Why cookbooks are an essential resource in frugal homes.

Cookboks provide a touchstone within our life and provides windows into the future as well.

“I think it’s important if you’re going to write a cookbook, it should sound like you are talking — it should be things you actually believe, otherwise I’m not interested.” Anthony Bourdain

Cooking a pot of beans, my wife commented how good they smelled. Indeed, the combination of beans, onions, garlic and spices with some bacon grease thrown in were smelling rather good and making me hungry. It was not long ago that the smell of beans would invoke a mixture of nausea and happiness in me, both feelings at odds with one another.

When I was growing up, beans were often on the table when my mother’s mother was cooking. Even if she was making something as assertive as Swiss Steak and mashed potatoes, she always had some beans on the table. When I say “Beans” I’m invariably talking about “Pinto” beans, flavored with bacon, vinegar, jalapenos and a dash of molasses.

My grandmother taught me to make beans over the years when I was a child. A lesson that I invariably forgot and then would have to reinvent as I became older and started cooking for myself. My grandmother had simple staples of her cooking repertoire. Often some of the things on the table were made to extend the meal. I noticed in retrospect that I always got the good bits of chicken that I ate with wolfish gusto, and she (my grandmother) would invariably eat a wing or neck and be happy with those pieces so the grandkids could have the bigger ones.

My grandmother would often take us out to forage in the suburban area around eastern San Diego where we lived. I remember a few occasions where we would forage for wild mustard greens, filling grocery bags with the rough leaves to be cooked later with onion, bacon and white vinegar. My grandmother would prepare the greens and cook them for the family. She would serve them with corn bread and anything else we were eating at the time. My grandmother tended to cook things in her way, main dishes coming and going but the beans, greens and variations on rice would remain steadfast.

When I left home to go into the military, I learned quickly that I was impossible with money to the point of it being a detriment to my working in the military. If you are bad with money, the Military tends to get worried. I spent a few years on a type of probation but didn’t really learn anything. I assumed that when I got out of the Military, I could get a good job with a hospital. It didn’t work out that way. I ended up working in fast food for three years and then moving back to live with my parents, working as a switchboard operator and then in a bookstore. I never made enough to really pay the rent and feed myself. Luxuries like going to a restaurant were out of reach and I tended to eat at home a lot, making all of the food I ate.

Cookbooks became very important. Any book that taught you how to eat on the cheap became invaluable. Learning to cook off bits of meat like oxtail, beef cheek, heart and pigs’ feet were worthwhile to explore. Ham Hocks were a staple, off cuts of bacon and calf’s liver were weekly purchases. Without some guidance as a peer who knew how to cook such things I was on my own. Cookbooks were a lifeline.

Cookbooks can be an important part of family history. Often, they are an integral part to traditions that come and go through the year. The King Arthur Flour Cookie Compendium is an example of a book that gets lots of use in our house and is so often used, I keep it in the kitchen to avoid having to go look for it in the dining room with my other Cookbooks. The Christmas cookies, Italian bone cookies (for Halloween), and other cookies that are used year-round. This book is so often used that my son and step siblings know it by sight.

Cookbooks like “The Joy of Cooking” that can be used readily to make all sorts of commonplace things or cook a variety of routine dishes are essential to a new cook who wishes to use it to cook something unfamiliar. When we encounter deals on unfamiliar vegetables, these books are invaluable. These books can help us also stretch out repertoire and learn to use foods that are outside of our comfort zone. Kohlrabi, Broccoli Rabe, Persimmons, Parsnips and more.

Cookbooks are a gateway to gardening, foraging, purchasing from specialty markets, farmers markets, farms, beekeepers, and small wineries. Cookbooks get you traveling to another city to purchase Bottarga, 00 flour, smoked salt, za’atar, pomegranate molasses, Buddha’s hand, galangal and more. They are magic tomes that invite spaces outside of your kitchen to merge with your own.

Cookbooks are good for opening conversations, emails, dinner conversation, marriage, celebrations, baby shower cakes, Birthday cakes, graduation dinners, funeral casseroles, and everything in between. We pick them up, leaf through them, prop them up and use them, tucking photos of family friends, dogs, and birth notices in the flour dusted pages and creating a portable archive of family timelines and events.

Go out, find some new cookbooks, and open a world of possibilities, you just might find that it changes your life.