My Mom was a very good cook. She was always trying new recipes and made sure to make our favorites regularly. Her kitchen bookshelf was packed with cookbooks which she regularly read like chapter books. It’s probably her fault that my siblings and I, and my Dad, are all good cooks. And she learned it from her mother. I’m so thankful to have a heritage of home cooks on both sides of the family.
One of my grandmothers was a self-taught wedding cake baker and decorator. The other one made everything from scratch, rarely using a recipe. Once I asked her to teach me to make her buns. She didn’t measure a single thing and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to repeat what she had done. I needed a recipe! Years later one of my aunts made a point of writing down Grandma’s recipes so we would all have a record. (All these years later I’m able to bake bread and buns from scratch with no recipe!)
It was not difficult for me to cook or bake once we got married. I made old family favorites and learned some new ones from my husband’s family.
But then my health started going downhill and I had to completely eliminate all industrial foods. That meant learning how to make everything from scratch completely. It took several years for me to get good at traditional cooking skills, but it has been so worth it.
My husband and children were already healthy, but their health improved significantly with the elimination of processed industrial foods and eating made-from-scratch home cooking every day. The home cooking also kept my worst symptoms at bay most of the time.
After 12+ years of experience with cooking and baking traditional foods, these are the three books I’d recommend to someone who wanted to learn how to cook from scratch:
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Nourishing Traditions is the best book for those who want to learn traditional/ancestral cooking skills and stop using processed industrial foods. This was my go-to book for years as I began to heal from chronic illness. There were a few recipes that were staples for me, but I mostly used it to learn the cooking skills and educate myself about health and nutrition.
Sally Fallon also includes a few appendices with many helpful tips. One appendix shares tips for how to afford traditional cooking on a budget for working mothers.
Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker
If you do not have any health problems that require the complete elimination of processed industrial foods, this is the best book to start learning how to cook from scratch. My daughter and I each have our own copy that we reference regularly!
I consider The Joy of Cooking to be an essential companion to Nourishing Traditions because it includes history of various foods and has illustrated instructions on how to do things like cut up a whole chicken, how to braid challah, etc.
The Joy of Cooking also has recipes with detailed instructions for everything, so you can follow a recipe and have things turn out well most of the time. The authors often include variations for recipes. Learning variations equips you with the skills necessary for altering other recipes as you gain experience.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
I first heard of this book on a podcast a few years ago (can’t remember which podcast!) and it intrigued me. The local public library had it, so I checked it out and started reading it. I’m pretty sure I ordered the book online before I even returned my library copy! It’s that good.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is for the folks who want to learn how to cook without recipes. It is chef school in book form and has the most fun illustrations! Samin Nosrat teaches readers how salt, fat, acid, and heat all affect food in certain ways. Her expertise gives so much understanding about why something may taste wonderful or terrible! The author’s personal stories are heart-warming. My husband is currently reading this book and we all love when he reads us an excerpt.
Conclusion
If you want to learn how to cook and bake from scratch, don’t wait any longer. Find one of these books at your local library or buy one and get started. Your taste buds and future generations will thank you.
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