Cooking the books

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1606414]

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

This is an approximate answer, as I'm in Kendal and therefore not able to go and count them.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Fair enough!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

N.b. This is after weeding out about a dozen earlier this year as I ran out of shelf, and a dozen last year, and does not include two volumes containing probably hundreds of recipes I've copied from 3-4 dozen books belonging to my mother and other libraries.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the additional information.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Plus some more that I haven't yet liberated from my father's house.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It took me years to liberate all my books.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I've put 100, but Lil has just counted 130 on the shelves by the kitchen, and I'm sure there are others scattered around.

Admittedly a lot are Sainsburys paperbacks - heavily used.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with supermarket paperbacks.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I might *own* c15 cookbooks but I don't actually *use* them for more than food porn... Kudos for referencing on of my favourite Asimov stories!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

We often turn to Apicius for general tips on cooking certain exotic meats, and occasionally use them in an everyday setting, though not with exactitude We've also tried early recipes from The British Museum Cookbook and various medieval recipe books.

inamac has answered the poll for the household, where I reckon we have about 150 cookery books of various types.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

adaese and her mother both have various historical cookery books, stretching back through mediaeval to Anglo-Saxon, and thence to Roman.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-)

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

...but I rarely use any of them. Making up recipes is much more fun!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

But prone to error?

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

More fun, as I said. At least, some of the time!

[krakenwakes.livejournal.com]

I do not eat. I am powered by non-sequiturs and the colour yellow.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ah, another one! ;-)

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Not able to count them. also do you count the montly waitrose recipes cards as a book, or only each annual pile?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The latter, I think.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

How come my answer of '0' doesn't show in the chart?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I'm afraid.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

0????? How do you manage?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

bunn may have some ...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

She has "somewhere between 'some' and 'many', but not 'lots'".

Closer inspection on my part reveals this to mean 'thirteen'.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Firstly, I know how to cook what I want to without recourse to detailed instructions. Secondly I much prefer meals with individual components to meals where several different ingredients are mushed into one (there are exceptions). Thirdly, bunn has thirteen cookbooks, one of which in particular is very useful on how to cook various foodstuffs. Finally, if I do need to look up how to cook something, I can always use the internet.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. I tend to use them for ideas, mostly- unless it is when using the correct measurements are in cakes and jams.

[miss-t-ide.livejournal.com]

Need to go and count them. Not going to do it now...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[miss-t-ide.livejournal.com]

OK, I counted them. I have an awful lot of cook books for someone who very rarely follows a recipe...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

That would be quite a few even for someone who does follow recipes!

[emperor]

I guessed, as I couldn't be bothered to go down two floors to count them :)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Bah, the youth of today, no-get-up-and-go ... ;-)

[chainmailmaiden]

Your scale doesn't begin to go high enough :-D

I had 158 the last time I counted them properly, which was in 1996...

I've acquired one or two more since then so I'd guess somewhere between 300 to 400.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hmm, 158 + a couple = 300 to 400 ... you didn't do maths, did you ... ;-)

(Also: I knew someone would say that the scale didn't go high enough; and I thought it would probably be you!)

[chainmailmaiden]

Hmm, 158 + a couple = 300 to 400 ... you didn't do maths, did you ... ;-)

And that is why I choose procurement over finance as a career - we get to employ people to do the calculations for us :-D

It occurred to me that about 15 of them actually belong to Bacchus, so my estimate was a little high unless you count us as a household :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Got a job for me? ;-)

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Mine is a bit of an estimate. I have to try very hard not to keep puying more books all the time though. I've been very restrained over the last couple of years and have even got rid of a few, so I've got about forty at the moment. It might be more though.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Estimates are fine!

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Was going to tick 5 or 10, but then thought I'd count them to find out which it was...

appears I may have slightly under-estimated

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes, 5 or 10 would have been a bit of an under-estimate!