WW2 Rations 1940: per one person (adult)
Butter: 50g (2oz)
Bacon or ham: 100g (4oz)
Margarine: 100g (4oz)
Cooking fat/lard: 100g (4oz)
Sugar: 225g (8oz).
Meat: To the value of 1/2d and sometimes 1/10d – about 1lb (450g) to 12ozs (350g)
Milk: 3 pints (1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml).
Cheese: 2oz (50g) rising to 8oz (225g)
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week.
Tea: 50g (2oz).
Jam: 450g (1lb) every two months.
Dried eggs: 1 packet (12 eggs) every four weeks.
Sweets & Chocolate: 350g (12oz) every four weeks
Recipes Included
Minced Beef Roll
Curried Mutton
Spiced Beef
Meat and Macaroni Pie
Beef and Sausage Roll
Tripe and Liver Hot-Pot
Sausage and Tomato Pie
Curried Beef
Savoury Roll
Carbonade of Beef
Vegetable Marrow and Tomato
Potato Short Bread
Potato Suet Paste
Potato Pie
Potato Macaroni Pudding
Onion and Cheese Pudding
Haricot Bean Stew
Vegetable Stew
Oatmeal Sausage
Cabbage and Rice
Vegetable Pie with Mashed Potatoes
Pea Soup
Onion and Potato Soup
Butter Bean Soup
Tomato Soup
Mixed Fruit Pudding
Date and Apple Pasty
Syrup Tart
Date and Walnut Loaf
Apple Pancakes
Fig Charlotte
Pineapple Salads
Cookbook
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the music album, see The Cookbook.
Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife, 1727
A cookbook or cookery book[1] is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food.
Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first course, main course, dessert), by main ingredient, by cooking technique, alphabetically, by region or country, and so on. They may include illustrations of finished dishes and preparation steps; discussions of cooking techniques, advice on kitchen equipment, ingredients, tips, and substitutions; historical and cultural notes; and so on.
Cookbooks may be written by individual authors, who may be chefs, cooking teachers, or other food writers; they may be written by collectives; or they may be anonymous. They may be addressed to home cooks, to professional restaurant cooks, to institutional cooks, or to more specialized audiences.
Some cookbooks are didactic, with detailed recipes addressed to beginners or people learning to cook particular dishes or cuisines;[2] others are simple aide-memoires, which may document the composition of a dish or even precise measurements, but not detailed techniques.[3]
History
Early works
Apicius, De re coquinaria, an early collection of Roman recipes
18th Century Recipes for Biscuits from a private collection of recipes
See also: Category: Medieval Cookbooks
Not all cultures left written records of their culinary practices, but some examples have survived, notably three Akkadian tablets from Ancient Mesopotamia, dating to about 1700 BC, large fragments from Archestratus, the Latin Apicius and some texts from the Tang dynasty.[4][5][6]
The earliest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is De re coquinaria, written in Latin. An early version was first compiled sometime in the 1st century and has often been attributed to the Roman gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, though this has been cast in doubt by modern research. An Apicius came to designate a book of recipes. The current text appears to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century; the first print edition is from 1483. It records a mix of ancient Greek and Roman cuisine, but with few details on preparation and cooking.[7]
An abbreviated epitome entitled Apici Excerpta a Vinidario, a "pocket Apicius" by Vinidarius, "an illustrious man",[8] was made in the Carolingian era.[9] In spite of its late date it represents the last manifestation of the cuisine of Antiquity.
Medieval
Asian
The earliest cookbooks known in Arabic are those of al-Warraq (an early 10th-century compendium of recipes from the 9th and 10th centuries) and al-Baghdadi (13th century).[citation needed]
Manasollasa from India contains recipes of vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisines. While the text is not the first among Indian books to describe fermented foods, it contains a range of cuisines based on fermentation of cereals and flours.[10][11]
Chinese recipe books are known from the Tang dynasty, but most were lost.[citation needed] One of the earliest surviving Chinese-language cookbooks is Hu Sihui's "Yinshan Zhengyao" (Important Principles of Food and Drink), believed to be from 1330. Hu Sihui, Buyantu Khan's dietitian and therapist, recorded a Chinese-inflected Central Asian cuisine as eaten by the Yuan court; his recipes were adapted from foods eaten all over the Mongol Empire.[12] Eumsik dimibang, written around 1670, is the oldest Korean cookbook and the first cookbook written by a woman in East Asia.
European
After a long interval, the first recipe books to be compiled in Europe since Late Antiquity started to appear in the late thirteenth century. About a hundred are known to have survived, some fragmentary, from the age before printing.[13] The earliest genuinely medieval recipes have been found in a Danish manuscript dating from around 1300, which in turn are copies of older texts that date back to the early 13th century or perhaps earlier.[14]
Low and High German manuscripts are among the most numerous. Among them is Daz buch von guter spise ("The Book of Good Food") written c. 1350 in Würzberg and Kuchenmeysterey ("Kitchen Mastery"), the first printed German cookbook from 1485.[15] Two French collections are probably the most famous: Le Viandier ("The Provisioner") was compiled in the late 14th century by Guillaume Tirel, master chef for two French kings; and Le Menagier de Paris ("The Householder of Paris"), a household book written by an anonymous middle class Parisian in the 1390s.[16] Du fait de cuisine is another Medieval French cookbook, written in 1420.
From Southern Europe there is the 14th century Valencian manuscript Llibre de Sent Soví (1324), the Catalan Llibre de totes maneres de potatges de menjar ("The book of all recipes of dishes") and several Italian collections, notably the Venetian mid-14th century Libro per Cuoco,[17] with its 135 recipes alphabetically arranged. The printed De honesta voluptate et valetudine ("On honourable pleasure"), first published in 1475, is one of the first cookbooks based on Renaissance ideals, and, though it is as much a series of moral essays as a cookbook, has been described as "the anthology that closed the book on medieval Italian cooking".[18]
Medieval English cookbooks include The Forme of Cury and Utilis Coquinario, both written in the fourteenth century. The Forme of Cury is a cookbook authored by the chefs of Richard II. Utilis Coquinario is a similar cookbook though written by an unknown author. Another English manuscript (1390s) includes the earliest recorded recipe for ravioli, even though ravioli did not originate in England.[19]
Modern cookbooks
from Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1871, p. 48)
With the advent of the printing press in the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous books were written on how to manage households and prepare food. In Holland[20] and England[21] competition grew between the noble families as to who could prepare the most lavish banquet. By the 1660s, cookery had progressed to an art form and good cooks were in demand. Many of them published their own books detailing their recipes in competition with their rivals.[22] Many of these books have now been translated and are available online.[23]
By the 19th century, the Victorian preoccupation for domestic respectability brought about the emergence of cookery writing in its modern form. In 1796, the first known American cookbook titled, American Cookery, written by Amelia Simmons, was published in Hartford, Connecticut. Until then, the cookbooks printed and used in the Thirteen Colonies were British. The first modern cookery writer and compiler of recipes for the home was Eliza Acton. Her pioneering cookbook, Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845), was aimed at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. This was an immensely influential book, and it established the format for modern writing about cookery.[citation needed] The publication introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. It included the first recipe for Brussels sprouts.[24] Contemporary chef Delia Smith is quoted as having called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language".[25] Modern Cookery long survived her, remaining in print until 1914 and available more recently in facsimile reprint.
Acton's work was an important influence on Isabella Beeton,[26] who published Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in 24 monthly parts between 1857 and 1861. The book was a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, child care, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism.[27][28] Despite its title, most of the text consisted of recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is Mrs Beeton's Cookbook. Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. Many of the recipes were plagiarised from earlier writers, including Acton.
In 1885 the Virginia Cookery Book was published by Mary Stuart Smith.[29] In 1896 the American cook Fannie Farmer (1857–1915) published The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book which contained some 1,849 recipes.[30]
Types of cookbooks
Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls, 1957
Cookbooks that serve as basic kitchen references (sometimes known as "kitchen bibles") began to appear in the early modern period. They provided not just recipes but overall instruction for both kitchen technique and household management. Such books were written primarily for housewives and occasionally domestic servants as opposed to professional cooks, and at times books such as The Joy of Cooking (USA), La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange (France), The Art of Cookery (UK, USA), Il cucchiaio d'argento (Italy), and A Gift to Young Housewives (Russia) have served as references of record for national cuisines.
Cookbooks also tell stories of the writers themselves and reflect upon the era in which they are written. They often reveal notions of social, political, environmental or economic contexts. For example, during the era of industrialization, convenience foods were brought into many households and were integrated and present in cookbooks written in this time.[31] Related to this class are instructional cookbooks, which combine recipes with in-depth, step-by-step recipes to teach beginning cooks basic concepts and techniques. In vernacular literature, people may collect traditional recipes in family cookbooks.
While western cookbooks usually group recipes for main courses by the main ingredient of the dishes, Japanese cookbooks usually group them by cooking techniques (e.g., fried foods, steamed foods, and grilled foods). Both styles of cookbook have additional recipe groupings such as soups or sweets.
