What are your most treasured cookbooks?

The ones that are falling apart . . .

There’s a bit of a trend at the moment to bring out new editions of popular cookery writers’ first books. Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana and Itamar Srulovich and Saris Packer’s Honey & Co: food from the Middle East came out earlier this year while Diana Henry’s Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons is published next week. (Not quite in the same league, but my own Wine Lover’s Kitchen is being reissued this autumn. Not my first book but a personal favourite.)

Obviously it makes sense from a publishers point of view. It costs much less than commissioning a new book and introduces the author to a new audience.

First books are often the best too. I love all Nigella’s books but does any of them beat the groundbreaking How to Eat? (Discuss!)

On the other hand if you have the original how willing are you to abandon it for a shiny new version, however beautiful? Old copies are splattered, annotated, a testament to well-loved family recipes. And the truth is you can often pick up almost new copies for a fraction of the cost of the latest version.

Because I have so many cookbooks and spend a lot of my time trying out new recipes I don’t have many well-used ones myself other than Katherine Whitehorn’s Cooking in a Bedsitter which I lived by when I first came up to London and a book called Cooking from Farthinghoe by Nicola Cox which was my bible when I was first married. (I went to her cookery classes in the days when my idea of fun was boning and stuffing a duck!)

Kate’’s much loved copy of How to Eat

Most of the people I know though have favourites that are literally falling apart. My neighbour Kate, for example, showed me her hugely battered copies of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course and Nigella’s How to Eat when we were chatting about the subject yesterday.

She also had an impressively well-used copy of Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana Everyday. The sticky tamarind, garlic and tomato green beans recipe was suitably sticky. “You probably wouldn’t want to touch it if it wasn’t in your own house” she admitted ruefully.

My mate Dan on the other hand is a fervent fan of Simon Hopkinson and Rachel Roddy as you’ll know if you follow him on instagram (@essexeating).

“Roast Chicken & Other Stories for the eponymous Roast Chicken recipe, is my go to. I also love the Onion Tart recipe and the Breast of Lamb Ste -Ménéhould and the Parmesan biscuits.” he told me last night. 

“And Rachel Roddy’s A-Z of Pasta is immense. I’ve probably cooked more from that than any other book. Not a single recipe has been duff.”’

We’re all different so I’d love to know which cookbook authors mean the most to you. What are your favourite, most bespattered books? And recipes come to that …

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