Book v. internet for recipes

[Badger's Mate Profile]

If I find an internet recipe I like I’ll print it out. Much easier for me than juggling with an iPad in the kitchen. I hate mucky fingerprints on it! I have to keep stopping to wipe them off.

I used to do that in the W days but have given up printing at home. The last recipe I used online in the kitchen was a Benares chutney, eventually it was taken off the site so I gave in and bought the book it came from.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I was just flicking through my old copy of Larousse, and looking at how ancient the black and white photos looked, I checked the date, and it is a 1977 copy, and it made me think about the other changes that have influenced how we get our recipes since back then.

The fact that I have the book at all is down to the internet. Back in the day, it would have simply been too expensive for me to buy, and most people would hang on to their prized copy, so it would have taken a search of an enormous amount of second hand bookshops to find a copy.

The reason I bought it when I did, fairly recently, was because of the internet - found it on Amazon for probably 5p, and of course there's a whole delivery infrastructure built up around Amazon - that's why artics parade up and down our motorways throughout the night.

The other huge changes have been within the print industry. In 1979, nearly everything was printed in black and white, colour print was phenomenally expensive. "Desktop publishing" changed all that, and 30 years on we can get full colour cover to cover books for a fraction of the price we paid in 1977. And more books are sold now than ever before.

That's why I've got 350 books in my collection. In the early 80s before DTP and tinternet (and charity shops?), I probably had 15 to 20.

Here's another memory flitted across my mind: when I worked in the West end in the early 80s, there was a cookery bookshop round the corner in Charing Cross Road. Nothing but cookery books floor to ceiling!

EDIT: It may still be there for all I know, there seems to be one still in Notting Hill, although has a cafe too...
https://www.booksforcooks.com/

[Binky Profile]

With a book you can write notes re. timings and ingredients, what works and what failed, what you substituted etc. You can't do that with an internet page.

[Sakkarin Profile]

You can with MS Word!

Although I don't... I have a cupboardful of printed out pages with my notes on...

And loads of Excel "compare" files as per KK...

[Binky Profile]

That reminds me too much of the horrors of work.

I cook for pleasure, and never want to see a spreadsheet in my kitchen.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I am afraid I am a spreadsheetaholic

[dennispc Profile]

Sakks, the hard copy in my bread file is dated 05/13. I expect I added the date.

[Pampy Profile]

I gave around 500 cookery books to a charity shop when I re-fitted the kitchen. If any had a few recipes that I particularly liked, I scanned them onto my pc. Books that had a lot of recipes that I cooked were kept - about 10 in total, plus the Good Housekeeping, Larousse and Harold Gee's "On Food and Cooking" books. If I don't have a recipe for something that I want to make, I use t'internet - but still print it out! To be honest, there's only been a few occasions when I've wished that I hadn't disposed of a particular book.

[Joanbunting Profile]

With a book you can write notes re. timings and ingredients, what works and what failed, what you substituted etc. You can't do that with an internet page.

Absolutely Binky. That's my method.

[Sakkarin Profile]

If any had a few recipes that I particularly liked, I scanned them onto my pc.

I suppose it's a sign of my age, my collections of CDs, DVDs and books. I guess Millennials keep it all on a USB stick, the ultimate minimalism. If you could store clothes on a USB stick there'd be hardly any need for anything non-digital.

[Joanbunting Profile]

I have to fill my house with something sakkers ! Especially the library which is the apple of M's eye. He'd get rid of me and the cat before that!

You will gather we are noy minamilists.

[patpoyntz Profile]

That is a remarkable, App, Patpoyntz, thank you for mentioning it. I’ve been playing with it since I read your post and went to look at it!

I am glad you like that app Wic...I hope you find it useful. I haven’t printed off anything since I got it!
Late response as we have been away for a couple of days, and when I tried to post I was thought of as being spam!

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Depends
If I wasn’t to do a Felicity and compare, for example, various recipes for beef bourguignon I’ll probably look at both

If I want a recipe for something that just popped into my head I’ll search on line, unless it’s something I’ve made before and I want that same recipe which I know I have, such as looking up Elizabeth David’s ratatouille for another thread

But the thing about books is that they have a style and you know if you are likely to enjoy their the author’s version. Also they have a story that may point you at things you would like to make. For example, I read (on Kindle) MiMi Aye’s book Mandalay which though predominantly a cookbook with loads of recipes, is also a general primer on Burmese food and a history of her family. I made a Burmese chicken curry, which is the recipe I was, looking for. But because I read the rest, I accompanied it with Burmese butter lentil rice, not plain rice which is what I’d have thought of