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Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006 | 
 enlarge | Authors: Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker
Brand: Cookbook
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  174 reviews
Sales Rank: 402
Media: Hardcover
Edition: anniversary
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1152
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.9 x 2.4
MPN: ROMBAUER
ISBN: 0743246268
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5973
EAN: 9780743246262
Publication Date: October 31, 2006
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Product Description
A mealtime mainstay since 1931, this kitchen classic is an encyclopedia of culinary creativity. With 4,000 of the most beloved recipes from past editions, updated for the modern kitchen, and 500 brand new recipes, you'll experience the joy of cooking like never before.
Amazon.com Review
The much anticipated 75th anniversary edition of Irma Rombauer's kitchen classic Joy of Cooking promises to be as indispensable as past editions of this generational favorite. In addition to hundreds of brand-new recipes, this Joy is filled with many recipes from all previous editions, retested and reinvented for today's tastes. Take the new Joy for a test-run in the kitchen with these featured recipes for Roast Brined Turkey and Apple Pie, and watch a video demonstration for their recipe for 10-in-One Cookies. And read on for celebrity chef "Odes to Joy," Joy timeline, and Joy trivia.
Odes to Joy
 "Great cookbooks are not just collections of interesting recipes. They are, first and foremost, books that tell a story, the story of how people lived and cooked at a particular point in time. They reveal, to borrow an expression from James Beard, their delights and prejudices, their view of the social order, their appetite for serving others food that meets the expectations of their social class. Food can be anything and everything from fuel to an object of intellectual curiosity to full-bore hedonism that transports the mind and body far from the dinner table with just one overwhelming bite. I started cooking out of an early edition of Joy when I was only 7 years old. I remember making a basic chocolate cake with 7-minute frosting. The cake turned out fine, but the frosting resembled gruel and was my introduction to the importance of following a recipe to the letter. Evidently my lack of patience and precision had led me astray. But after that first brush with culinary failure, Joy led me to many, many successes over the years; more to the point, I became enamored of Ms. Rombauer's voice, the matter-of-fact charm that led her to suggest "stand facing the stove" as a sensible first step in any recipe. The amateur but highly evolved enthusiasm that Irma Rombauer brought to the world of home cooking was a breath of fresh air after the slightly earlier era of culinary dowagers Fannie Farmer, Mrs. Beaton, and Marion Harland. To those pillars of culinary wisdom, recipes were shorthand for cooks who had spent a lifetime in the kitchen. A pie pastry recipe might be written as "make a paste." But Ms. Rombauer was there to hold our hands, to put food in a social context and give it attitude, energy, and meaning in a world where food was leaping past the narrow formality of the Victorian age. For all of our worldly knowledge about ingredients and culinary custom, few cookbook authors have managed to perfectly capture, without artifice or self-conscious chatter, the vernacular of an age. Irma Rombauer introduced us to a room in our home--the kitchen--that was to become a place of enjoyment, not just one of backbreaking labor. She represented the essence of the new American experience, which suggested that everything in life could be transformed into pleasure with nothing more than the proper attitude. And what better way to celebrate this new age than to have a smashing cocktail party with the perfect hors doeuvres? The original Joy of Cooking was mind over matter, the perfect mix of attitude and function. Even as times have changed, the Joy stands out as a watershed volume, a book that speaks to the very heart of who we want to be in the kitchen: producers of our own story, directors of the good American life. And, according to Ms. Rombauer, all we have to do is take that first easy step and "stand facing the stove." --Christopher Kimball, founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated
 "I'm often asked to pick my favorite cookbook. Considering that there are over 3,000 cookbooks published each year, it's a daunting task to try to narrow them down. Speaking as a chef who never went to cooking school, I've been enthralled by certain cookbooks, immersing myself from cover to cover and learning about exotic cuisines from all over the world. But for just plain basic information, both the original and revised Joy of Cooking are still my bibles. I can't tell you how many times my wife Jackie and I have thumbed through the stained and broken-backed copy of Joy in our home kitchen, looking for our favorite angel food cake recipe, our favorite skillet corn bread, our favorite fluffy biscuits, and crisp waffles, and on and on. It's tough to picture my family table--or, in fact, the American table--without a well-worn copy of Joy of Cooking in the background." " --Tom Douglas, author of I Love Crab Cakes!
