Culling your cookbooks?

[grasswire]

http://www.foodrepublic.com/2014/02/21/how-create-your-food-library-cookbook-organization

As useful as the Internet can be for digging up obscure recipes or providing instant explanations of ingredients you've never heard of, cookbooks retain a special place in our hearts and on our shelves. "What you can find online is remarkable, but it's not the same as that well-loved, actual physical book that you have on your bookshelf in your apartment in Brooklyn, and before that Los Angeles, and before that, San Francisco," says Saveur editor-in-chief James Oseland. And as a cookbook lover who recently had to slash his own collection of nearly 1,000 books down by 70 percent, Oseland would certainly know.

Maybe you're a stalwart for cooking in a more "analog" fashion, preferring to reach for a bound collection of recipes and all those pages to thumb through, or perhaps you regard your library's contents more as historical relics revealing our shifting culinary trends through the years. Whatever the situation, your growing collection might benefit from some organizational help. Below, we queried three experts from various corners of the food industry: a librarian, an editor and a chef, on their own tried and true methods.

[Warpy]

1. I culled mine years ago and only kept what I call "idea books,"

cookbooks with basic recipes that can be expanded upon.

What I was merciless about were books that suffered from "restaurantitis," that required pre made sauces and other prep work on multiple pages and had complicated ingredient lists with regional ingredients and stuff that let you know the author had kitchen staff.

Such books were fun to read but enormously frustrating to use and the final product was never very good.

[Freddie]

2. I've kept mostly church and community cookbooks

Recipes submitted by real people; food they make and serve their families. I especially prize the church cookbooks I found in Grandma's house after she died, true treasures of PA Dutch cooking from the 40's through the 80's.

[dem in texas]

3. I love community cookbook too

I have so many Texas community cookbooks, many Mexican community cookbooks too, I need to thin them out, it would take me forever to decide which ones need to go. The cookbook that is my all time favorite is my old Joy of Cooking. I had the one issued in early 1960's. I used it until it fell apart. I found another one at an antique mall and it is starting to show wear. I have the two more recent versions of the Joy, but they are not as good as the 1960's version.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. unfortunately

I find it far easier to accumulate cookbooks than to cull and reduce my collection.

Thanks for the link. Now if only I can make use of some of the suggestions.

[grasswire]

5. I've given up culling too.

Aside from a few books that are just useless, I'm keeping everything else. Shelves and shelves and shelves. I just love having them.

[hedgehog]

6. My Mom left an entire shelf of cookbooks. One of my daughters is working her

way through them to pick out the recipes Grandma used and make a collection.

[Beacool]

7. I'm my mother's daughter.

Although I'm not a quarter of the cook that she was, I love collecting cookbooks (she did too).