What do you think?
Rate this book
Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook
From the personal files of America's foremost etiquette authority - a basic cookbook with easy to prepare recipes for boh simple and festive meals - everything from hors d'oeuvres to deserts. Illustrated by Andy Warhol.
811 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
2 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Amy Vanderbilt
49 books13 followersAmy Vanderbilt was an American authority on etiquette. In 1952 she published the best selling book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette. The book, later retitled Amy Vanderbilt's Etiquette, has been updated and is still in circulation today. The most recent edition was edited by Nancy Tuckerman and Nancy Dunnan. Its longtime popularity has led to it being considered a standard of etiquette writing.
She is also the author or collector of cooking materials, including the 1961 book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cook Book illustrated by Andy Warhol.
Vanderbilt descended from either an uncle or brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt and is therefore not an official descendant-member of the Vanderbilt family. She was born in New York City and worked as a part-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance when she was 16. She was educated in Switzerland and at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn before attending New York University. She worked in advertising and public relations, and published her famous book after five years of research. From 1954 to 1960 she hosted the television program It's in Good Taste and from 1960 to 1962 she hosted the radio program The Right Thing To Do. She also worked as a consultant for several agencies and organizations, including the U.S. Department of State.
On December 27, 1974, she died from multiple fractures of the skull after falling from a second-floor window in her townhouse on East 87th Street in New York. To this day, it is not clear whether her fall was accidental (most likely due to the medications she took for hypertension, which friends and relatives later said caused her to have severe dizzy spells) or whether she committed suicide.
She is also the author or collector of cooking materials, including the 1961 book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cook Book illustrated by Andy Warhol.
Vanderbilt descended from either an uncle or brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt and is therefore not an official descendant-member of the Vanderbilt family. She was born in New York City and worked as a part-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance when she was 16. She was educated in Switzerland and at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn before attending New York University. She worked in advertising and public relations, and published her famous book after five years of research. From 1954 to 1960 she hosted the television program It's in Good Taste and from 1960 to 1962 she hosted the radio program The Right Thing To Do. She also worked as a consultant for several agencies and organizations, including the U.S. Department of State.
On December 27, 1974, she died from multiple fractures of the skull after falling from a second-floor window in her townhouse on East 87th Street in New York. To this day, it is not clear whether her fall was accidental (most likely due to the medications she took for hypertension, which friends and relatives later said caused her to have severe dizzy spells) or whether she committed suicide.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 19, 2021
No one who recommends this cookbook has ever made anything from it.
A copy has sat on my bookshelf for the past four years as a curio: the cookbook produced by the paragon of etiquette, illustrated by the great Andy Worhol (before he got famous). I recently decided to try out a few of the recipes, and each thing I tried left me more disappointed than the last.
Bland. Lacking flavor or any sort of vivacity. The epitome of anti-climax. The sort of thing you’d serve to unwelcome guests to ensure the after-dinner conversation didn’t last too long. Food that makes me ashamed to be white. I could say that all these statements describe the meals I created from this cookbook, and all of them would be too forgiving.
I finally had enough this evening. I made a chicken and rice dish (Chicken Scallop, p. 158, for those of you keeping score at home). The recipe was straightforward enough, but after noticing that the extent of the spice that this dish called for was “1/8 teaspoon poultry seasoning” I knew that intense intervention was in order. By changing the method of preparing the rice (I cooked it sauteed it with onions and carrots before adding chicken stock; not my recipe, I got it from America’s Test Kitchen – The New Best Recipe, p. 216, for those of you who want to actually eat well), and adding orders of magnitude more spices of diverse form, I was able to rescue this recipe from being as bland as everything else I had made from this cookbook. Alas that I didn’t foresee how dry it would turn out, and I was nevertheless disheartened by the outcome. The only good parts of the dish were those where I had blatantly disregarded the recipe.
I don’t read food blogs. I don’t care about the personal significance of a recipe to a stranger (such conversation even with a confidante can be tedious). I prefer my cookbooks to be encyclopedias. When I’m attempting to make something for the first time, I want to know what works and why. I want to know what to look for in produce, in cutlery, in technique. My two favorite cookbooks to date are America’s Test Kitchen’s New Best Recipe (as cited above), and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I tend to think that a recipe should only be added to a cookbook once it’s been tested, and only if people like it, and with adequate instructions for consistent results.
I thought Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cookbook would reach such a standard. With the introductions, the added menus, the how-to’s, and reference tables, it seemed like a shoe in. But I guess they were right that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Or its introductions. Or menus, how-to’s, and reference tables. And especially not the notoriety of the author.
In a rage I read a slew of reviews for this cookbook. Imagine my tremendous surprise at discovering only star-studded positive reviews! So many people had only good things to say about the cookbook. Many remember the cookbook from as many as 60 years ago, from which they learned to cook, or found the personal anecdotes endearing, or referenced religiously in the early years of their marriage. One woman gave the cookbook to her newly married daughter-in-law. She clearly didn’t want the marriage to last.
Come to think of it, divorce has been steadily on the rise since the printing of the book. And the American obesity crisis has only emerged since the book went out of printing. It turns out people eat more when the food is actually edible.
I have racked my brain trying to account for the utter shame that this book brings upon the entire American people, and the only viable alternative hypothesis I can come up with is that Amy Vanderbilt was in actuality a subversive feminist mastermind. By instructing the homemakers of America to serve truly wretched meals, she created an atmosphere where the working men would be willing to let women leave the household and enter the workforce, thereby undermining the patriarchal hierarchy that held women in submissive roles. God bless her.