 "I highly recommend this book as a must-have in your kitchen. Chock full of great information, this book takes all of the guess work out and leaves no stone unturned." --Paula Deen, author of Paula Deen Celebrates!
 "In our kitchen, Joy of Cooking is a tool as indispensable as the chef's knife, the scale, the whisk. We actually own two copies--a shelf-copy for reading, and one whose sauce-splattered, dog-eared pages bear witness to just how much joy we get from Joy." " --Matt Lee and Ted Lee, authors of The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook
 "Joy of Cooking is the ultimate reference guide that I have been using for years. It's timeless and packed with perfect recipes for the home cook that stands up to the test of time." --Tyler Florence, author of Tyler's Ultimate
 "Joy of Cooking is a book I turn to whenever I have a question about food or cooking. The new edition is the combined effort of some of the best cooks writing today; I know I can trust its information. And trust is, to my mind, the essential quality of all great cookbooks." --Sally Schneider, author of The Improvisational Cook
 "When Andrew first contemplated becoming a chef in the 1980s, he asked two Boston chefs of his acquaintance what books he should read. Each independently recommended Joy of Cooking as THE classic with reliable recipes for just about everything. (The second chef urged him to look for an early copy for the sheer entertainment value of reading how to cook a possum.) A decade later, when we interviewed 60 of Americas leading chefs for our first book Becoming a Chef, we asked them the same question--and again Joy was one of their five most recommended books. In fact, we recommend buying two copies, like we did: we keep our chocolate-smudged copy of Joy in our kitchen, and a reading copy on our bookshelves." --Andrew Dorenburg and Karen Page, authors of What to Drink with What You Eat
 "Our Joy of Cooking is dog-eared, flour dusted, chocolate smudged, oil spattered, and easily the most used cookbook on the shelf. The staggering amount of information in the book taught us the basics when we were in our teens and has informed our cooking for the decades since. We wish we had written it!" --Johanne Killeen and George Germon, authors of On Top of Spaghetti
 "I received a copy of Joy of Cooking in my late teens. I have treasured the cookbook ever since and still use it frequently as a reference. In the late 80's I was asked to represent American Cooking in Italy. I cooked all over the country for 2 months. The only book I took was Joy of Cooking. When ingredients that I had ordered did not show up and I had to totally wing it, I used this book to get me out of a few jams--like what the proportions are to make your own baking powder! If I could have only one cookbook--other than my own of course!--it would be Joy of Cooking-as it is the bible of American cooking" --Kathy Casey, author of Kathy Casey's Northwest Table
 "I have purchased Joy of Cooking for all my restaurant libraries as well as my own. The recipes always work--always--and the informational chapters are accurate, to the point, and incredibly helpful--couldnt live with out it!!" --Cindy Pawlcyn, author of Big Small Plates
A Brief History ofJoy  | 1930: The United States stock market crashes creating the great depression.
1931: Irma Rombauer takes $3,000, the modest legacy her husband leaves at his death, and she self-publishes the first Joy of Cooking. She is 54 years old.
1932: Irma tries to sell her book to a commercial publisher, Bobbs-Merrill of Indianapolis, IN, and is rejected.
1933: Prohibition is repealed and Adolf Hilter becomes to Chancellor of Germany.
1935: Bobbs-Merrill receives another submission of the Joy of Cooking from Irma. This version is not the self-published book but a revision, typed and bound in 15 notebook binders.
1936: March 26 is the publication date for the first commercial Joy of Cooking. The first print run is 10,000 copies and the book costs $2.50.
1937: The Golden Gate Bridge is completed in San Francisco and Gone with the Wind, a Scribner book, wins the Pulitzer Prize.
1939: Bobbs-Merrill publishes Irma Rombauer's book Streamlined Cooking, a cookbook dedicated to convenience foods. The book is not a commercial success.
1940: Freeze-drying is invented.
1941: Pearl Harbor is attacked and America enters World War II.
1943: The bestselling "wartime" edition of Joy of Cooking is published which includes how to creatively deal with the food rationing during World War II.
1946: A "post-war" edition is printed with very few changes.
1947: The microwave oven is invented.
1951: Marion Rombauer Becker joins her mother Irma as co-author of this edition.
1955: Gunsmoke debuts on CBS.
1961: John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the President of the United States.
1962: Irma Rombauer dies in her native St. Louis. The sixth edition of Joy of Cooking is published.
1963: The French Chef with Julia Child debuts on public television.
1969: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first to walk on the moon.
1970: The Beatles break up.
1974: President Nixon resigns and Stephen Kings Carrie is published.
1975: The first--and last--edition of Joy of Cooking that is completely Marion Rombauer Becker's work is published.
1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
1980: The median household income in the United States is $19,074 and it seems the entire country is playing PacMan.
1981: The first genetically engineer plant--the Flavr Savr tomato--is approved for sale.
1984: Coca-Cola changes its 99-year-old formula and launches New Coke.
1990: East and West Germany unite.
1997: After a more than a two decade hiatus, the eighth edition of Joy of Cooking is published by Scribner with Ethan, Marion's son, at the helm.
2006: A new edition of Joy of Cooking, based on the writing and structure of the 1975 edition, is published to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Irma Rombauer's self-published cookbook. |
Joy Trivia | For the 75th anniversary edition, 4,500 recipes were tested that used a total of 400 pounds of butter, 300 quarts of milk, 485 pounds of red meat, and 275 pounds of fish and shellfish. The average age of a recipe tester working on the 75th anniversary edition was 46.7 years. Recipe testers spend 8,798 hours testing recipes and techniques for the latest edition. The knife was the first cutlery invented, followed by the spoon, and, much later, the fork (11th century A.D.). Caffeine is the most widely used behavior-changing chemical ingested worldwide. Eating cheese slows the decay of teeth. A light coating of oil speeds cooking and improves flavor of most grilled foods. Some of the most requested recipes from past Joy of Cooking editions include Chicken Marengo, Chocolate Cake (also known as the "Rombauer Special"), and Golden Glow Gelatin Salad. Ice is considered one of the most important ingredients in making drinks. Popsicles, baby back ribs, smoothies, and power bars are just a few of the recipes making their debut in the 2006 anniversary edition. The 2006 Joy of Cooking has instructions on using natural ingredients to color Easter eggs: beets for pink; chopped red cabbage for blue; tumeric for yellow; and the skins of 12 red onions for orange to burnt orange. Slow cooker recipes are included in the 2006 Joy for the first time. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 169 more reviews...
 Cook up some classics! September 9, 2008
323 out of 323 found this review helpful
Originally a self-published book in 1931, and no less than nine revisions later, this thick volume of recipes (it's got to be at least 3 inches thick) is a great addition to anyone's cook book library.
But wait! This book is not merely just a collection of recipes- although with 4000 classic recipes and an additional 500 new ones, that would make it worth buying alone. No, this cook book stands heads and shoulders above the rest because its what I call a "teaching" cook book. It contains recipes for just about every dish or food category you can think of which are arranged in various sections throughout the book. Then, at the beginning of each chapter, there is a kind of introduction which goes into detail about that category. For example, the section on grains starts off with an almost encyclopedic explanation of the types of grains, their anatomy, how to combine them, and so on.
A handy, informative cook book with plenty of choices, there is sure to be something for everyone and even healthy eaters will find a great section on what makes up a healthy diet, how many calories you need, etc. Also recommend The Sixty-Second Motivator for readers who need more motivation to eat healthier and have trouble changing their diet habits.