International and ethnic
Norwegian immigrant cookbook in Norwegian, published in the United States in 1899.
International and ethnic cookbooks fall into two categories: the kitchen references of other cultures, translated into other languages; and books translating the recipes of another culture into the languages, techniques, and ingredients of a new audience. The latter style often doubles as a sort of culinary travelogue, giving background and context to a recipe that the first type of book would assume its audience is already familiar with. Popular Puerto Rican cookbook, Cocina Criolla, written by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, includes recipes that are typically of traditional Puerto Rican cuisine such as mofongo and pasteles. Valldejuli's cookbook was not only important to Puerto Ricans, but also very popular in the United States where her original cookbook has since been published in several editions, including English versions. These include The Art of Caribbean Cookery - Doubleday, 1957; Puerto Rican Cookery - Pelican Publishing, 1983; and, Juntos en la Cocina (co-authored with her husband, Luis F. Valldejuli) - Pelican Publishing, 1986.[32]
Professional cookbooks
Professional cookbooks are designed for the use of working chefs and culinary students and sometimes double as textbooks for culinary schools. Such books deal not only in recipes and techniques, but often service and kitchen workflow matters. Many such books deal in substantially larger quantities than home cookbooks, such as making sauces by the liter or preparing dishes for large numbers of people in a catering setting. While the most famous of such books today are books like Le guide culinaire by Escoffier or The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America, such books go at least back to medieval times, represented then by works such as Taillevent's Viandier and Chiquart d'Amiço's Du fait de cuisine.
Single-subject
Single-subject books, usually dealing with a specific ingredient, technique, class of dishes or target group (e.g. for kids), are quite common as well. Jack Monroe for example features low budget recipes. Some imprints such as Chronicle Books have specialized in this sort of book, with books on dishes like curries, pizza, and simplified ethnic food. Popular subjects for narrow-subject books on technique include grilling/barbecue, baking, outdoor cooking, and even recipe cloning (Recipe cloning is copying commercial recipes where the original is a trade secret).[33]
Community
Community cookbooks (also known as compiled, regional, charitable, and fund-raising cookbooks) are a unique genre of culinary literature. Community cookbooks focus on home cooking, often documenting regional, ethnic, family, and societal traditions, as well as local history.[34][35] Sondra Gotlieb, for example, wrote her cookbooks on Canadian food culture by visiting people and homes by region. She gathered recipes, observed the foodways, observed the people and their traditions of each region by being in their own homes. Gotlieb did this so that she could put together a comprehensive cookbook based on the communities and individuals that make up Canada.[36] Gooseberry Patch has been publishing community-style cookbooks since 1992 and built their brand on this community.
Community cookbooks have sometimes been created to offer a counter-narrative of historical events or sustain a community through difficult times. The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women, includes recipes that illuminate histories of Black resistance, including "Nat Turner Crackling Bread."[37] The 1976 People's Philadelphia Cookbook, published by grassroots organization The People's Fund, includes recipes from members of the Black Panther Party, The United Farm Workers, and the Gay Activist Alliance of Philadelphia.[38] For In Memory's Kitchen, written in the 1940s by Jewish women interned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, women drew on their memories to contribute recipes.[39]
Chefs
Cookbooks can also document the food of a specific chef (particularly in conjunction with a cooking show) or restaurant. Many of these books, particularly those written by or for a well-established cook with a long-running TV show or popular restaurant, become part of extended series of books that can be released over the course of many years. Popular chef-authors throughout history include people such as Delia Smith, Julia Child, James Beard, Nigella Lawson, Edouard de Pomiane, Jeff Smith, Emeril Lagasse, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, Katsuyo Kobayashi, and possibly even Apicius, the semi-pseudonymous author of the Roman cookbook De re coquinaria, who shared a name with at least one other famous food figure of the ancient world.
Famous cookbooks
A page from the Forme of Cury (14th century) by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England
Famous cookbooks from the past, in chronological order, include:
De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) (late 4th / early 5th century) by Apicius
Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) (10th century) by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq
Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) (1226) by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi
Liber de Coquina (The Book of Cookery) (late 13th / early 14th century) by two unknown authors from France and Italy
Forme of Cury (14th century) by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England
Viandier (14th century) by Guillaume Tirel alias Taillevent
De honesta voluptate et valetudine (1475) by Bartolomeo Platina - the first cookbook printed in a native language (Italian) in 1487
Cookbook of Infanta Maria of Portugal (c. 1565) - the oldest extant Portuguese cookbook
The Good Huswifes Jewell (1585) by Thomas Dawson
The English Huswife (1615) by Gervase Markham
Arte de Cocina, Pastelaria, Vizcocheria e Conservaria by Francisco Martinez Montiño - palace cook of King Philip II of Spain (1680).
The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby (1669)
Eumsik dimibang (1670) by Jang Gye-hyang of Andong Jang clan
Arte de Cozinha by Domingos Rodrigues - the first cookbook printed in Portuguese (1680)
Compendium ferculorum, albo Zebranie potraw by Stanisław Czerniecki – first cookbook in Polish (1682)
The Compleat Housewife (first American edition 1742) by Eliza Smith
The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy (1747) by Hannah Glasse
Hjelpreda I Hushållningen För Unga Fruentimber (1755) by Cajsa Warg
The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769) by Elizabeth Raffald
American Cookery (1796) by Amelia Simmons
A New System of Domestic Cookery (1806) by Maria Eliza Rundell
Le Cuisinier Royal (1817) by André Viard
Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) by Eliza Acton
El Cocinero Puerto - Riqueño 1859 (author unknown)
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) by Mrs Beeton
Подарок молодым хозяйкам, A Gift to Young Housewives (first Russian edition 1861) by Elena Molokhovets
Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen (1866) by Malinda Russell – first known cookbook by an African American woman
La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (1891) by Pellegrino Artusi
The Epicurean (1894) by Charles Ranhofer
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) by Fannie Merritt Farmer
The Settlement Cook Book (1901) and 34 subsequent editions by Lizzie Black Kander
The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste, Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes (1901) by Mrs. W.G. Waters
Various cookbooks (between 1903 and 1934) by Auguste Escoffier
Edmonds Cookery Book (1908) by T.J. Edmonds Ltd
Household Searchlight Recipe Book (1931) by Ida Migliario, Zorada Z. Titus, Harriet W. Allard, and Irene Nunemaker
The Joy of Cooking (1931) by Irma Rombauer
Larousse Gastronomique (1938)
Книга о вкусной и здоровой пище, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food (first Soviet edition 1939) by the Institute of Nutrition, USSR
O Livro de Pantagruel (first edition 1946) by Bertha Rosa-Limpo
A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) by Elizabeth David
Il cucchiaio d'argento (1950)
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) by Alice B. Toklas
Cooking with the Chinese Flavor (1956) and subsequent books by Lin Tsuifeng ("Mrs. Lin Yutang")
Mrs Balbir Singh's Indian Cookery (1961) by Mrs Balbir Singh
The Artists' & Writers' Cookbook (1961) with recipes from 150 famous writers and artists[40]
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child
Ten Talents (1968) by Rosalie Hurd
Helen Gurley Brown's Single Girl's Cookbook (1969) by Helen Gurley Brown
The Fanny and Johnnie Cradock Cookery Programme (1970) by Fanny and Johnnie Cradock
Diet for a Small Planet (1971) by Frances Moore Lappé
The Vegetarian Epicure (1972) by Anna Thomas
The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (1975) by Louise Hagler
The Complete International Jewish Cookbook (1976) by Evelyn Rose
Laurel's Kitchen (1976) by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey
Moosewood Cookbook (1978) by Mollie Katzen
Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book (1980) by Maryanne Blacker and Pamela Clark
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (1997) by Deborah Madison
Collections and collectors
Several libraries have extensive collections of cookbooks.
Harvard's Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America has a collection of 20,000 cookbooks and other books on food, including the earliest American cookbook, and the personal collections and papers of Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher, and the authors of The Joy of Cooking.[41][42]
New York University's Fales Library includes a Food and Cookery Collection of over 15,000 books, including the personal libraries of James Beard, Cecily Brownstone, and Dalia Carmel.[43]
The Brotherton Library at University of Leeds holds a Designated Cookery Collection of over 8,000 books and 75 manuscripts, including the personal collections of Blanche Leigh, John Preston and Michael Bateman.[44][45]
Some individuals are notable for their collections of cookbooks, or their scholarly interest therein. Elizabeth Robins Pennell, an American critic in London from the 1880s, was an early writer on the subject, and has recently been called "one of the most well-known cookbook collectors in the world".[46] Much of her collection eventually went to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress. Held alongside hers are the thousands of gastronomic volumes donated by food chemist Katherine Bitting; their collections were evaluated in tandem in Two Loaf-Givers, by one of the LOC's curators;[47] a digital version is available.[48]
Usage outside the world of food
The term cookbook is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to any book containing a straightforward set of already tried and tested "recipes" or instructions for a specific field or activity, presented in detail so that the users who are not necessarily expert in the field can produce workable results. Examples include a set of circuit designs in electronics, a book of magic spells, or The Anarchist Cookbook, a set of instructions on destruction and living outside the law. O'Reilly Media publishes a series of books about computer programming named the Cookbook series, and each of these books contain hundreds of ready to use, cut and paste examples to solve a specific problem in a single programming language.
See also
Cooking portal
Literature portal
icon Food portal
Cuisine
Culinary art
List of women cookbook writers
Diet food
Dish (food)
Food group
Food photography
Food preparation
Food presentation
Food writing
Foodpairing
Gourmet Museum and Library
Haute cuisine
Indian Cook Books
Kitchen
List of nutrition guides
Meal
Outline of food preparation
Portion size
Recipe
Restaurant
Stove
Whole food
Wikibooks Cookbook
Notes
"Definition of cookery book | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
e.g. Mastering the Art of French Cooking
e.g. Le Répertoire de la Cuisine
Pilcher, Jeremy (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Food History. Oup USA. ISBN 9780199729937.
"Chef Breaks Code to Ancient Recipes : Babylonian Collection Now the Oldest Known to Man". Los Angeles Times. 23 May 1985. Archived from the original on 2017-01-11. Retrieved 2017-01-11.
Yale University (June 13, 2018). "Interdisciplinary team cooks 4000-year old Babylonian stews at NYU event". YouTube. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved June 29, 2018.
Adamson, Melitta Weiss. "The Greco-Roman World" in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, p. 6–7; Simon Varey, "Medieval and Renaissance Italy, A. The Peninsula" in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, pp. 85–86.
About Vinidarius himself nothing is known; he may have been a Goth, in which case his Gothic name may have been Vinithaharjis.
Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger, Apicius. A critical edition with an introduction and an English translation (Prospect Books) 2006 ISBN 1-903018-13-7, pp. 309-325
K.T. Achaya (2003). The Story of Our Food. Orient Blackswan. p. 85. ISBN 978-81-7371-293-7. Archived from the original on 2019-01-07. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
Jyoti Prakash Tamang; Kasipathy Kailasapathy (2010). Fermented Foods and Beverages of the World. CRC Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-4200-9496-1.
Hu Sihui, Paul D. Buell, Eugene N. Anderson, tr., A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Szu-Hui's Yin-Shan Cheng-Yao: Introduction, Translation, Commentary and Chinese Text (London; New York: Kegan Paul International, 2000. ISBN 0710305834), p. 1-8.
John Dickie, Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food 2008, pp50f.
Constance B. Hieatt, "Sorting Through the Titles of Medieval Dishes: What Is, or Is Not, a 'Blanc Manger'" in Food in the Middle Ages, pp. 32–33.
Melitta Weiss Adamson, "The Greco-Roman World" in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, p. 161, 182–83
Adamson (2004), pp. 103, 107.
Text printed in E. Faccioli, ed. Arte della cucina dal XIV al XIX secolo (Milan, 1966) vol. I, pp.61-105, analysed by John Dickie 2008, pp 50ff.
Simon Varey, "Medieval and Renaissance Italy, A. The Peninsula" in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, p. 92.
Constance B. Hieatt, "Medieval Britain" in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe, p. 25.
Sieben, Ria Jansen (1588). Een notable boecxtken van cokeryen.
anon (1588). The good Huswifes handmaid for Cookerie.
May, Robert (1685). The accompliſht Cook.
Judy Gerjuoy. "Medieval Cookbooks". Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
Pearce, Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World, (2004) pg 144
Interview Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine.
"Acton, Eliza (1799–1859)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Gale Research Inc. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013.(subscription required)
"General Observations on the Common Hog". Archived from the original on 2013-10-21. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
"Food in season in April 1861". Archived from the original on 2013-11-19. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
Smith, Mary Stuart (1885). Virginia Cookery Book. New York: Harper and Bros.
Cunningham, Marion (1979). The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (revised). Bantam Books, New York. ISBN 0-553-56881-7.
Melissa Fuster (2015) Writing Cuisine in the Spanish Caribbean: A Comparative Analysis of Iconic Puerto Rican and Cuban cookbooks, Food, Culture & Society, 18:4, 659-680
Melissa Fuster (2015) Writing Cuisine in the Spanish Caribbean: A Comparative Analysis of Iconic Puerto Rican and Cuban cookbooks, Food, Culture & Society, 18:4, 659-680
"Top Copycat Restaurant Recipes Revealed! - Food.com". www.food.com. Archived from the original on 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
"Answers.com". Answers.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-22. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
Bowers, Anne (1997). Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-089-5. Archived from the original on 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
Keneally, Rhona Richman. There is a Canadian Cuisine, and it is unique in all the world: Crafting National Food Culture during the Long 1960s.
scientifique., Bower, Anne. Éditeur (1997). Recipes for reading : community cookbooks, stories, histories. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-088-4. OCLC 758887232.
Gattuso, Reina (2020-01-24). "Eat Like a 1970s Radical With 'The People's Philadelphia Cookbook'". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on 2021-01-23. Retrieved 2021-02-26.
Theophano, Janet (2016). Eat my words: reading women's lives through the cookbooks they wrote. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-11194-4. OCLC 965713058.
Popova, Maria (17 April 2013). "The Artists' & Writers' Cookbook: A Rare 1961 Treasure Trove of Unusual Recipes and Creative Wit". The Marginalian.
"Collections". Archived from the original on 2014-10-26. Retrieved 2014-10-31.
Heather Atwood, "Harvard's Cookbooks Speak of Our History", Gloucester Times, August 8, 2012 full text Archived 2014-10-31 at the Wayback Machine
"Fales Library Food and Cookery Collection Development Policy" Archived 2014-11-01 at the Wayback Machine
"Cookery Collections Guide". Special Collections. Leeds University Library. Archived from the original on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
White, Eileen (2004). The English Cookery Book: Historical Essays (PDF). Prospect Books. pp. 6–27. ISBN 1-90301836-6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
""A Greedy Woman:The Long, Delicious Shelf Life of Elizabeth Robins Pennell". Cynthia D. Bertelsen. August 2009. Fine Books Magazine". Archived from the original on 2018-04-03. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
Two Loaf-Givers: Or a Tour through the Gastronomic Libraries of Katherine Golden Bitting and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. by Leonard N. Beck ISBN 0-8444-0404-7 (0-8444-0404-7)
"From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division". loc.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-03-29. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
References
Adamson, Melitta Weiss Food in Medieval Times. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. 2004. ISBN 0-313-32147-7
Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. Melitta Weiss Adamson (editor). Garland, New York. 1995. ISBN 0-8153-1345-4
Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays. edited by Melitta Weiss Adamson (editor). Routledge, New York. 2002. ISBN 0-415-92994-6
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2004). Encyclopedia of Kitchen History. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 9781579583804.
What's the Recipe? - Our hunger for cookbooks., Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 2009.
Notaker, Henry (2017). A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries. California Studies in Food and Culture. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29400-4.
External links
Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on
Table of Contents
The Wikibooks' open-content cookbook anyone can edit
Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive Archived 2015-12-09 at the Wayback Machine
Healthy Recipes by Chef Sarah Knecht's Cookbook
The Food and Cookery Collection of the Fales Library at NYU
Books for Cooks Archived 2011-04-24 at the Wayback Machine – a learning resource on the history of cookery books from the British Library
Baby food cookbooks
Feeding America at Michigan State University Digital Library—a collection of influential early American cookbooks, including a large number of books specializing in immigrant cuisine
Home Economics (including cookbooks) at Project Gutenberg
Menus and Cookbooks at The New York Public Library
Llibre de Sent Soví (1324)
Royal Baking Powder Company, with books at Project Gutenberg
vte
Cooking techniques
List of cooking techniques
Dry
Conduction
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about culinary recipes. For a discussion of semiconductor IC recipes, see Semiconductor fabrication.
A recipe in a cookbook for pancakes with the prepared ingredients
A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. Cookbooks, which are a collection of recipes, help reflect cultural identities and social changes as well as serve as educational tools. [1]
History
Early examples
Apicius, De re culinaria, an early collection of recipes.
The earliest known written recipes date to 1730 BC and were recorded on cuneiform tablets found in Mesopotamia.[2]
Other early written recipes date from approximately 1600 BC and come from an Akkadian tablet from southern Babylonia.[3] There are also works in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs depicting the preparation of food.[4]
Many ancient Greek recipes are known. Mithaecus's cookbook was an early one, but most of it has been lost; Athenaeus quotes one short recipe in his Deipnosophistae. Athenaeus mentions many other cookbooks, all of them lost.[5]
Roman recipes are known starting in the 2nd century BCE with Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura. Many authors of this period described eastern Mediterranean cooking in Greek and in Latin.[5] Some Punic recipes are known in Greek and Latin translation.[5]
The large collection of recipes De re coquinaria, conventionally titled Apicius, appeared in the 4th or 5th century and is the only complete surviving cookbook from the classical world.[5] It lists the courses served in a meal as Gustatio (appetizer), Primae Mensae (main course) and Secundae Mensae (dessert).[6] Each recipe begins with the Latin command "Take...," "Recipe...."[7]
Arabic recipes are documented starting in the 10th century; see al-Warraq and al-Baghdadi.
The earliest recipe in Persian dates from the 14th century. Several recipes have survived from the time of Safavids, including Karnameh (1521) by Mohammad Ali Bavarchi, which includes the cooking instruction of more than 130 different dishes and pastries, and Madat-ol-Hayat (1597) by Nurollah Ashpaz.[8] Recipe books from the Qajar era are numerous, the most notable being Khorak-ha-ye Irani by prince Nader Mirza.[9]
In older English works, a recipe was called a "receipt". Both words "receipt" and "recipe" were originally used to mean instructions on how to administer medicine.[10]
King Richard II of England commissioned a recipe book called Forme of Cury in 1390,[11] and around the same time, another book was published entitled Curye on Inglish, "cury" meaning cooking.[12] Both books give an impression of how food for the noble classes was prepared and served in England at that time. The luxurious taste of the aristocracy in the Early Modern Period brought with it the start of what can be called the modern recipe book. By the 15th century, numerous manuscripts were appearing detailing the recipes of the day. Many of these manuscripts give very good information and record the re-discovery of many herbs and spices including coriander, parsley, basil and rosemary, many of which had been brought back from the Crusades.[13]
A page from the Nimatnama-i-Nasiruddin-Shahi, book of delicacies and recipes. It documents the fine art of making kheer.
A page from the Nimatnama-i-Nasiruddin-Shahi, book of delicacies and recipes. It documents the fine art of making kheer.
Medieval Indian Manuscript (circa 16th century) showing samosas being served.
Medieval Indian Manuscript (circa 16th century) showing samosas being served.
Modern recipes and cooking advice
from Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1871. p.48.)
With the advent of the printing press in the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous books were written on managing households and preparing food. In Holland[14] and England[15] competition grew between the noble families as to who could prepare the most lavish banquet. By the 1660s, cookery had progressed to an art form, and good cooks were in demand. Many of them published their own books, detailing their recipes in competition with their rivals.[16] Many of these books have been translated and are available online.[17]
By the 19th century, the Victorian preoccupation for domestic respectability brought about the emergence of cookery writing in its modern form. Although eclipsed in fame and regard by Isabella Beeton, the first modern cookery writer and compiler of recipes for the home was Eliza Acton. Her pioneering cookbook, Modern Cookery for Private Families published in 1845, was aimed at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. This was immensely influential, establishing the format for modern writing about cookery. It introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. It included the first recipe for Brussels sprouts.[18] Contemporary chef Delia Smith called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language."[19] Modern Cookery long survived Acton, remaining in print until 1914 and available more recently in facsimile.
Fredrika Runeberg's original recipe from 1850s for "Runebergsbakelse"
Titlepage of Beeton's Book of Household Management
Acton's work was an important influence on Isabella Beeton,[20] who published Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in 24 monthly parts between 1857 and 1861. This was a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, child care, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism.[21][22] Of the 1,112 pages, over 900 contained recipes. Most were illustrated with coloured engravings. It is said that many of the recipes were plagiarised from earlier writers such as Acton, but the Beetons never claimed that the book's contents were original. It was intended as a reliable guide for the aspirant middle classes.
The American cook Fannie Farmer (1857–1915) published in 1896 her famous work The Boston Cooking School Cookbook which contained some 1,849 recipes.[23]
Components
An example recipe, printed from the Wikibooks Cookbook
Recipe with ingredients integrated into the method
Formatting a recipe can be done in many different ways but two formats are typical. One typical format displays information in two columns, one for instructions and one for ingredients. The other typical format displays information in a solid block paragraph alternating between the ingredients and instructions.[24]
Modern culinary recipes normally consist of several components
The name of the recipe (Origins/History of the dish).
Yield: The number of servings that the dish provides.
List all ingredients in the order of its use. Describe it in step by step instructions.
List ingredients by quantity (Can abbreviate measurements: oz instead of ounces; tbsp instead of tablespoon) [24]
How much time does it take to prepare the dish, plus cooking time for the dish.
Necessary equipment used for the dish.
Cooking procedures. Temperature and bake time if necessary.
Serving procedures (Served while warm/cold).
Review of the dish (Would you recommend this dish to a friend?).
Photograph of the dish (Optional).
Nutritional Value: Helps for dietary restrictions. Includes number of calories or grams per serving.
Recipe writers sometimes also list variations of a traditional dish, to give different tastes of the same recipes.
Recipe writers may include a narrative before or after the recipe to add to the significance of the recipe. These consist of cultural values or personal stories relating to the dish.[25]
Sub-recipes
A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe.[26]
Sub-recipes are often for spice blends, sauces, confits, pickles, preserves, jams, chutneys, or condiments.[26] Sometimes the sub-recipe calls for the ingredient to be held for several hours, overnight, or longer, which home cooks sometimes find frustrating as it means the main recipe cannot be made in a single session or day.[26][27][28] Sub-recipes discovered late and calling for an ingredient the cook does not have on hand means a special shopping trip or trying to find a substitute.[29][27]
Sub-recipes, and the cookbooks that contain them, are often described as not being targeted at casual cooks.[26][29][30] Reviewers have mentioned finding alternate uses for leftover sub-recipes.[26][29]
Cookbooks including subrecipes include Christina Tosi's Momofuku Milk Bar (2011)[31][32] and Terry Bryant's Vegetable Kingdom (2020).[33]
Internet and television recipes
By the mid-20th century, there were thousands of cookery and recipe books available. The next revolution came with the introduction of the TV cooks. The first TV cook in the world was Philip Harben with a show on the BBC called Cookery which premiered in June 1946.[34] A few months later I Love to Eat presented by James Beard became the first such program in the US.[34] TV cookery programs brought recipes to a new audience. In the early days, recipes were available by post from the BBC; later with the introduction of CEEFAX text on screen, they became available on television.
The first Internet Usenet newsgroup dedicated to cooking was net.cooks created in 1982, later becoming rec.food.cooking.[35] It served as a forum to share recipes text files and cooking techniques.
In the U.S. in 2008, there was a renewed focus on cooking at home due to the late-2000s recession.[36] Home cooking in the U.S. was similarly inspired in the early 2020s during the coronavirus pandemic.[37]
The abundance of multimedia in modern food recipes allows for recipes to be more accessible to home amateur chefs.[38] The accessibility of cookbooks online further helps home cooks improve their skills and understand the cultural identities cookbooks have. [39]
Television networks such as the Food Network and magazines are still a major source of recipe information, with international cooks and chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Rachael Ray having prime-time shows and backing them up with Internet websites giving the details of all their recipes. These were joined by reality TV shows such as Top Chef or Iron Chef, and many Internet sites offering free recipes, but cookery books remain as popular as ever.[40]
Copyright
Under U.S. copyright law, recipes are in the public domain. However, a collection of recipes, as in a cookbook, is able to be copyrighted. Additionally, information accompanying the recipe, such as photographs of the food or a headnote describing its cultural context, can be copyrighted.[41][42][43]
See also
icon Food portal
Literature portal
Cookbook
Course (food)
Culinary art
hRecipe - a microformat for marking-up recipes in web pages
List of desserts
List of foods
Rhyming recipe
References
"Food Preparation: Cooking and Cooks". Food in Colonial and Federal America: 89–124. 2005. doi:10.5040/9798400652615.ch-003. ISBN 979-8-4006-5261-5.
Winchester, Ashley. "The world's oldest-known recipes decoded". www.bbc.com. Archived from the original on 2020-06-04. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
Jean Bottéro, Textes culinaires Mésopotamiens, 1995. ISBN 0-931464-92-7; commentary at "Society of Biblical Literature". Archived from the original on 2021-09-30.
Ancient Egyptian cuisine
Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, 2003. ISBN 0-415-23259-7 p. 97-98.
"Roman food in Britain". Archived from the original on 2010-07-20. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
Colquhoun, Kate (2008) [2007]. Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking. Bloomsbury. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-747-59306-5.
"Jaam-e Jam" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2017-09-10.
"کتاب خوراکهای ایرانی". مجله تصویری فرهنگ غذا (in Persian). December 3, 2016. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
"When a Recipe Was a 'Receipt'". Merriam Webster. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
2007 Recipe Calendar. COMDA, Canada.
Hicatt, Constance B; Sharon Butler (1985). English Culinary Manuscripts of the 14C.
Austin, Thomas (1888). Ashmole and other Manuscripts.
Sieben, Ria Jansen (1588). Een notable boecxtken van cokeryen.
The good Huswifes handmaid for Cookerie. 1588.
May, Robert (1685). The accomplisht Cook.
Judy Gerjuoy. "Medieval Cookbooks". Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
Pearce, Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World, (2004) pg 144
Interview Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine.
"Acton, Eliza (1799–1859)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Gale Research Inc. January 2002. Archived from the original on 2013-05-18. Retrieved 8 January 2013.(subscription required)
General Observations on the Common Hog
"in season in April 1861". Archived from the original on 2013-11-19. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
Cunningham, Marion (1979). The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (revised). Bantam Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-553-56881-3.
Tomlinson, Graham (September 1986). "Thought for Food: A Study of Written Instructions". Symbolic Interaction. 9 (2): 201–216. doi:10.1525/si.1986.9.2.201. ISSN 0195-6086.
Floyd, Janet; Forster, Laurel (2017-03-02). The Recipe Reader (0 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315237480. ISBN 978-1-351-88319-1.
Cohen, Chris (2019-03-18). "What to Cook This Weekend: Coming to Terms With the Sub-Recipe". Saveur. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
"8 Highly Giftable Cookbooks by New York Chefs". Eater. 2020-11-25. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
Gould, Emily (2016-08-30). "Why Restaurant Cookbooks Can't Have It All". Eater. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
"A Cookbook Full of Recipes Within Recipes Can Be the Greatest of Them All". Food52. 2016-06-21. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
Benwick, Bonnie S. (2017-12-11). "Review | The best cookbooks of 2017: The inspiration you need to get dinner on the table". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 2022-12-07. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
Chang, T. Susan (19 April 2015). "'Milk Bar Life', reviewed: guilty pleasures, sweet and savory alike". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
Haupt, Melanie (2 November 2012). "Cookbook Review: Momofuku Milk Bar: Ain't nothing simple in Christina Tosi's cookbook". Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
Rao, Tejal (31 March 2020). "This Broccoli-Dill Pasta Has a Hippie Twist. Your Kids Will Love It". New York Times. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
"Timeline of Television Cooking Show Personalities". Archived from the original on 2021-05-24. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
Sack, Victor (20 October 2016), rec.food.cooking FAQ and conversion file, sec. 6.1, archived from the original on 30 August 2018, retrieved 17 February 2018
Holmes, Elizabeth (2009-05-05). "Web Recipes Are Cooking With Gas". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2017-09-27. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
"One Year Later: How the Pandemic Changed Home Cooking". Allrecipes. Archived from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
Buykx, Lucy; Petrie, Helen (December 2011). "What Cooks Needs from Multimedia and Textually Enhanced Recipes". 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia. IEEE. pp. 387–392. doi:10.1109/ism.2011.70. ISBN 978-1-4577-2015-4.
Coyle, L. Patrick (1985). Cooks' books: an affectionate guide to the literature of food and cooking. New York, N.Y: Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-87196-683-4.
Andriani, Lynn. "Cookbooks surge to top category at libraries". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2013-10-14.
"Copyright Protection in Recipes". Copyrightlaws.com.
"Navigating copyright and your recipes: What's protected".
"Copyright Protection Not Available for Names, Titles, or Short Phrases" (PDF). copyright.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 April 2016. Listings of ingredients, as in recipes, labels, or formulas. When a recipe or formula is accompanied by an explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable.
Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on
Recipes
Media related to Recipes at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of recipe at Wiktionary
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World War II
1939–1945
Also known as: Second World War, WWII
Written by
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Last Updated: Feb 24, 2025 • Article History
Quick Facts
Also called:
Second World War
Date:
September 3, 1939 - September 2, 1945
Participants:
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Soviet Union
United Kingdom
United States
Major Events:
Battle of Crete
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Battle of Saipan
Battle of Moscow
Invasion of Poland
Key People:
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler
Alessandro Pertini
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Edward O’Hare
Top Questions
What was the cause of World War II?
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News • The Latest: Opposition leader Merz set to form Germany's next government • Feb. 24, 2025, 8:53 AM ET (AP)
World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.
Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin
1 of 2
Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph StalinBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meeting at Potsdam, Germany, in July 1945 to discuss the postwar order in Europe.
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima
2 of 2
Atomic bombing of HiroshimaA gigantic mushroom cloud rising above Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, after a U.S. aircraft dropped an atomic bomb on the city, immediately killing more than 70,000 people.
Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the Soviet Union’s power to nations of eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve power in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in the world away from the states of western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union.
(Read Sir John Keegan’s Britannica entry on the Normandy Invasion.)
Axis initiative and Allied reaction
The outbreak of war
By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbour. Secret negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.
Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 pm on August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 am and at 5:00 pm, respectively. World War II had begun.
Germany invades Poland, September 1, 1939, using 45 German divisions and aerial attack. By September 20, only Warsaw held out, but final surrender came on September 29.
Britannica Quiz
Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About World War II
Forces and resources of the European combatants, 1939
Adolf Hitler
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler reviewing German troops in Poland, September 1939.
In September 1939 the Allies, namely Great Britain, France, and Poland, were together superior in industrial resources, population, and military manpower, but the German military, or Wehrmacht, because of its armament, training, doctrine, discipline, and fighting spirit, was the most efficient and effective fighting force for its size in the world. The index of military strength in September 1939 was the number of divisions that each nation could mobilize. Against Germany’s 100 infantry divisions and six armoured divisions, France had 90 infantry divisions in metropolitan France, Great Britain had 10 infantry divisions, and Poland had 30 infantry divisions, 12 cavalry brigades, and one armoured brigade (Poland had also 30 reserve infantry divisions, but these could not be mobilized quickly). A division contained from 12,000 to 25,000 men.
It was the qualitative superiority of the German infantry divisions and the number of their armoured divisions that made the difference in 1939. The firepower of a German infantry division far exceeded that of a French, British, or Polish division; the standard German division included 442 machine guns, 135 mortars, 72 antitank guns, and 24 howitzers. Allied divisions had a firepower only slightly greater than that of World War I. Germany had six armoured divisions in September 1939; the Allies, though they had a large number of tanks, had no armoured divisions at that time.
German tanks
1 of 2
German tanksGerman Pz. IV (foreground) and Pz. III (background) tanks, 1942.
Stuka
2 of 2
StukaGerman Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive-bomber.
The six armoured, or panzer, divisions of the Wehrmacht comprised some 2,400 tanks. And though Germany would subsequently expand its tank forces during the first years of the war, it was not the number of tanks that Germany had (the Allies had almost as many in September 1939) but the fact of their being organized into divisions and operated as such that was to prove decisive. In accordance with the doctrines of General Heinz Guderian, the German tanks were used in massed formations in conjunction with motorized artillery to punch holes in the enemy line and to isolate segments of the enemy, which were then surrounded and captured by motorized German infantry divisions while the tanks ranged forward to repeat the process: deep drives into enemy territory by panzer divisions were thus followed by mechanized infantry and foot soldiers. These tactics were supported by dive bombers that attacked and disrupted the enemy’s supply and communications lines and spread panic and confusion in its rear, thus further paralyzing its defensive capabilities. Mechanization was the key to the German blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” so named because of the unprecedented speed and mobility that were its salient characteristics. Tested and well-trained in maneuvers, the German panzer divisions constituted a force with no equal in Europe.
The German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, was also the best force of its kind in 1939. It was a ground-cooperation force designed to support the Army, but its planes were superior to nearly all Allied types. In the rearmament period from 1935 to 1939 the production of German combat aircraft steadily mounted. The table shows the production of German aircraft by years.
World War II events
German aircraft production by year year combat types other types
1933 0 368
1934 840 1,128
1935 1,823 1,360
1936 2,530 2,582
1937 2,651 2,955
1938 3,350 1,885
1939 4,733 3,562
The standardization of engines and airframes gave the Luftwaffe an advantage over its opponents. Germany had an operational force of 1,000 fighters and 1,050 bombers in September 1939. The Allies actually had more planes in 1939 than Germany did, but their strength was made up of many different types, some of them obsolescent. The corresponding table shows the number of first-line military aircraft available to the Allies at the outbreak of war.
Allied air strength, September 1939 aircraft British French Polish
bombers 536 463 200
fighters 608 634 300
reconnaissance 96 444 —
coastal command 216 — —
fleet air arm 204 194 —
Great Britain, which was held back by delays in the rearmament program, was producing one modern fighter in 1939, the Hurricane. A higher-performance fighter, the Spitfire, was just coming into production and did not enter the air war in numbers until 1940.
View archival footage of German troops invading Poland and forcing Europe into war
View archival footage of German troops invading Poland and forcing Europe into warIn September 1939 the Germans overrun Poland, forcing all of Europe into a state of war. From “The Second World War: Prelude to Conflict” (1963), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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The value of the French Air Force in 1939 was reduced by the number of obsolescent planes in its order of battle: 131 of the 634 fighters and nearly all of the 463 bombers. France was desperately trying to buy high-performance aircraft in the United States in 1939.
Bismarck battleship
Bismarck battleshipThe Bismarck shortly after commissioning in 1940.
