"Christine Dabney" > wrote in message
...
> Heya folks,
>
> A bunch of us in chat tonight got to talking about the Time-Life
> series, The Foods of The World. Seems like most of us, at least in
> chat, have a few volumes of that series.
>
> We were talking about how it was some of our first gourmet cooking,
> and about some of the dishes that were pictured there...
>
> How many of you have some or all of these volumes? Did you do any
> cooking from them? Are the pages soiled with your drooling over some
> of the dishes pictured in those books? Any favorite dishes from this
> series?
>
> Some of my volumes are heavily stained. I have the whole series..and
> I know I cooked a lot from the earlier volumes.
>
> I was googling for this series online, and realized that there were
> some noted food writers that T-L enlisted to write them...like MFK
> Fisher, Waverly Root, Joseph Wechsberg, James Beard, Craig
> Claiborne...and probably a lot more that I can't remember. My own
> series will be out of storage come this next week, and I can't wait to
> rediscover it.. Maybe even do some cooking from them...
>
> What are your experiences with this landmark series?
>
> Christine

Christine, we have almost all of them, or at least 23-24 or so. The original
Time Life series with the cookbook and the recipe book published separately
were edited by the late Michael Field. He is one of the greatest cookbook
writers ever, and his Michael Field's Cooking School still sits in the
middle of the bookshelf, along with Culinary Classics and Improvisations,
and All Manner of Food. Very sadly, he died at a young age. The series is,
by today's standards, just as good as it was then. I chase something in them
fairly often, especially if it is from a cuisine one chases rarely.
The second Time Life series was edited by Richard Olney, another great
cookbook author. I find his rhetoric, however, more difficult to follow. The
content, however, is excellent. I chase in them frequently as well.
Both can be found in used bookstores, frequently at low prices. I would
heartily recommend snatching issues up from either series.
Kent