Leith's Cookery Bible

by Prue Leith and Caroline Waldegrave

Original publisher: Bloomsbury

Date of publication: 1991

ISBN: 074756602x

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Recommended by

Sarah Beattie

Food writer

Everyone should have a primer, a basic reference book. Over the years I have used many from Mum's Good Housekeeping Step by Cookery, through The Fanny Farmer Junior Cook Book (!), The Joy of Cooking & a generic Hamlyn book but Leith's is now the one I use to check back on basic ratios in classic recipes

Gizzi Erskine

Chef and food writer

The book that changed my life and continues to shape it to this day. I use it as a touchstone for almost all of my recipes. It communicates the base skills of how to cook so well. Whether it’s the perfect hollandaise sauce or a souffle method you can’t fail by, this is the book.

Tom Cockerill

Chef

Its title became pretty apt as my dog-eared copy (stolen from my mum’s cookbook collection) became my dependable culinary doctrine for a summer spent in Dorset blagging my way from kitchen porter to chef at a country house hotel in Studland.

Lizzie Kamenetzky

Food writer and food stylist

During my year studying at Leiths school of food and wine this was my text book and constant companion, i cooked from it every day, obeyed its rules - It's not flashy or full of pictures but this book has taught me more than any other.

Victoria Prever

Food Editor, Jewish Chronicle

I trained at Leith’s and my copy has lost both covers and is full of handwritten notes, plus my own recipes stapled onto what’s left of the front pages. A lot of basics and classics come from here.