Tough Times Cookbooks

[Molly53]

I read a review of a book called Pantry Cooking.



I thought it would be interesting to see which other books you all might recommend that contain recipes which are tasty but budget-friendly.

[CookieWeasel]

The Food Stamp Gourmet by William Brown, published in 1971 by Bellerophon Books of San Francisco. Illustrated by underground comix artists Greg Irons, Gilbert Shelton and David Sheridan. I love this cookbook. It's pure Sixties and brings back so many memories. The author is a poet and free spirit who worked on the Time-Life series "Foods of the World." This is not a vegetarian book by any means; every recipe but one calls for meat or poultry, and there are a couple of fish recipes as well. There's a great introduction (Don't Cook Till You Read This). I think of this book as my wise freaky kitchen guru.

[CookieWeasel]

Here's another one: The Cookbook for Poor Poets and Others (1966), The New Cookbook for Poor Poets and Others, revised & enlarged (1979) by Ann Rogers. I love the writing style; something about it reminds me of MFK Fisher. What wonderful recipes! There is Baja California Scrapple, A Portugese Pancake, Rumaki, Nasi Goreng, Corn Pudding, and a host of other interesting things to try. Really, the only significant expense will be meat and alcohol, which some of the recipes do call for.

[Molly53]

I have very fond memories of rumaki and scrapple!

The Food Stamp Gourmet is surprisingly expensive at Amazon.

Poor Poets is much more affordable! The 1979 version is available for $5.70 (used)

[CookieWeasel]

[quote="Molly53"]The Food Stamp Gourmet is surprisingly expensive at Amazon.

And to think that it was only $1.75 when it came out in 1971! I think there is a good chance it will be republished, since Bellerophon recently republished another of their cookbooks that had been OP for a long time (Eat It).