Cookbook

A cookbook is a book that contains information on cooking, and a list of recipes. It may also contain information on ingredient origin, freshness, selection and quality, e.g. the Slow Food movement's ark of taste criteria.

While western cookbooks usually group recipes for main courses by the main ingredient of the dishes, Japanese cookbooks usually group them by cooking techniques (e.g., fried foods, steamed foods, and grilled foods). Both styles of cookbook have additional recipe groupings such as soups, sweets.

Famous cookbooks from the past, in chronological order, include:

De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) (late 4th / early 5th century) by Apicius
Liber de Coquina (The Book of Cookery) (late 13th / early 14th century) by two unknown authors from France and Italy
The Forme of Cury (14th century) by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England
Viandier (14th century) by Guillaume Tirel alias Taillevent
The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby (1669)
Le Cuisinier Royal (1817) by Alexandre Viard
Larousse Gastronomique, the classic book of gastronomy
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management ... (1861) by Mrs Beeton
El Cocinero Puerto - Riqueño 1859 (author unknown)
La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (1891) by Pellegrino Artusi
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) by Fannie Merritt Farmer
The Settlement Cook Book (1901) and 34 subsequent editions by Lizzie Black Kander
Various cookbooks (between 1903 and 1934) by Auguste Escoffier
The Joy of Cooking (1931) by Irma Rombauer
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) by Alice B. Toklas
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) by Julia Child
Helen Gurley Brown's Single Girl's Cookbook (1969) by Helen Gurley Brown
Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
The term cookbook is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to any book containg a straightforward set of already tried and tested recipes or instructions for a specific field or activity other than cooking, that others can use unchanged -- for example, a set of circuit designs in electronics, a book of magic spells, or the Anarchist Cookbook, a set of instructions on destruction and living outside the law.