Making the Cookbook: How to Cook Everything

It took Mark Bittman four years to develop and write more than 1,500 recipes featured in the original edition of How to Cook Everything. At one point, his publisher even considered killing the project. Luckily, they didn’t—the first run of 50,000 copies sold out nearly instantaneously, and the book went on to win a slew of awards (and the loyalty of countless home cooks). Here, Bittman shares how he created a new classic.

It was a complicated time in the mid 1990's; there was lots of consolidation in publishing. At that time, Macmillan owned Joy of Cooking, and then sold the rights. The guy in charge said to my editor, “What was that big book we used to have? We should do another book, something like that.” Pam Hoenig at Macmillan called me and asked if I wanted to do something like Joy. I didn’t want to do it the way Joy was done—at that time, there were lots of people involved. I wanted to do it my way. And we did.

I had been cooking for a long time, so I just tackled it. I’d wake up every morning—really early—and write recipes. I’d cook for my kids, write more recipes, make lunch for my wife and me, then I’d write more recipes and cook more stuff. This went on for three to four years and five editors! I ended up with this enormous manuscript. My final editor, Jennifer Griffin, came on board—we still work together now—and she said to me, "What is it that I need to learn from this book?"

We had this huge manuscript, and I really didn’t know what to do with it. I told her that we needed another editor on board to help me with it, and we needed to delay publishing by six months. Jack Bishop from Boston Common Press and I worked together on the manuscript for another six months. It was a very collaborative effort—as every book project is. Jennifer, Jack, and I came up with even more variations and illustrations. We got rid of stuff that didn’t belong—like wild boar pâté or venison. Things that just really weren’t that basic. And then, at some point, we decided to include super super basic recipes for things like grilled cheese and hamburgers. As it turns out, that's the stuff I get the most comments on—people still thank me for teaching them how to make a grilled cheese.

Two early versions of the cover for How to Cook Everything

Meanwhile, my publisher is having second thoughts. Thinking this may have been a mistake, and considering not publishing the book. Finally the day came when they had to decide to publish it or not. They say timing is everything and this book came out at such an opportune time. For so long, no one cooked anything. People were ready for a big, basic cookbook. There are reasons why How to Cook Everything is how it is—I was a writer before I was a cook, so [the book] is written in plain English. I was never a chef. [The book focuses on] doing simple things, because I didn’t know how to do complicated things—I was incapable of doing other things.

Everyone hates their book after they finish it, and I was like, everyone is going to think I’m a fool! "How to Cook Everything"…are you kidding? But it worked. It immediately sold out; everyone was completely caught by surprise. It was like a hit Broadway show. It came out right before Christmas, just when Amazon was taking off; we printed 50,000 copes and it sold out. It was the number two bestselling book on Amazon for weeks and weeks—Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full was number one; I’ll never forget that.

There were so many turns when it could not have happened. When you look back at your life, everyone feels there are turning points…that was mine.

In addition to the How to Cook Everything series (which includes Vegetarian, Fast, and Basics) Bittman has been a columnist for the New York Times for more than 20 years. He recently relocated from New York City to the Bay Area to be a visiting fellow at the UC Berkeley Food Institute; his newest book, A Bone to Pick, a compilation of his New York Times op-eds, comes out in May (Pam Krauss Books).