The Art Of Collecting Cookbooks

Miner del Mundo, a food consultant who hails from Manila, started in the food industry at age 19, with his first stint as chef de partie at the Legend Hotel, Palawan. He later became the sous chef for Gualtierro Marchesi, which led him to travel in Portugal, Lisbon, Paris and Milan. In 2005, he went home to the Philippines and established his consultancy firm and, as they say, the rest is history. Del Mundo wrote this fascinating article about collecting cookbooks, which I would like to pass on to you:

In my quest for collecting cookbooks, I already have 250 titles. Not much of a promising feat but maybe when I reach the age of 50, I could have a thousand at least. I had my first cookbook during second year high school. It's the Good Food Cookbook, in full-color and contains simple instructions.

My passion for collecting cookbooks was originally meant to be a collection. If you're passionate about something, you don't aim for quantity but quality. Then, you realize you have enough. Being a collector does not mean having hundreds of such items, but must enjoy what you are doing.

Here are some of the general cookbook classifications you could follow when starting your book collection. Cookbooks are divided into several categories: Type of Cuisine, Specialty Courses, Artisanal Cookbooks and Fundamental Cookbooks. The Cuisine Type Cookbook is focused on a specific country's cuisine --- Spanish, Italian, French or Filipino. One that has colored photographs is better so you could have a comparison with what you cooked. Specialty Courses focus on key areas of cooking like All Salad Recipes or the Pasta and Pizza Book, Purely Fish or Succulent Meats. They also focus on the cooking methods --- Grill, Saute and Boiling, among others. Artisanal Cookbooks are cookbooks written by chefs and are the most expensive. A three-piece collection by Fernan Adria of El Bulli, Spain costs P14,000. Fundamental Cookbooks are those made by top culinary schools like the Culinary Institute of America or the Le Cordon Bleu. You only need to purchase one title that could help you in culinary terms and techniques in case you want to pursue professional cooking.

The important thing is to enjoy and learn from these pieces of knowledge, get inspiration from and develop your own culinary style. If you want to concentrate on one area, it's fine. Just enjoy reading. Until next time. Ciao!

Chef del Mundo offers a great piece of advice about collecting knowledge and deriving inspiration from cooking over time. As time passes, modern software for collectors has been created to help manage collections of recipes that have been passed down. Now, web-based management systems such as iTaggit, have been created for storing and distributing recipes amongst friends and family as a secure means of saving your culinary heirlooms. Check out Okishorty's collection of recipes for a great example. For more on Miner del Mundo's background and accomplishments, click here. For his article in it's entirety, click here.