I know, I know, starting a page about inspirational cookbooks with The Joy of Cooking is like beginning a discussion on English literature by saying, “Hey, you know, there’s this guy named Shakespeare who’s pretty good”, or a baseball conversation with, “In my opinion, the best all-around hitter ever was Babe Ruth.” There’s nothing too earth-shattering here: You probably didn’t need me to call your attention to the existence of The Joy of Cooking.
But I have to be honest: For me, a cookbook’s worth can be measured by how broken in it is. If a ten-year-old cookbook still looks brand new on my bookshelf, that’s probably because it isn’t worth a damn. If a cookbook has dog ears, coffee stains, worn edges, scribbled notes in the margins, and a general air of hard living, then it’s probably a good one. By this standard, The Joy of Cooking is without peer. Notice the duct-taped binding on my copy. Notice as well the binding falling away between the egg chapter and the hors d’oeuvre.
The entry on “Roasted Tomato-Chipotle Salsa” has been splattered with something which may very well be roasted tomato-chipotle salsa.
What makes this book so useful? It is encyclopedic in scope, to begin with. Need to know how to brine a turkey? Preserve lemons in salt? Distinguish sweet potatoes from yams? Make beurre noisette? Heat sugar syrup to the soft ball stage? Poach calf brains? It’s all in here, with easy-to-follow directions and clear black-and-white illustrations. The prose manages to hit a tone that is magisterial without being pedantic—a touch maternal as well, as if reassuring you that you are doing fine and the dish is going to turn out OK. Of chicken Kiev, the Joy says, “When the rolls are cut, the melted butter spurts out, creating a moment of high culinary drama.” Blancmange is “an elegant pudding, silky in texture, delicate in taste, and white and translucent like fine bone china.” High culinary drama! Fine bone china! How could one not run into the kitchen after reading these recipes?
One could probably use The Joy as evidence for a dissertation about multiculturalism in American society in the late 90’s. (My edition is from 1997.) The book strives for authenticity, but not at the sake of accessibility. There are recipes for bouillabaisse, tzatiki, callaloo, pad thai, negimaki, kibbe, jerk chicken, samosas, doro wat, sambal cuka and tres leches. Would these recipes satisfy the palates of people from Provence, Greece, Trinidad and the rest of the regions represented by these dishes? Probably not. Have the recipes been simplified, “dumbed down” even, to suit the tastes, abilities, equipment and predilections of middle-class, suburban Americans? Almost certainly. But while that might make The Joy of Cooking a deficient authority on, say, Indonesian or Salvadorean cuisine, it contributes to its expertise on what Americans today, in the aggregate, actually eat: We experiment, we improvise, we draw on other culinary traditions willy-nilly, we create “fusion” cuisine, and we love it. If you want to devote your life to mastering sushi or barbecue or baklava, there are certainly cookbooks out there that can help you do that. But if you want a book that can help you make nigiri one night and oven-braised barbecue ribs the next night and homemade baklava the night after that, The Joy of Cooking will help you make versions that are “good enough”, and more than good enough to eat.
There is a newer edition of The Joy of Cooking out there on bookstore shelves; there’s even a Joy of Cooking website (http://www.thejoykitchen.com/). I’m not particularly interested in these. I’ve got all my scribbly notes in my edition, for adding buttermilk to biscuits or cream to scones. I know that the tiramisù recipe is on page 966, and always will be there, and always will be the best tiramisù I’ve ever had. As long as I have the urge to make uncooked eggnog or any of the French mother sauces, as long as I need to refer to a chart showing the primal cuts of beef, as long as I have enough duct tape to keep it together, this will be my go-to, Number One reference guide for all things vegetarian and carnivorous alike.
I stumbled across this post looking for a photo of roasted tomato chipotle salsa. My Joy of Cooking book looks exactly like yours, duct tape and all!