salad greens, selecting a pasta and a matching sauce, determining when a piece of fish is cooked through, stuffing a chicken, and making a perfect souffle.
• New chapters reflect changing American tastes and lifestyles:
• Separate new chapters on grains, beans, and pasta include recipes for grits, polenta, pilafs, risottos, vegetarian chills, bean casseroles, and make-ahead lasagnes.
• New baking and dessert chapters promise to enhance Joy of Cooking's reputation as a bible for bakers. Quick and yeast bread recipes range from focaccia, pizza, and sourdoughs to muffins and coffee cakes. Separate chapters cover custards and puddings, pies and tarts, cookies, cakes, cobblers, and other American fruit desserts revived for this edition. Recipes include one-bowl cakes, gingerbread, angel and sponge cakes, meringues, pound cakes, fruitcakes, 6 different kinds of cheesecake -- there's even an illustrated wedding cake recipe, which takes you through all the stages from building a stand, making and decorating the cake, to transporting it to the reception without a hitch.
• Little Dishes showcases foods from around the world: hummus, baba ghanoush, bruschetta, tacos, empanadas, and fried wontons.
• AII new drawings of techniques, ingredients, and equipment, integrated throughout an elegant new design, and over 300 more pages round out the new Joy.

Among this book's other unique features: microwave instructions for preparing beans, grains, and vegetables; dozens of new recipes for people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten; expanded ingredients chart now features calories, essential vitamins, and levels of fats and cholesterol. There are ideas for substitutions to lower fat in recipes and reduced-fat recipes in the baking sections.

From cover to cover, Joy's chapters have been imbued with the knowledge and passion of America's greatest cooks and cooking teachers. An invaluable combination of old and new, this edition of Joy of Cooking promises to keep you cooking for years to come.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7913 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1152 pages

Amazon.com Review
Irma Rombauer collected recipes from friends for the first Joy of Cooking, and published it herself. For this sixth edition, the All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking, Ethan Becker, grandson of Irma and son of Marion Rombauer Becker, worked with Maria Guarnaschelli, senior editor and vice president at Scribner's. Together, they called on top food professionals to produce a Joy that reflects the way we eat today.

Five new chapters satisfy today's love of pasta, pizza, noodles, burritos, grains, and beans, including soy. The roughly 3,000 recipes, most revised from earlier editions, give the food processor and microwave their due. Interest in ethnic flavors, grazing, leaner meats, more fish, and less fat are reflected, and old standbys such as Tuna Noodle Casserole and Fried Chicken are updated. Information on canning, jams, pickles, and preserves is replaced by expanded material on grilling, barbecuing, flavored oils, and vinegars. Also gone is the personal voice of the old Joy. The new Joy of Cooking is comprehensive for today's cooks. Time will tell if it remains the long-loved, dog-eared kitchen companion and teacher Joy has been since 1931.

