Reorganizing Cookbooks

I'm cleaning out my pantry to make room for another freezer. Had to move my big cookbook case. How do you organize all your cookbooks? I have hundreds, but I know you all have more.

I have probably just a little over 100 cookbooks. Most are shelved in a three-shelf bookcase near the kitchen that is just cookbooks and food related books. The little bit of organization I can do there is to keep my most used books on the top shelf within easy reach, and to have all my single ingredient books, such as an apple, pumpkin, coffee or maple cookbooks in a row. If I had the wall space in the kitchen I would get invisible shelves.

My cookbook collections say I have 60 titles; but I know I have more than that. I probably should do an inventory. I keep most in my office on two different bookshelves. Some I keep in my kitchen in a cabinet near my stove. I don't have a particular order to how or where the cookbooks go on the shelves in my office. The ones in the kitchen are the more frequently used titles.

I ended up sorting by cooking genre. Got rid of two totes of stuff I will never ever think of using, but I still have hundreds left. Found some that I'd forgotten about. At least they're semi organized. I'd kinda' like to do Dewey Decimal with them, but that would be time consuming. Plus, some are so old that there is no LOC or ISBN number.

I actually have about 40 cookbooks and I keep them in my spice cupboard (2 shelves for spices, 2 shelves for books). That being said, I have two oversized ones that are just in my regular bookcases.

I have more than a hundred and I keep them in a shelf in the kitchen area. About 2/5 of them are organized by publication year as I have quite a lot of old cookbooks. Then I have a section for vegetarian cookbooks, one for cheap cooking, a section for sandwiches, a small section for baking, and one for different diets. I'm not much into diets but I've got some books about it, mostly about being kind to your stomach. Under the cookbooks I have some books about food culture and eating habits in general and nearby subjects as the food industry, microwaving, canning etc. Nearly all of my cookbooks are in swedish some in english, one in norweigan, and one in french if I haven't tossed that one. I've regularly use or have at least used nearly all of my cookbooks, but mostly we use a 1970's standard cookbook.

I have a shelf in my dining area (connected to my kitchen) which has about 37 of the books I use most frequently. These include 3 binders of collected recipes from articles, one handwritten collection in a binder, a couple of reference books like Joy of Cooking and The New Larousse Gastronomique, then the cuisines and cooking I am interested in at the moment, arranged by type: French, Italian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese.

The rest of my cookbooks are either historical or literature related and I keep them in a bookcase in another room. Occasionally I use them for older cooking references and fun projects.

I have a very small apartment now and simply cannot keep adding too many books. So, I have about 5o cookbooks on shelves but my real cookbook collection is now on Kindle and I have thousands!

>6 Lispeace: My husband was Scandinavian (mother Norwegian heritage and father was Swedish heritage) so I have made some Scandinavian dishes mainly for Christmas Eve dinner. I once gave my mother Minnesota Heritage Cookbook, hand-me-down recipes (1979) and I now have it. I should re-read the cookbook.

>7 MrsLee: I got back from Egypt this past week and the guide took us to local restaurants so now I want to read more about the foods. I also like the historical reads and find the church cookbooks give me a lot of history.

mnleona I lived in Norway for a year and there's quite a difference between Swedish and norweigan Christmas food. Swedes eat mainly ham and herring and norwegians ribs, other kinds of fish and different sausages.

>11 Lispeace: For Christmas Eve we have the ribs, Swedish sausage, Swedish meat balls, sometimes herring, no longer have the lutefisk, my husband liked the rice pudding but we no longer get it and lefsa. Since I was not raised in Minnesota I did not know about these foods. I wish I had asked questions when my mother-in-law was still here. She did tell me she got the Swedish meat ball mix at a store in Minneapolis and that is where we still get the mix.
We are planning a cruise to the Norwegian fjords in July but that has changed more than once because of the covid.
Thanks for the information.

About 3-4 years ago I donated probably 30-50 cookbooks to my local Friends of the Library. It was a space issue. I spent probably a year going through each one and putting the recipes I use/wanted to try in a Word Document. Sorted the Word document alphabetically. I know that I probably missed some, but as of now, I can't tell you which ones! I have about 15 remaining that I will never get rid of, even though I have over 1000 recipes on my computer (and back up on a flash drive!)

>13 Tess_W: Did you scan the recipes or write them? I have family recipes I wrote in the computer. Backing them up is a great idea.

>14 mnleona: I typed them into a Word document.

>4 Raspberrymocha: I'd quite like to Dewey Decimal mine too, but don't for the same reasons. Librarything says I have 255 cookery books, all in the kitchen (dresser and wall shelves) except Nanny Ogg's Cookbook which lives with the fiction. They used to be strictly in order of author's surname but a couple of years ago I re-organised them geographically (which is when I realised I had no books on cookery in sub-Saharan Africa). Separate sections for vegetarian, meat and fish, historic, and General (quite a large section, that one). Plus I have a Most Used section on the most accessible shelf.

We have moved so I now have a bigger shelf for my cookbooks, but I'm thinking of downsizing. What principles would you use for downsizing your cookbook collection?

If I haven't used a recipe from it in years, or ever, it can go. If it's my go-to for one recipe, I'll write the recipe down and let the book go.

I have over 100 cookbooks. Need to down-size so they will fit in my cookbook bookcase adjacent to the kitchen. Right now some overflow to shelves in the garage. I would prefer to have them all at hand so I don't forget about them. I have small collections of Southern cookbooks, vegetarian, and kids' cookbooks. It would help me if I could organize them all somewhat by type/topic.

My categories are historical/vintage cookbooks after year of publications, home economics class cookbooks, ordinary allround cookbooks, fast cooking, cheap cooking, salads and other cookbooks for one kind of dish, vegetarian, sandwiches, healthy diet cookbooks, international cuisine and baking. I also have some books about cooking methods in general, and some about food from different perspective without a lot of recipes.