At sea the odds against Germany were much greater in September 1939 than in August 1914, since the Allies in 1939 had many more large surface warships than Germany had. At sea, however, there was to be no clash between the Allied and the German massed fleets but only the individual operation of German pocket battleships and commerce raiders.
Technology of war, 1918–39
Maginot Line
Maginot LineMain entrance to the Schoenenbourg Fort on the Maginot Line, Bas-Rhin department, Alsace region, France.
When World War I ended, the experience of it seemed to vindicate the power of the defensive over the offensive. It was widely believed that a superiority in numbers of at least three to one was required for a successful offensive. Defensive concepts underlay the construction of the Maginot Line between France and Germany and of its lesser counterpart, the Siegfried Line, in the interwar years. Yet by 1918 both of the requirements for the supremacy of the offensive were at hand: tanks and planes. The battles of Cambrai (1917) and Amiens (1918) had proved that when tanks were used in masses, with surprise, and on firm and open terrain, it was possible to break through any trench system.
The Germans learned this crucial, though subtle, lesson from World War I. The Allies on the other hand felt that their victory confirmed their methods, weapons, and leadership, and in the interwar period the French and British armies were slow to introduce new weapons, methods, and doctrines. Consequently, in 1939 the British Army did not have a single armoured division, and the French tanks were distributed in small packets throughout the infantry divisions. The Germans, by contrast, began to develop large tank formations on an effective basis after their rearmament program began in 1935.
In the air the technology of war had also changed radically between 1918 and 1939. Military aircraft had increased in size, speed, and range, and for operations at sea, aircraft carriers were developed that were capable of accompanying the fastest surface ships. Among the new types of planes developed was the dive bomber, a plane designed for accurate low-altitude bombing of enemy strong points as part of the tank-plane-infantry combination. Fast low-wing monoplane fighters were developed in all countries; these aircraft were essentially flying platforms for eight to 12 machine guns installed in the wings. Light and medium bombers were also developed that could be used for the strategic bombardment of cities and military strongpoints. The threat of bomber attacks on both military and civilian targets led directly to the development of radar in England. Radar made it possible to determine the location, the distance, and the height and speed of a distant aircraft no matter what the weather was. By December 1938 there were five radar stations established on the coast of England, and 15 additional stations were begun. So, when war came in September 1939, Great Britain had a warning chain of radar stations that could tell when hostile planes were approaching.
Did WWI Lead to WWII?
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The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated as NSDAP in German and the Nazi Party in English..
Did you know? As early as 1923, in his memoir and propaganda tract "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler had predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."
After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called “Aryan,” Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary “Lebensraum,” or living space, for the German race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he secretly began the rearmament of Germany, a violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation.
Outbreak of World War II (1939)
In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it were attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.
On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin’s forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a “phony war.” At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.
World War II in the West (1940-41)
Lend-Lease Act
On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as “blitzkrieg,” or lightning war. Three days later, Hitler’s troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of Steel, and Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.
On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France’s hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain’s government, installed at Vichy France. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English Channel.
To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain extensively beginning in September 1940 until May 1941, known as the Blitz, including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain’s defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941.
Black Americans Who Served in WWII Faced Segregation and Second-Class Roles
Black Americans Who Served in WWII Faced Segregation Abroad and at Home
Some 1.2 million Black men served in the U.S. military during the war, but they were often treated as second-class citizens.
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World War II Battles, WWII Timeline
World War II Battles: Timeline
Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. Over the next six years, the conflict took more lives and destroyed more land and property around the globe than any previous war.
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Swiss mountain troops, circa 1940.
How the Neutral Countries in World War II Weren’t So Neutral
Neutrality was often more complex than simply avoiding choosing sides.
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Hitler vs. Stalin: Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)
By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler’s conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the “Lebensraum” it needed. The other half of Hitler’s strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the “Final Solution” were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans’, Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.
World War II in the Pacific (1941-43)
The Path to Pearl Harbor
With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote. Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States.
After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success against Japanese forces in a series of battles from August 1942 to February 1943, helping turn the tide further in the Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. This “island-hopping” strategy proved successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading the mainland Japan.
Toward Allied Victory in World War II (1943-45)
Battle of Stalingrad
In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini’s government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy would continue until 1945.
On the Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest combat of World War II. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered on January 31, 1943.
On June 6, 1944–celebrated as “D-Day”–the Allies began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany’s defeat in the east. Soviet troops soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), the last major German offensive of the war.
An intensive aerial bombardment in February 1945 preceded the Allied land invasion of Germany, and by the time Germany formally surrendered on May 8, Soviet forces had occupied much of the country. Hitler was already dead, having died by suicide on April 30 in his Berlin bunker.
World War II Ends (1945)
At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman (who had taken office after Roosevelt’s death in April), Churchill and Stalin discussed the ongoing war with Japan as well as the peace settlement with Germany. Post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones, to be controlled by the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France. On the divisive matter of Eastern Europe’s future, Churchill and Truman acquiesced to Stalin, as they needed Soviet cooperation in the war against Japan.
Heavy casualties sustained in the campaigns at Iwo Jima (February 1945) and Okinawa (April-June 1945), and fears of the even costlier land invasion of Japan led Truman to authorize the use of a new and devastating weapon. Developed during a top secret operation code-named The Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb was unleashed on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement declaring they would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
African American Servicemen Fight Two Wars
A tank and crew from the 761st Tank Battalion in front of the Prince Albert Memorial in Coburg, Germany, 1945. (Credit: The National Archives)
The National Archives
A tank and crew from the 761st Tank Battalion in front of the Prince Albert Memorial in Coburg, Germany, 1945.
World War II exposed a glaring paradox within the United States Armed Forces. Although more than 1 million African Americans served in the war to defeat Nazism and fascism, they did so in segregated units. The same discriminatory Jim Crow policies that were rampant in American society were reinforced by the U.S. military. Black servicemen rarely saw combat and were largely relegated to labor and supply units that were commanded by white officers.
There were several African American units that proved essential in helping to win World War II, with the Tuskegee Airmen being among the most celebrated. But the Red Ball Express, the truck convoy of mostly Black drivers were responsible for delivering essential goods to General George S. Patton’s troops on the front lines in France. The all-Black 761st Tank Battalion fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and the 92 Infantry Division, fought in fierce ground battles in Italy. Yet, despite their role in defeating fascism, the fight for equality continued for African American soldiers after the World War II ended. They remained in segregated units and lower-ranking positions, well into the Korean War, a few years after President Truman signed an executive order to desegregate the U.S. military in 1948.
World War II Casualties and Legacy
World War II proved to be the deadliest international conflict in history, taking the lives of 60 to 80 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Civilians made up an estimated 50-55 million deaths from the war, while military comprised 21 to 25 million of those lost during the war. Millions more were injured, and still more lost their homes and property.
The legacy of the war would include the spread of communism from the Soviet Union into eastern Europe as well as its eventual triumph in China, and the global shift in power from Europe to two rival superpowers–the United States and the Soviet Union–that would soon face off against each other in the Cold War.
Photo Galleries
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor. The attack killed 2,403 service members and wounded 1,178 more, and sank or destroyed six U.S. ships. They also destroyed 169 U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps planes.
Japanese torpedo bombers flew just 50 feet above the water as they fired at the U.S. ships in the harbor, while other planes strafed the decks with bullets and dropped bombs.
A sailor stands among wrecked airplanes at Ford Island Naval Air Station as he watches the explosion of the USS Shaw.
Smoke rises from the burning buildings on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor.
A sailor runs for cover past flaming wreckage hit by dive bombers that had already blasted Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field at the Kaneohe Bay Naval Station.
Smoke pouring from sinking battleship USS California (center); capsized bulk of USS Oklahoma visible (at right).
The USS Arizona explodes after a Japanese attack.
Blasted into a pile of junk by the Japanese in the sneak raid of December 7, the battleship USS Arizona lies in the mud at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Three of the dread naught's guns, at left, project from an almost completely submerged turret. The control tower leans over at a perilous angle.
A cork life preserver with a white canvas cover from battleship USS Arizona after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japanese forces trained for about a year to prepare for the attack. The Japanese attack force—which included six aircraft carriers and 420 planes—sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, on a 3,500-mile voyage to a staging area 230 miles off the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
This December 7 file image shows an aerial view of battleships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet consumed by the flames at Pearl Harbor after 360 Japanese warplanes made a massive surprise attack.
A damaged B-17C Flying Fortress bomber sits on the tarmac near Hangar Number 5 at Hickam Field, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
In a flooded dry dock, the destroyer Cassin lies partly submerged and leaning against another destroyer, the Downes. The battleship Pennsylvania, shown in the rear, remained relatively undamaged.
Two servicemen sit on the wreckage of a bomber, surrounded by dirt and sandbags, on Hickam Field after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii.
The wreckage of a Japanese torpedo plane shot down during the surprise attack on December 7 being salvaged from the bottom of Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, January 7, 1942.
