As you might expect, I collect cookbooks. The first cookbook I bought for myself was the Peanuts Cook Book, but the one my mother used most (and I bet yours did too) was The Joy of Cooking. I actually have several copies of this venerable cookbook, from the two-paperback edition from 1974 to the 1946 hardback that my wife bought me for Christmas last year.
Recently a brief article in The Annals of Internal Medicine featured The Joy of Cooking. Brian Wansink, a food researcher at Cornell University, and his staff surveyed the seven editions of The Joy of Cooking and found that only 18 recipes have appeared in all seven editions (disappointingly, the letter does not list which ones they are). Right Size Your Recipes
