A cookbook 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 include:

• De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) (late 4th / early 5th century) by Apicius
• The Forme of Cury (14th century) by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England
• Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management ... (1861) by Mrs Beeton
• Various cookbooks (between 1903 and 1934) by Auguste Escoffier
• The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer (1931)
• The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) by Alice B. Toklas
• 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 already tried and tested "recipes" that others can use unchanged - for example a set of circuit designs in electronics, or the Anarchist Cookbook, a set of instructions on destruction and living outside the law.

Related topics

• List of cookbooks
• Food writing

External links

Cookbooks We Love offers cookbook reviews of the editor's favorite cookbooks.

A cookbook can also refer to a straightforward set of recipes or instructions for a specific field or activity other than cooking.