Military personnel pay their respects beside the mass grave of 15 officers and others killed in the bombing attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A U.S. flag is draped over the coffins.
May 1942: Enlisted men of the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe, Hawaii, place leis on the graves of their comrades killed in the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Graves were dug along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Ulupa'U Crater at the Marine Corps Base Kaneohe can be seen in the background.
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A woman operating a hand drill while working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, in Nashville, Tennessee.
A woman works on an airplane motor at the North American Aviation, Inc., plant in Inglewood, California.
A woman worker tightens the cowling for one of the motors of a B-25 bomber being assembled in the engine department of the Inglewood plant.
How Black Women Contributed on the WWII Homefront
A group of women, with no previous industrial experience, are reconditioning used spark plugs in a converted Buick plant to produce airplane engines in Melrose Park, Illinois, 1942.
Two women workers are shown capping and inspecting tubing which goes into the manufacture of the "Vengeance" (A-31) dive bomber made at Vultee's Nashville division, Tennessee. The "Vengeance" was originally designed for the French and later adopted by the U.S. Air Force. It carried a crew of two men and was equipped with six machine guns of varying calibers.
How Black Women Contributed on the WWII Homefront
A riveter sitting on huge piece of machinery during WWII, perfectly illustrating the Rosie the Riveter-type, at Lockheed Aircraft Corp.
Women workers at the Douglas Aircraft Company install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F bomber, better known as the "Flying Fortress." The high altitude heavy bomber was built to carry a crew of seven to nine men, and carried armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions.
Women at work on C-47 Douglas cargo transport at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California
How Black Women Contributed on the WWII Homefront
A group of Black women welders kneel in coveralls and hold tools as they prepare to work on SS 'George Washington Carver,' Richmond, California, 1943.
Marcella Hart, mother of three children, works as a wiper at the at the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad roundhouse in Clinton, Iowa. She wears the iconic red bandana in "Rosie the Riveter" fashion.
A woman prepares for jobs in the Army or in industry in a camouflage class at New York University. This model has been camouflaged and photographed and she is correcting oversights detected in the camouflaging of the model defense plant.
Irma Lee McElroy, formerly an office worker, took a position at the Naval Air Base in Corpus Christi, Texas during the war. Her position was a civil service employee, and here she is seen painting the American insignia on airplane wings.
Mary Saverick stitches harnesses at the Pioneer Parachute Company Mills, in Manchester, Connecticut.
Eloise J. Ellis was appointed by civil service to be senior supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Department at the Naval Air Base in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is said to have boosted morale in her department by arranging suitable living conditions for out-of-state women employees and by helping them with their personal problems.
Two Navy wives, Eva Herzberg and Elve Burnham, entered war work after their husbands joined the service. In a Glenview, Illinois, they assemble bands for blood transfusion bottles at Baxter Laboratories.
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On June 6, 1944, more than 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops stormed 50 miles of Normandy's fiercely defended beaches in northern France in an operation that proved to be a critical turning point in World War II.
Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill knew from the start of the war that a massive invasion of mainland Europe would be critical to relieve pressure from the Soviet army fighting the Nazis in the east.
Since Operation Overlord was launched from England, the U.S. military had to ship 7 million tons of supplies to the staging area, including 450,000 tons of ammunition. Here, ammunition is shown in the town square of Morten-in-Marsh, England ahead of the invasion.
The D-Day invasion began in the pre-dawn hours of June 6 with thousands of paratroopers landing inland on the Utah and Sword beaches in an attempt to cut off exits and destroy bridges to slow Nazi reinforcements.
U.S. Army infantry men approaching Omaha Beach, Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. The first waves of American fighters were cut down in droves by German machine gun fire as they scrambled across the mine-riddled beach.
At Omaha Beach, U.S. forces persisted through the day-long slog, pushing forward to a fortified seawall and then up steep bluffs to take out the Nazi artillery posts by nightfall. Shown, wounded U.S. soldiers lean against chalk cliffs after storming Omaha Beach.
Anticipating an Allied invasion somewhere along the French coast, German forces had completed construction of the “Atlantic Wall,” a 2,400-mile line of bunkers, landmines and beach and water obstacles. Here, a land mine is blown up by Allied engineers.
Shown are massive landings at Omaha Beach after it was secured by U.S. troops. Barrage balloons keep watch overhead for German aircraft while scores of ships unload men and materials. D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in military history. Less than a year later, on May 7, 1945, Germany would surrender.
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Holocaust
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime set up networks of concentration camps before and during World War II to carry out a plan of genocide. Hitler's "final solution" called for the eradication of Jewish people and other "undesirables," including homosexuals, Roma and people with disabilities. The children pictured here were held at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Wobbelin Concentration Camp
Survivors at the Wobbelin concentration camp in northern Germany were found by the U.S. Ninth Army in May 1945. Here, one man breaks out in tears when he finds he is not leaving with the first group to be taken to the hospital.
Survivors at Buchenwald concentration camp are shown in their barracks after liberation by the Allies in April 1945. The camp was located in a wooded area in Ettersberg, Germany, just east of Weimar. Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize winning author of Night, is on the second bunk from the bottom, seventh from the left.
Liberation of Auschwitz
Fifteen-year-old Ivan Dudnik was brought to Auschwitz from his home in the Oryol region of Russia by the Nazis. While being rescued after the liberation of Auschwitz, he had reportedly gone insane after witnessing mass horrors and tragedies at the camp.
Ludwigiust Concentration Camp
Allied troops are shown in May 1945 discovering Holocaust victims in a railroad car that did not arrive at its final destination. It was believed this car was on a journey to the Wobbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust, Germany where many of the prisoners died along the way.
Holocaust Concentration Camps
A total of 6 million lives were lost as a result of the Holocaust. Here, a pile of human bones and skulls is seen in 1944 at the Majdanek concentration camp in the outskirts of Lublin, Poland. Majdanek was the second largest death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland after Auschwitz.
Buchenwald Concentration Camp
A body is seen in a crematory oven in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany in April 1945. This camp not only imprisoned Jews, it also included Jehovah’s Witnesses, gypsies, German military deserters, prisoners of war, and repeat criminals.
Auschwitz
Auschwitz camp, as seen in April 2015. Nearly 1.3 million people were deported to the camp and more than 1.1 million perished. Although Auschwitz had the highest death rate, it also had the highest survival rate of all the killing centers.
Holocaust Concentration Camps
Prosthetic legs and crutches are a part of a permanent exhibition in the Auschwitz Museum. On July 14, 1933, the Nazi government enforced the “Law for Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases” in their attempt to achieve a purer “master” race. This called for the sterilization of people with mental illness, deformities, and a variety of other disabilities. Hitler later took it to more extreme measures and between 1940 and 1941, 70,000 disabled Austrians and Germans were murdered. Some 275,000 disabled people were murdered by the end of the war.
Holocaust Concentration Camps
A pile of footwear are also a part of the Auschwitz Museum.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 calling for the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. The Mochida family, pictured here, were some of the 117,000 people that would be forced into prison camps scattered throughout the country by that June.
This Oakland, California grocery was owned by a Japanese-American and graduate of the University of California. The day after the Pearl Harbor attacks he put up his 'I Am An American' sign to prove his patriotism. Soon afterward, the government shut down the shop and forced the owner to a prison camp.
Accommodations for Japanese-Americans at the Santa Anita "reception center," Los Angeles County, California. April 1942.
The first group of 82 Japanese Americans arrive at the Manzanar "War Relocation Center" carrying their belongings in suitcases and bags, Owens Valley, California, in March 21, 1942. Manzanar was one of the first 10 prison camps opened in the United States, and its peak population, before it was closed in November 1945, was over 10,000 people.
Children of the Weill public school, from the so-called international settlement, are shown in a flag pledge ceremony in April of 1942. Those of Japanese ancestry were soon moved to War Relocation Authority centers.
A young Japanese American girl standing with her doll, waiting to travel with her parents to Owens Valley, during the forced removal of Japanese Americans under the U.S. Army war emergency order, in Los Angeles, California, April 1942.
The last Redondo Beach residents of Japanese ancestry were forcibly moved out by truck to relocation camps.
Crowds seen waiting for registration at Reception Centers in Santa Anita, California, April 1942.
Japanese Americans were incarcerated in crowded conditions at Santa Anita.
Risa and Yasubei Hirano pose with their son George (left) while holding a photograph of their other son, U.S. serviceman Shigera Hirano. The Hiranos were held at the Colorado River camp. Shigera served in the U.S. Army in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team while his family was incarcerated.
An American soldier guarding a crowd of Japanese American prisoners at an prisoner camp at Manzanar, California in 1944.
Japanese American prisoners at the Gila River Relocation Center greet First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Dillon S Myer, director of the War Relocation Authority, on a tour of inspection in Rivers, Arizona.
