Product Description

It's the book that started it all, the well-loved edition that first bought Betty Crocker cookbooks into American homes and hearts. Published in 1950, this ground-breaking title made cooking easy, it made cooking appealing, and best of all, it made cooking fun. Packed full of practical tips, useful hints, and lavish color photography, this was the book that shaped cooking for generations, the book that people remember. Every recipe you -- or your mother -- ever wanted is here, from pigs in blankets, to Emergency Steak to Chicken Tomato Aspic. Enjoy the clever ideas throughout -- twelve months of birthday cake ideas, showing how to decorate a cake to match each month's gem stone, pointers to make setting up a kitchen easy, or hints to make housework more pleasant. Feel a part of history when making Home Front Macaroni, developed during WW II rationing to stretch meat. Get into the spirit of fun with a Betty Crocker "Cookie Shine" or cookie baking party. People who grew up with this book will want it for the memories; those who are new to the book will want it for its charm and its intelligent approach to cooking. It's a perfect keepsake and a great gift.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8515 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-09
• Format: Facsimile
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Ring-bound
• 456 pages

Amazon.com Review
First published in 1950, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book is now reprinted in all its old-fashioned glory. Betty immerses you in a time when women were homemakers, cakes had at least two layers, and salad was iceberg lettuce. You may hesitate to recreate what your mother or grandmother probably cooked--if so, consider that back then we ate simply, in the days before the word foodie was invented. Many of the recipes suit today's harried lifestyle, as you see in Six Layer Dinner, combining eight cups of vegetables with a pound of ground meat, and Dainty Tea Brownies topped with colorful chopped pistachios.

Hundreds of black-and-white photos, animated drawings, and quaint color spreads of prepared dishes aid you in using the recipes. Beginners learn how to measure ingredients, choose the best economical cuts of meat, and cut up round and sheet cakes for serving. There is even a section on how to set the table. This loose-leaf book contains enough recipes to fill a 12-page, double-column index. Best of all, perhaps, is the "Shortcut" section, where useful tips include cleaning a grater of cheese residue by rubbing it with a piece of stale bread. These are interspersed with 15 ways to recuperate from overwork. One suggestion is to lie down on the kitchen floor on your back and relax for three to five minutes. Still a good idea, though few people have a kitchen large enough to try this. --Dana Jacobi

Customer Reviews

This is the first cookbook I recommend
I am thrilled that Betty Crocker has re-issued this cookbook. My mother received a copy back in 1956 as a wedding present and it is the one I learned to cook from. I still use it more than any of my other cookbooks. The recipes are just "plain home cooking": no fancy ingredients, no complicated cooking techiques. However, I have never made a dish from this book that has failed to get compliments. It is a good book for beginners as well as the rest of us whose skills fall somewhere between "burns water" and cordon bleu.

Buyer beware!
Better check this one out before you buy it! I thought my mom had the first edition, so I was enthusiastic about getting a copy of the cookbook I grew up using the most. Then I saw this "1st edition facsimile" in a bookstore. I am SO glad I didn't buy this before I saw it. First, I realized from inspecting this that my mom's copy was probably a second edition of the book, with a lot more pictures, step-by-step instructions, and recipes. Second, this "facsimile" is cheaply reproduced in a three ring notebook on paper that is as flimsy as most modern magazines. I'd predict, after only a few weeks of use, that the pages and hole punches will be torn from just light use. You really should check this out before buying it!

Enchanting! Memories of Mom in the kitchen flooded my mind.
I grew up watching my wonderful mother use an original copy of this cookbook. She received it as a wedding present. She still has the original....which will someday be passed on to me. The pages still bear traces of all those wonderful baking experiences I shared with mom...chocolate, butter, flour. The original got so much use,that between her learning to become the great Betty Crocker cook she became and her teaching me all she had learned, some of the pages managed to come away from the binding. I remember mentioning to mom how nice it would be if her book was in a binder. Someone must have read my mind because here it is.....the reproduction, in all it's original splendor....bound! Thanks for a wonderful, loving cookbook. Besides my copy, I have since purchase one for each of my three sisters, and one for mom as well.