Editors Reads Verdict
The definitive American cooking reference. Nearly a century old and still the first book many professional cooks recommend to beginners — because it explains everything a home cook needs to know.
What We Loved
- The most comprehensive American cooking reference available — everything from basic technique to advanced recipes
- The explanatory approach (why, not just how) teaches cooking principles that transfer everywhere
- Continuously updated — the current edition includes contemporary dietary considerations
- Irma Rombauer's voice — practical, warm, occasionally wry — is one of American cookbook writing's greats
Minor Drawbacks
- At 1,200 pages, it is unwieldy as a regular reference
- The scope means some topics receive less depth than dedicated specialty books
- The 2019 revision divided some long-time users with its changes
Key Takeaways
- → Understanding the basic ratios and principles behind recipes allows for infinite improvisation
- → Temperature is the most important variable in most cooking — learn to control it
- → The mise en place principle (everything in its place before cooking begins) prevents almost all cooking disasters
- → Roasting, braising, sautéing, and steaming are the four fundamental techniques that underlie all others
- → A well-stocked pantry is more important than any single recipe
| Author | Irma S. Rombauer |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Scribner |
| Pages | 1200 |
| Published | January 1, 1931 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Cooking, Reference, Classic |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Every home cook — from complete beginners who need comprehensive guidance to experienced cooks who want the most trusted reference available. |
The American Cooking Bible
Irma Starkloff Rombauer self-published the first edition of The Joy of Cooking in 1931, a year after her husband’s suicide, using her $3,000 life insurance settlement to print 3,000 copies. She sold them door-to-door and at a local bookshop. When Bobbs-Merrill publishers picked it up in 1936, she had already established the book’s distinctive qualities: comprehensive coverage, explanatory approach (always explaining why, not just what), and a voice that was warm, practical, and occasionally funny.
Nearly a hundred years later, The Joy of Cooking has sold over eighteen million copies, been revised nine times, and remains the cooking reference that most professional cooks and food writers recommend to beginners. This is not nostalgia — the current edition, substantially revised in 2019, is the most comprehensive and up-to-date American cooking reference available.
What Makes It Different
Most cookbooks give you recipes. The Joy of Cooking gives you understanding. Its approach is to explain the principles behind techniques before providing recipes that demonstrate them. The chapters on eggs, on bread baking, on meat cookery, and on sauce-making begin with the science and technique, then present recipes as applications.
This makes the book genuinely educational in a way that most recipe books are not. A cook who has read and used the egg chapter can improvise egg dishes; a cook who has only followed a few egg recipes is constrained to those recipes.
The Scope
At 1,200 pages, the book covers an extraordinary range: stocks and sauces, soups, salads, vegetables, pasta, grains, breads, cakes, cookies, pastries, pies, custards, ice creams, preserves, meats, poultry, seafood, and much more. There are chapters on entertaining, on kitchen equipment, on the chemistry of baking. No other single volume approaches this comprehensive coverage.
Irma’s Voice
The voice that Irma Rombauer established and that her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker continued — practical, warm, occasionally wry, never condescending — is one of American cooking writing’s great achievements. The book talks to you like a knowledgeable friend who has cooked everything and wants to help you do the same.
Final Verdict
The Joy of Cooking is the indispensable American cooking reference. Its longevity is earned. Every serious home cook should own a copy.
Our rating: 4.7/5 — The most comprehensive and trusted American cooking reference ever published. Nearly a century old and still essential.
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