Fantastic new edition February 1, 2007
40 out of 40 found this review helpful
I love the new edition. Love, love, love it! When it arrived, I sat down and started reading it. This will sound silly, but I actually CRIED because it was so fantastic and brought back so many good memories.
I have used the 1975 edition since I started to cook. It was the first book I would turn to when I wanted to see the "standard" recipe for anything. I loved the friendly tone and always found the recipes reliable, producing consistently tasty results. Its only weakness was that it had become a bit dated, in terms of modern tastes and food trends.
I was excited when a new edition of Joy was released in 1997. It turned out to be a total disaster. Among other things, it lacked recipes for pickling and canning, ice cream and lots of other American standards. Additionally, the 1997 edition eliminated the friendly tone and instructions I had come to love. Worst of all, the recipes were not reliable. I made a few really bad dishes from it before I stopped using it almost completely. Its only strength was in its updated instructions for cooking meat, fish and poultry.
This new edition is a tremendous achievement. It keeps the down-to-earth tone of the older editions while providing a perfect selection of old favorites and new (primarily ethnic) dishes that are widely eaten in the US. The ice cream and pickling/canning sections are restored. It's actually an improvement on the 1976 edition, and that's saying something!
I love this edition. I'm throwing out the 1997 edition and eventually I may even part with my old 1975 copy, though it has tremendous nostalgia value for me.
Worth Keeping for Life! November 8, 2006
69 out of 79 found this review helpful
I heard about this book long time ago but never was interested in getting one because I'm only interested in cookbooks with glossy pictures and fancy mouthwatering covers. While I was waiting for my car's rountine maintenance at Costco, I read it just to kill time there. I discovered that it was such a wonderful cookbook that I just got to buy it! I have about 100 cookbooks at home but this one is the best I ever bought. This book covers all kinds of dishes, and all cooking methods. They are easy to read and very illustrative. I think lots of recipes in other cookbooks are originated from this cookbook, or adapted from the ones in this cookbook. I think being the first comprehensive, illustrative and reliable cookbook in history, lots of cookbook authors referred to it when writing cookbooks of their own as time goes by. By reading this cook book, I can see Raychael Ray, Martha Stewart, and many other cooking moguls' recipes here. My suggestion is, buy this cookbook and you can toss away Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals and others. This books has all the recipes you want to cook exactly as it is or to adapt to create your own. This book is valuable in that it help you build a very solid foundation and understanding in cooking, equipment and all kinds of food ingredients, like "fig" which the Chinese believe to have healing power on your acid damaged GI tract.... Now I can cook it like a tasty American desert instead of the boring dull tasting Chinese herbal soup my mom taught me to make regularly to stay healthy. Like I say, with the cooking basics and all the wonderful recipes in Joy, I'm confident that I can create better recipes than Rachel Ray or Martha Steward. It's a cook book that is inspirational and helps everybody to discover new knowledge in cookery every time you refer to it! This is the cookbook that I'm definitely keeping and cherishing for the rest of my life ! I highly recommend this to everyone who wants to give a meaningful gift to the ones you care and love!
Still the Champ, if you can only have one cookbook! October 11, 2007
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
The `New Cookbook, 14th Edition' from `Better Homes and Gardens' is a heavyweight contender for best `if you have to have only one cookbook...' title, weighing in against the perennial champion, `The Joy of Cooking', now at its 75th Anniversary edition. The first of these contenders has been my mother's favorite for at least the last 40 years, and her original copy is so beat up (thus the purchase of a new edition), I can't even see the publication date on its binder, where the covers have literally fallen off the spine.
Looking at the bare figures, `Joy' would seem to be a clear winner, with almost twice (1132 versus 656) the number of pages and almost three times (4000 versus 1400) the number of recipes. Going one step deeper and comparing the Tables of Contents, `Joy' has 39 chapters to `Better Homes' 23 chapters, meaning that `Joy' gives some topics a highlighted treatment missing from `Better Homes'. And yet, `Better Homes' has things going for it, especially considering the fact that there are millions of people such as my mother who have been going to it for so many years.