From Library Journal
The concept of "essence"?that intrinsic quality without which an object is no longer itself?underlies the controversy surrounding the new Joy of Cooking. Original author Rombauer pioneered the "user-friendly" style, demystifying kitchen basics with reliable, unfussy recipes. Since Rombauer's death in 1962, subsequent editions by her daughter, Marion Becker, have expanded the scope while attempting to preserve the conversational tone. Now the sixth revision may indeed have a new and different essence; detractors attack the inclusion of exotic dishes as a betrayal of Rombauer's homespun intent and claim that her accessible voice is gone. Yet this revised American classic is essential. The recipes are still unfussy, e.g., a simple tapenade uses ordinary canned olives. No matter how far the new Joy has altered its initial purpose, it remains one of the most complete, all-purpose cookbooks available. Since a majority of the old recipes are gone, however, both past and current editions belong on the shelf.
-?Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Since its original publication, Joy of Cooking has been the most authoritative cookbook in America‹ the one upon which millions of cooks have confidently relied for more than sixty-five years. It's the book your grandmother and mother probably learned to cook from, the book you gave your sister when she got married. This, the first revision in more than twenty years, is better than ever. Here's why: Every chapter has been rethought with an emphasis on freshness, convenience, and health. All the recipes have been reconceived and tested with an eye to modern taste, and the cooking knowledge imparted with each subject enriched to the point where everyone from a beginning to an experienced cook will feel completely supported. The new Joy continues the vision of American cooking that began with the first edition of Joy. It is still the book you can turn to for perfect Beef Wellington and Baked Macaroni and Cheese. It's also the book where you can now find Turkey on the Grill, Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles, and vegetarian meals. The new Joy provides more thorough descriptions of ingredients, from the familiar to the most exotic. For instance, almost all the varieties of apples grown domestically are described -- the months they become available, how they taste, what they are best used for, and how long they keep. But for the first time Joy features a complete section on fresh and dried chili peppers: how to roast and grill them, how to store them, and how long they keep -- with illustrations of each pepper. An all-new "RULES" section in many chapters gives essential cooking basics at a glance: washing and storing salad greens, selecting a pasta and a matching sauce, determining when a piece of fish is cooked through, stuffing a chicken, and making a perfect souffle. New chapters reflect changing American tastes and lifestyles: Separate new chapters on grains, beans, and pasta include recipes for grits, polenta, pilafs, risottos, vegetarian chills, bean casseroles, and make-ahead lasagnes. New baking and dessert chapters promise to enhance Joy of Cooking's reputation as a bible for bakers. Quick and yeast bread recipes range from focaccia, pizza, and sourdoughs to muffins and coffee cakes. Separate chapters cover custards and puddings, pies and tarts, cookies, cakes, cobblers, and other American fruit desserts revived for this edition. Recipes include one-bowl cakes, gingerbread, angel and sponge cakes, meringues, pound cakes, fruitcakes, 6 different kinds of cheesecake -- there's even an illustrated wedding cake recipe, which takes you through all the stages from building a stand, making and decorating the cake, to transporting it to the reception without a hitch. Little Dishes showcases foods from around the world: hummus, baba ghanoush, bruschetta, tacos, empanadas, and fried wontons. AII new drawings of techniques, ingredients, and equipment, integrated throughout an elegant new design, and over 300 more pages round out the new Joy.

Among this book's other unique features: microwave instructions for preparing beans, grains, and vegetables; dozens of new recipes for people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten; expanded ingredients chart now features calories, essential vitamins, and levels of fats and cholesterol. There are ideas for substitutions to lower fat in recipes and reduced-fat recipes in the baking sections.

From cover to cover, Joy's chapters have been imbued with the knowledge and passion of America's greatest cooks and cooking teachers. An invaluable combination of old and new, this edition of Joy of Cooking promises to keep you cooking for years to come.

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Customer Reviews

for those who loved the old Joy, some disappointment
I was saddened when I first read the new edition of Joy. The original character of the book, the reasons you ran to the shelf to pick it up, have been brutally edited out of this edition. This was the book that told you how to roast a turkey, make candy or cook preserves. I remember when I was young and I'd picked a huge batch of strawberries, I immediately got out my mother's dog eared copy and made strawberry preserves which were delicious. You can imagine my consternation when I was browsing through my "fancy" new edition, looking for that old recipe for preserves. IT WAS GONE. In it's place were recipes for Pad Thai and Pho. I love Asian food. I have several Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian cookbooks which introduce me properly to those cuisines by discussing their ingredients and the character of the food in detail. Exotic cuisines are not the reason I bought Joy. I bought Joy because I want the basics of cooking at my fintertips and I'm afraid some of those basics are gone. My recommendation: the 20 year old edition is still available. Buy that instead.

The 'Bible' turned into microwave cliff notes
While I have dozens of cookbooks with exotic recipes, I've always relied on 'Joy' for those basics (like canning, preserving, freezing, substituting) and tips you can't find anywhere else. Sure, the new 'Joy' has discovered the food processor and microwave, but has discarded many of those tried and true basics along the way. If you want to replace your worn out, dog earred old copy, get the regular 'Joy', not the new, 'enhanced' one.

Good basics, lots missing
I liked the new slant of the Joy of Cooking, and thought I'd have a hard time giving up the old standbys from the 1975 ed. but reviewing the index, I realized that I rarely if ever made most of the dishes that the authors eliminated. I do miss the descriptions of different vegetables fruits, and techniques that I don't typically use on a daily basis, and I think this is a deficit in the latest edition, however, looking at the recipes, they are ones that I will more likely use. Another issue that I have with the new edition is the poor typeset. Ingredients are not clearly identified as in the last ed. where they were in bold type and indented, and most of the pages look run-on. I know that there are many more recipes than in the past, but the format and the index are sorely lacking and you really have to have a good idea of the ingredients or the final product to find the recipe you are looking for. The book is quite run-on and difficult to read, ho=wever, the recipes are widely varied and definitely TODAY