The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years

I own 2: Moosewood from back in my vegetarian days and The Joy of Cooking. I’m sure many of the books on the list are too fiddly for me.

I own zero of them and have only heard of 2.

That was a very interesting read, though I think this list is not one most regular American home cooks would agree with. This is more for chefs and advanced home cooks. Especially the French Laundry book and the one about eating snout to tail. Both sound ridiculously pretentious. I giggled at serving someone a plate of roasted bones with a side of greens, or passing anything through a cloth 50 times.

Any list of "influential" cookbooks from the last 100 years that doesn't include the iconic red gingham Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, or the Betty Crocker cookbook, just isn't complete to me.

I have a 1937 edition and a 50s edition Better Homes & Gardens that I keep purely for their nostalgic appeal.

I also admit that I love Teresa Giudice's original Italian cookbook because it's informative and really helped me get comfortable with Italian cooking! Don't laugh 🤣
I graduated to Giada's cookbooks. Love her.

Over the years I purged a lot of my cookbooks but I kept Teresa, Giada, a Thai book, a Mediterranean book, a couple vegetarian and vegan books, and Martha Stewart. I kept Jamie Oliver's book because it's beautiful but I didn't have a lot of those seasonal things on hand and don't eat most of that meat. I also have a few cookie recipe magazines and a book.

I also have my own cookbook with my own recipes, adapted by me or from memory of family meals, that I know my kids want (they ask for certain recipes).

I definitely want to check out the Mexican cookbook in this list, and Jubilee for sure.

Just two…Joy and Moosewood. Neither of which survived our recent move and my purge.

I tend to agree and I would add Good Housekeeping to the list as well

The only one I've owned was Joy Of Cooking. I've borrowed and used Moosewood as well the Diet for a Small Planet but not owned

I do collect cookbooks, I have almost an entire bookcase of them. I only have 3 from this list though - Joy, Mastering and Moosewood (actually several different Moosewood cookbooks.) I own two sets of Mastering - a pretty new one and a vintage early edition I found at a fleatique last year. Joy gets the most use and I've only made a couple recipes from the others. The cookbook we've used the most in my home is Eat This, It Will Make You Feel Better (Dom Deluise) and a lot of the single topic BHG cookbooks from the 60s like - Fondue or Casseroles.

I gravitate towards cookbooks from the depression era, community cookbooks (love love love) and regional cookbooks like Charleston Receipts.


ETA: We have many of the cookbooks from BHG like this (Fondue and Tabletop Cooking) and some of them are hilarious to page through now but there are also a lot of really great recipes in these books! 

I don't own any of those cookbooks.

I do own a few books that would be considered "influential" if a similar list was made for an Australia audience, by cooks / chefs such as Margaret Fulton, Stephanie Alexander, Donna Hay, Maggie Beer etc. Then of course there is the Country Women's Association cookbook, and Cookery The Australian Way, which everyone has used in their Home Economics lessons at school since the 1960s! 

ETA: I do have several Yotam Ottolenghi cookbooks, just not the one in the article. I have Sweet, Plenty, and Plenty More.

I've only heard of The Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don't own either.

Ha.. I have only heard of one of them, the Joy of Cooking. The rest is a nope. My life didn't have fancy food in it like those cookbooks. Our cookbooks consisted of church cookbooks, The Better Homes and Garden (isn't that the red checked one?) and while I was on my own and first married, it was a Pillsbury cookbook that I still use to this day. Really the only other cookbooks that ever interest me was the Pioneer Woman ones, and I can assume those would never make a list like that. lol.

My very first 'cookbook' (which included other things) was called "Where's Mom Now That I Need Her".. it was VERY basic stuff, like how to cook an egg, or potato, etc... then stuff like how to fix things and so forth. My mom bought it for me as a joke.

I don’t own any of those. I don’t really look for cookbooks. I inherited a lot of my cookbooks from my mom. She used to buy the ones compiled by Junior Leagues and churches from all around the country. My favorites include one from Texas, one from Georgia, and a couple Hawaiian/Japanese ones from So. Cal and Hawaii.

ETA - As a kid, I did have the Betty Crocker kid’s cookbook. Anyone else have that? I remember making a few things from that book.

I have 7 or them
1. Mastering the Art of French Cooking ...Growing up in the 70's, my mother cooked her way through that book, way before the movie came out. We ate like kings and
queens.
2. Baking with Julia
3. Joy of Cooking
4. Silver Palate
5. The French Laundry
6. The River Cafe
7. Moosewood I have 3 or them plus I have 7 other Moosewood cookbooks that Mollie Katzen wrote. We're not vegetarian but love the Moosewood restaurant in Ithaca, NY. The
food is always delicious and simple.

Missing from that list, in my opinion is
1. Betty Crocker
2. Paul Prudhomme's Louisana Kitchen

I have a lot of Food Network chefs books but as much as I like them, I don't think they are influential.

I collect cookbooks. I probably have about 100 now. It donated about 200 in the last year or so. I just don't have the room in this house. I rarely buy them from a store. We go to garage sales every week just for the fun of it. I always look through the cookbooks. I usually pay just $1 for each book but less than 5 times, I've paid $2. LOL
I love to read them as if they're novels. They are very relaxing for me. As I go through them, I mark the recipes that I'd like to try with sticky tabs. We try these recipes 2-3 times a week or more. I love that my husband loves to sook as well.

I have way too many cookbooks and read them like novels. Ha

I have the Julia Child books and Moosewood. My Julia Child's are vintage and from a friend who passed away.

I do break out Moosewood a few times a year.

That Betty Crocker didn't make the list is wild to me. I think we were given 3 copies when we got married. DH breaks it out on the regular to cook standards.

I have an older copy of the Joy of Cooking and I've checked out a few of the Moosewood cookbooks from the library. I just recently picked up a different Marcella Hazan book at the library and am looking forward to trying a few of her basics - bolognese, minestrone etc.

I like reading cookbooks but don't keep that many around for reference. Just recently I was thinking that I need to thin out my collection. (Don't ask me about my Pinterest boards though lol)

i love reading physical cookbooks too. I just bought snoops cookbooks--- Snoop Dogg Cookbook Set: From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes from Tha Boss Dogg's Kitchen and Snoop Dogg Presents Goon with the Spoon. to give to my son. I do own the FannyFarmer Cookbook and my first Betty Crocker cookbook for girls and boys. i did have to replace it bettycrocker because over the past 60+ yrs the pages totally detererorated(?)