Which cookbooks are your perennials?

[Alice Levitt]

I have written before about my lifelong obsession with The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors. It has solid basics on pretty much any cuisine you can imagine. Every recipe I have tried has been tasty (I first bought a copy when I was 9) and the artwork and prose make it a great read even when you're not cooking.

I often don't use cookbooks, but prefer to when making classic European dishes. For those foods, I often use both Tony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook and The Balthazar Cookbook simultaneously to get an overview from two of the best.

When I'm reacquainting myself with the basics or trying to bake, it has to be America's Test Kitchen. When I want to make those basics a little healthier, I find Steve Raichlen's Big Flavor Cookbook indispensable.

What are your musts?

[Morganna]

I have a good housekeeping cookbook that's my steady workhorse for basic stuff.  We also have a couple of Mexican cookbooks by Nancy Zaslavsky. Those are my go to books for Mexican food.  I also really like Alton's book "I'm just here for the food", but the first three I mentioned are the ones I go to most.

[Carolyn Fox]

I just finished reading Molly Wizenburg's A Homemade Life, so I can't really comment on the recipes yet, but it is definitely a wonderful cookbook read!

Wizenburg, writer of the food blog Orangette, shares short stories about her life, connecting each to a favorite recipe.  I loved reading about the evolution of her recipes, and her stories were pretty amazing.  I'm excited to try her cabbage salad and the chocolate cake she served at her wedding.

[Undead Molly]

Best Recipe
The Moosewood Cookbook
Ye Olde Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens ring bound cookbooks

I don't buy or own many cookbooks. I've found over the years that specialty cookbooks take up more room than I can spare (having already WAY too many books taking over our home) considering how infrequently I might use one particular volume.

I use the internet more than anything else - especially epicurious. When I have something in mind that I want to make I'll often seek out several recipes from various sources and make up a Frankenrecipe using the parts I like best from each.

[Morganna]

I use the internet more than anything else - especially epicurious. When I have something in mind that I want to make I'll often seek out several recipes from various sources and make up a Frankenrecipe using the parts I like best from each.

Oh absolutely.  I do this all the time.

[Jeanne K]

Our Immigrant Ancestors was my first introduction to the wide world beyond Mexican and Chinese cooking. I hadn't heard of anyone else who used it, so thanks for the reminder (Though because I bought it when I was in my thirties, I didn't appreciate the reminder about my age...  )

A really wonderful source for Asia, including south, east, southeast and the Indian subcontinent is The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon.

One of my favorites just for reading and laughs is The Times Picayune Cookbook published in 1908, which I picked up in a used book store in New Orleans. It has all the classic creole and cajun recipes, but in those days the expectation is the cook actually goes out back to the pond and harvests the turtle, removes the shell, guts the critter and preps the meat. Instructions are provided!

[bigfatty]

Anything by Mario Batali... Simplicity is the name of the game and he is the master. 
Simple Italian Food: Recipes From my Two Villages  is a wonderful read as being one of the definitive Italian cookbooks of all time. 

White Trash Cooking II, Ernest Matthew Mickler.  Why?  It's funny as hell and, the lower income recipes are classic.   It makes a sociological statement about what it is to be a simple, neighborly group of people who make no excuses for who or what they are.  I gotta get another copy.. sigh.. I've had 3 "borrowed" from Big Fatty's.  While I'm thinking about it, I gotta replace my stuffed possum that was also "borrowed".  I know it wasn't stolen 'cause I offered up a reeward.

[dtp123]

Altough not technically a cookbook Harold Mcgee's On Food and Cooking is a must have for any chef. It goes into such detail about how and why food cooks the way it does. It gives you a deeper understanding and leads you to create your own recipes.