Cookbook?

The Joy of Cooking.

River Roads 1 and 2.

The Joy of Cooking

White Trash Cooking

The New York Times Cookbook

These are good ones to start because you can learn a lot from them.

Any of the Southern Living cookbooks and Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe.

Depends on what you want to cook.. If you like Italian, Dom Deluise's cookbook is great. If you want Cajun, River Road, River Road II and Talk About Good are great.. All the Barefoot Contessa's books are good if you wanna cook like a Yankee.

Agree on River Roads, Talk About Good, Dom Deluise and definitely Cook's Illustrated. CI is teaching me stuff all the time.

Not me, Zach. I love my cookbooks and I have hundreds of them. They are all on bookshelves all over my house. The bathrooms are the only rooms without them. I wouldn't part with any one of them, even the ones I don't like so much.

I just picked up one I haven't used in 8 years and revisited and revived a recipe I like that ain't on the net. My book are treasures, with folded pages, stains and handwritten notes by me, or my Mom or my grandmother. I even buy old ones in antique stores. They are a hoot to read.

My Mom always told me if you find one good recipe in any cookbook, it was worth the purchase.

I use the net, too, but I wouldn't trade in my books.

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I wouldn't trade in my books.

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same here.. I read em cover to cover, like a text book.

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Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen needs to be one of the two.

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+1

I am on my second book(they keep falling apart)
If you are commiting to learning to cook...this book will teach you all about spices, combinations and how they effect the taste buds...will also teach you about stocks and rouxs....he will give you recipes down to the 1/4 teaspoon to make sure everything turns out right....my advice with any book or recipe you use...cook to the exact specs the first time...then make notations of any changes you may want to make...my books have a lot of notes in them. Write down changes...it's the only way you can repeat the dish each and every time.

Agree with Tav. PP's Louisiana Kitchen would be the second must book if you are starting out and looking for Louisiana cookbooks. I'm also on my 2nd PP book. Had to tranfer all my notes to the new one, which now looks like an old one again.

Also, I point out that PP's recipes on the web are NOT the same as in the original cookbook which predates his spice collection. The dishes do not taste the same and are not as good, in my experience. Get the original book AND cut the cayenne until you taste the dish as some of his recipes call for way too much for the normal or non LA eater. I nearly died when I first made the jambalaya and didn't cut the pepper. It's a good recipe sans the cayenne amounts.

What do think are the best 5 recipes in the Prudhomme La. Kitchen book?