But in all honesty, I don’t think that this book was written as a feminist manifesto, but is really just a bad cookbook. And the general positivity with which people regard this cookbook emerges solely from fond memories of times long passed. I do not begrudge them their happy memories, but I do warn that nostalgia is a cruel mistress. Though still not as cruel as the mistress that serves you anything from this cookbook.
A copy has sat on my bookshelf for the past four years as a curio: the cookbook produced by the paragon of etiquette, illustrated by the great Andy Worhol (before he got famous). I recently decided to try out a few of the recipes, and each thing I tried left me more disappointed than the last.
Bland. Lacking flavor or any sort of vivacity. The epitome of anti-climax. The sort of thing you’d serve to unwelcome guests to ensure the after-dinner conversation didn’t last too long. Food that makes me ashamed to be white. I could say that all these statements describe the meals I created from this cookbook, and all of them would be too forgiving.
I finally had enough this evening. I made a chicken and rice dish (Chicken Scallop, p. 158, for those of you keeping score at home). The recipe was straightforward enough, but after noticing that the extent of the spice that this dish called for was “1/8 teaspoon poultry seasoning” I knew that intense intervention was in order. By changing the method of preparing the rice (I cooked it sauteed it with onions and carrots before adding chicken stock; not my recipe, I got it from America’s Test Kitchen – The New Best Recipe, p. 216, for those of you who want to actually eat well), and adding orders of magnitude more spices of diverse form, I was able to rescue this recipe from being as bland as everything else I had made from this cookbook. Alas that I didn’t foresee how dry it would turn out, and I was nevertheless disheartened by the outcome. The only good parts of the dish were those where I had blatantly disregarded the recipe.
I don’t read food blogs. I don’t care about the personal significance of a recipe to a stranger (such conversation even with a confidante can be tedious). I prefer my cookbooks to be encyclopedias. When I’m attempting to make something for the first time, I want to know what works and why. I want to know what to look for in produce, in cutlery, in technique. My two favorite cookbooks to date are America’s Test Kitchen’s New Best Recipe (as cited above), and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I tend to think that a recipe should only be added to a cookbook once it’s been tested, and only if people like it, and with adequate instructions for consistent results.
I thought Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cookbook would reach such a standard. With the introductions, the added menus, the how-to’s, and reference tables, it seemed like a shoe in. But I guess they were right that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Or its introductions. Or menus, how-to’s, and reference tables. And especially not the notoriety of the author.
In a rage I read a slew of reviews for this cookbook. Imagine my tremendous surprise at discovering only star-studded positive reviews! So many people had only good things to say about the cookbook. Many remember the cookbook from as many as 60 years ago, from which they learned to cook, or found the personal anecdotes endearing, or referenced religiously in the early years of their marriage. One woman gave the cookbook to her newly married daughter-in-law. She clearly didn’t want the marriage to last.
Come to think of it, divorce has been steadily on the rise since the printing of the book. And the American obesity crisis has only emerged since the book went out of printing. It turns out people eat more when the food is actually edible.
I have racked my brain trying to account for the utter shame that this book brings upon the entire American people, and the only viable alternative hypothesis I can come up with is that Amy Vanderbilt was in actuality a subversive feminist mastermind. By instructing the homemakers of America to serve truly wretched meals, she created an atmosphere where the working men would be willing to let women leave the household and enter the workforce, thereby undermining the patriarchal hierarchy that held women in submissive roles. God bless her.
But in all honesty, I don’t think that this book was written as a feminist manifesto, but is really just a bad cookbook. And the general positivity with which people regard this cookbook emerges solely from fond memories of times long passed. I do not begrudge them their happy memories, but I do warn that nostalgia is a cruel mistress. Though still not as cruel as the mistress that serves you anything from this cookbook.
December 9, 2021
I went through most of the recipes in this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s dated, but I find it fun to try to adapt these older recipes to modern tastes.
I collect vintage cookbooks and this is a good addition to my collection.
I collect vintage cookbooks and this is a good addition to my collection.
June 2, 2009
Try the chocolate mousse recipe, it's killer.
November 14, 2019
Donated. My copy was almost 60 years old, and I don't think I ever used it. Dated.
October 3, 2012
I like having a variety of cookbooks on hand, and this one complements my collection as the most formal and staid of them all. Most recipes are geared towards fancy dinner parties, not family meals, which is fine, except that it's not trying to make fancy dinner parties easy on you. It doesn't avoid lots of ingredients or complicated procedures.
There is a great selection of interesting recipes (though obviously it's weak in the vegetarian/vegan department), from basics like English muffins to eyebrow-raising dishes such as "prune whip." I often flip through it to get inspiration and then find a simpler version online.
There are helpful components such a solid index, reference tables, a glossary, suggested menus with accompanying illustrations of the appropriate table setting, and a "cheese chart" that describes the characteristics and uses of 40 kinds of cheese. Pretty awesome stuff.
In case you were wondering: the Andy Warhol illustrations are nice but not that crazy.
There is a great selection of interesting recipes (though obviously it's weak in the vegetarian/vegan department), from basics like English muffins to eyebrow-raising dishes such as "prune whip." I often flip through it to get inspiration and then find a simpler version online.
There are helpful components such a solid index, reference tables, a glossary, suggested menus with accompanying illustrations of the appropriate table setting, and a "cheese chart" that describes the characteristics and uses of 40 kinds of cheese. Pretty awesome stuff.
In case you were wondering: the Andy Warhol illustrations are nice but not that crazy.
December 12, 2009
The author's personal comments make the recipes homely. FYI, Andy Warhol drew the illustrations.
December 19, 2023
Favorite recipe: Champagne-Basted Turkey
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews