The Joy of Cooking
arlienb said:
so is the joy of cooking cookbook really worth buying? what's your personal opinion?
That's a difficult question to answer. I collect cookbooks, so for me there are considerations other than the quality of the recipes in a book, namely the collectibility, which has to do with rarity, historical significance, etc. I have a copy of the 1936 edition of
The Joy of Cooking, a 1943 with a dust jacket, the 1975, and the 1997, all in excellent condition. I want an original 1931 -- but that's extremely rare (only 3000 copies were printed) and now runs about $1500 in good condition.
Joy is a good basic cookbook with a lot of good advice and clear instructions on thousands of dishes, from simple to complex. There are a lot of good cookbooks that can make similar claims, but many people think
Joy is the best in this regard. In short, it's a kitchen bible for many cooks.
Personally, however, I much prefer the older versions to the current edition. You might want to look on eBay for an older edition -- there are always several available, and you should be able to find a nice clean copy for under $10.
Here are a couple of sites with information about the various editions:
http://www.cookbkjj.com/college/joy.htm
http://www.simonsays.com/content/feature.cfm?sid=43&feature_id=386