Max Hauser wrote:
> If you use the standard that a few outstanding practical recipes justify
> getting a cookbook, the Gourmet Cookbook (1950) abundantly delivers.
> (Supplements followed its publication -- I have a small collection -- and
> lately a new book under its venerable title. But this is the original
> Gourmet. Quirky, ubiquitous, and at last count the dominant mention under
> its name in Internet archives.) Recipes for herb-stuffed broilers, English
> herb cheese, various desserts and mushroom dishes demonstrate why this is
> so.

There are lots of worthwhile cookbooks by that standard. One by DeGouy
is "The Soup Book" (Dover ISBN 0-486-22998-X). "Miss Leslie's Directions
for Cookery" you already know about and have in its Dover reprint.
Another of my oddities is "Mrs Rasmussen's Book of One-Arm Cookery" by
Mary Laswell with decorations by George Price (Houghton Mifflin, 1946).
There are some good ideas in it that were almost revolutionary at the
time and are still fresh -- O'Brien au Gratin Potatoes, Huacomole,
Huevos Rancheros, "Mrs Rasmussen's Uncooked Tomato Relish" (called salsa
nowadays), to name a few. I learned from her to make macaroni and cheese
with Edam and dry mustard. I would never have thought if that on my own.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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