`Better Homes' most obvious attribute is its 3 ring binder style, which means that every page will lay perfectly flat AND one can easily remove any page and photocopy it on an inexpensive home multipurpose copier / scanner / printer. No small consideration compared to `Joy's' sewn signatures which are a bit awkward if you are looking at candies at the end of the book or appetizers near the front of the book. This virtue is diminished just a tad by the fact that the binding is a non-standard size, not carried by your local Staples. (I looked, to try to replace the binder laying on my workbench in three pieces!). Another virtue associated with this design is the tabbed dividers for each section. This makes browsing to look for a nice egg recipe much easier than in `Joy'. The next obvious virtue is its color pictures. This is not a clear win, since `Joy's line drawings of how to techniques are often superior to `Better Homes' static pics.
`Better Homes', after over 40 years on the bookshelves, primarily succeeds at the one thing every `general purpose' cookbook must do well. It has good recipes for virtually every basic, and most of the not so basic preparations the average home cook will want to do in the kitchen in the course of a year. The only stock recipes I could not find was one for Genoise and one for the en papillote cooking technique. Not only do both appear in `Joy', but the Rombauer / Becker clan gives us two different recipes under both rubrics! But, `Better Homes' still has things going for it!
Looking at the layout, writing, and selection of recipes in `Better Homes', I find much that I like. Many standard recipes are provided with well-written variations, and especially variations I am really interested in trying, such as the blueberry variations on pancakes and muffins. There are also many full-blown parallel recipes when there are several classic ways for making a basic dish, such as biscuits, both rolled and cut and drop biscuits. I am also fond of how most of the recipes are written. Few details are overlooked, yet the writing is crisp and no nonsense direct and to the point. The one thing which will most appeal to the average home cook is that the book makes a point of using only familiar ingredients certain to appear even on the smaller local supermarket shelves. On the other hand, there is little or no holdover from the dark days of 1950s cooking making heavy use of canned or dried ingredients. On the other hand, canned mushrooms, mushroom soup, and hydrogenated shortening are not missing entirely and more than once I found recipes where butter does better than Crisco.
The two things which most impressed me were the overall selection of recipes and the excellent introductory chapter on `Cooking Basics'. There is an entire library of cookbooks who try to give a good treatment of this subject, and end up giving us just a short chapter of filler to pad out their standard 250 pages. `Better Homes' does it right, as befitting its `be all things' ambitions. The recipe selection is broad enough to appeal to even the more adventuresome home cook, with its recipes for breads, homemade pasta, and homemade salad dressings. My problem with some of the more elaborate recipes is that the product is almost certain to be not as good as what you get from a commercial source. The cinnamon bun recipe, for example, is not nearly as good as my standard from `Baking with Julia'. I was also skeptical of it's hot cross buns recipe, a preparation which is remarkably difficult, as baked goods go. Remarkably, `Joy' passes on both these recipes, reinforcing my belief that for these specialties, one will be far better off going to a book specializing in baking for an authoritative recipe.
IF I were limited to a single cookbook, my personal choice between these two is `Joy of Cooking', simply because it's recipes are just as good as `Better Homes', and there is more of it. But, if your family tradition belongs to `Better Homes and Gardens', you will not be disappointed by their offering.
My final word on Joy is that I miss the notebook binding style, which made every page lay flat. Still a great book, however!
LOVE this book December 22, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I recently picked up the 75th Anniversary edition of JOY and I love it! (This is my first JOY volume in my cookbook collection) Whenever I go to my boyfriend's Mom's for dinner, I would always find myself picking up her JOY and browsing through it...I decided it was time to get my own. The information for newish cooks like me is easy to understand and extremely helpful. I thought I wouldn't like a cookbook that didn't have color photos, but the wealth of information totally makes up for the visual. 5 stars! :)
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