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An atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy," was dropped over Hiroshima Japan on August 6, 1945. The bomb, which detonated with an energy of around 15 kilotons of TNT, was the first nuclear weapon deployed in wartime.
The men who made the historic flight over Hiroshima to drop the first atomic bomb. Top: Flight crew of Enola Gay, attackers of Hiroshima. Left to right kneeling; Staff Sergeant George R. Caron; Sergeant Joe Stiborik; Staff Sergeant Wyatt E. Duzenbury; Private first class Richard H. Nelson; Sergeant Robert H. Shurard. Left to right standing; Major Thomas W. Ferebee, Group Bombardier; Major Theodore Van Kirk, Navigator; Colonel Paul W. Tibbetts, 509th Group Commander and Pilot; Captain Robert A. Lewis, Airplane Commander. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)
The crew of the Boeing B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, which made the flight over Hiroshima to drop the first atomic bomb. Left to right kneeling; Staff Sergeant George R. Caron; Sergeant Joe Stiborik; Staff Sergeant Wyatt E. Duzenbury; Private first class Richard H. Nelson; Sergeant Robert H. Shurard. Left to right standing; Major Thomas W. Ferebee, Group Bombardier; Major Theodore Van Kirk, Navigator; Colonel Paul W. Tibbetts, 509th Group Commander and Pilot; Captain Robert A. Lewis, Airplane Commander.
A view of the atomic bomb as it is hoisted into the bay of the Enola Gay on the North Field of Tinian airbase, North Marianas Islands, early August, 1945.
Hiroshima in ruins after the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The circle indicates the target of the bomb. The bomb directly killed an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought the total number of deaths to between 90,000 and 166,000.
The plutonium bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," is shown in transport. It would be the second nuclear bomb dropped by U.S. forces in World War II.
7th September 1945: View of one of the only structures left standing, one day after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The building, also known as the Genbaku Dome, is now the centerpiece of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
An Allied correspondent stands in rubble on September 7, 1945, looking to the ruins of a cinema after the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.
Children in Hiroshima, Japan are shown wearing masks to combat the odor of death after the city was destroyed two months earlier.
Survivors hospitalized in Hiroshima show their bodies covered with keloids caused by the atomic bomb.
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World War II was more destructive than any war before it. An estimated 45-60 million people lost their lives and millions more were injured. Here, Private Sam Macchia from New York City returns home, wounded in both legs, to his elated family.
A parish priest waves a newspaper with news of Germany's unconditional surrender to elated pupils of a Roman Catholic parochial school in Chicago.
Merchant Marine Bill Eckert wildy impersonates Hitler as a reveler playfully chokes him amidst a crowd in Times Square during a massive V-E Day celebration.
Young people in a car celebrate victory in Europe at the end of World War II, in Baltimore, Maryland, May 8, 1945.
People crowd on top of a van during a V-E Day celebration in London.
Patients at England's Horley Military Hospital, all severely wounded in France and Italy, celebrate V-E Day with nursing staff.
U.S. war veterans returning home from Europe, on a converted troop ship.
Wall Street is jammed as Financial District workers celebrate the reported end of the war in Europe. Celebrants clamber over the statue of George Washington as thousands of others stand amid falling ticker tape.
Wounded veteran Arthur Moore looks up as he watches the ticker tape rain down from New York buildings.
Private B. Potts of the Middlesex Regiment makes a "V" sign from the porthole of the hospital ship "Atlantis" as he arrives home from World War II with an injury.
A British soldier arrives home to a happy wife and son after serving in World War II.
Sailors and Washington, D.C. residents dance the conga in Lafayette Park, waiting for President Truman to announce the surrender of Japan in World War II.
Soldiers hug while being lifted onto the shoulders of a crowd on VJ Day, in Newark, New Jersey, August 18, 1945.
U.S. servicemen in the sick bay of the S.S. Casablanca smile and point to a newspaper on August 15, 1945 with the headline "JAPS QUIT!" after the Japanese surrender in World War II.
An apartment house on 107th Street in New York City is decorated for celebration at the end of World War II (V-J Day).
A V-J Day rally in New York City's Little Italy on September 2, 1945. Local residents set fire to a heap of crates to celebrate the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II.
Joyous American soldiers and WACS fresh from bed parade through the London night celebrating V-J Day and the end of WWII.
A women jumps into the arms of a soldier upon his return from World War II, New York, NY, 1945.
An American soldier with lipstick on his face after V-J day celebrations.
Soldiers celebrating victory over Japan in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 15, 1945.
The 42nd Regiment arrive back home to Hawaii on July 2, 1946. They are greeted by cheering friends and loved ones throwing leis.
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By: History.com Editors
HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.
Citation Information
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World War II
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history
Date Accessed
February 26, 2025
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Last Updated
August 7, 2024
Original Published Date
October 29, 2009
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Our 55 Best Dinner Recipes of All Time
By Emily Boyette
Emily Boyette
Emily Boyette
Emily Boyette is a highly qualified editor within the food media industry with eight-plus years of experience. From galleries and listicles to recipe manuscripts and articles, her knowledge of cooking goes beyond text. Emily is a writer for Allrecipes.
Allrecipes' editorial guidelines
and Sarra Sedghi Updated on June 29, 2023
Okonomiyaki-Inspired Crispy Rice
Close
serving of World's Best Lasagna on a white plate with a fork
Photo: TheWickedNoodle
No more scouring reviews before attempting that dish you've been dying to make. We've done the work for you by rounding up the dinner recipes that have earned thousands of 5-star reviews from our Allrecipes community of home cooks. Scroll through for our 55 most foolproof, best-of-the-best dinner recipes, including chicken pot pie, lasagna, enchiladas, beef stir-fry, and more.
01
of 56
Mom's Chicken Pot Pie
View Recipe
This family recipe for chicken pot pie is creamy, cozy, and comforting! Using a store-bought pie crust is a smart shortcut that makes this pot pie easy enough for weeknight dinners.
02
of 56
World's Best Lasagna
View Recipe
serving of World's Best Lasagna on a white plate with a fork
TheWickedNoodle
Just how popular is this top-rated lasagna? It's garnered more than 19,000 ratings and 20,000 reviews! The secret to this 5-star recipe is the delectable, slow-simmering meat sauce and three kinds of cheese. This is a perfect recipe to make on a weekend when you'll have time to simmer the sauce so the flavors can bloom.
03
of 56
Scott Hibb's Amazing Whisky Grilled Baby Back Ribs
View Recipe
image
Unknown
Scott Hibb's amazing whiskey grilled baby back ribs are a treat that any barbecue lover will enjoy. When your guests bite into these mouthwatering ribs, they'll savor meat so tender and juicy that it slides right off the bone.
04
of 56
Cajun Seafood Pasta
View Recipe
This Cajun seafood pasta recipe is a hot one, but delicious! And, you can easily adjust the spices to suit your taste. It can be prepared either in a skillet or in a casserole dish and placed under the broiler until the top turns golden brown.
05
of 56
Garlic-Brown Sugar Chicken Thighs
View Recipe
You've got to try these garlic-brown sugar chicken thighs. The crunchy chicken skin and brown sugar pan sauce from this recipe are a winning combination.
06
of 56
Amazing Spicy Grilled Shrimp
View Recipe
Simple and easy grilled shrimp! This marinade is super flavorful — full of spice, a touch of sweet, and refreshing lemon. Savory and superb!
15 Fish & Seafood Recipes for Picky Eaters
07
of 56
Creamy Herbed Pork Chops
View Recipe
Delicious and easy-to-make pork chops with a creamy pan sauce! Pan-fry in butter and savory spices for the perfect tender and flavorful pork chop.
08
of 56
Bacon-Ranch Chicken Enchiladas
View Recipe
bacon ranch chicken enchiladas
Allrecipes
Add a zesty twist of ranch and bacon to your enchiladas for a perfect weeknight dinner! These enchiladas don't claim to be authentic, but they are absolutely delicious!
09
of 56
Black Pepper Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry
View Recipe
black pepper beef and cabbage stir-fry
Allrecipes
Cabbage, red bell pepper, and beef combine beautifully with soy sauce and garlic for a simple, but flavorful dish. Serve over a bed of steamed rice.
10
of 56
My Chicken Parmesan
View Recipe
image
Unknown
This epic chicken Parmesan is one for the books! Use chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts for the perfect portion sizes, and bake over a bed of tomato-coated angel hair with ooey gooey cheese on top. Serve with garlic bread and enjoy!
11
of 56
Pistachio Crusted Rack of Lamb
View Recipe
Lamb is intimidating and pricey, but if you want to impress someone with a fancier meal, this rack of lamb recipe will definitely please the crowd. The mixture of Dijon mustard, herbs de Provence, and chopped pistachios creates crunch and irresistible flavor.
12
of 56
Curry Stand Chicken Tikka Masala Sauce
View Recipe
"[This] tastes just like the Tikka Masala from our favorite Indian restaurant, we are in love," says community member Stephicus. "And it really is surprisingly simple! Because there are so many; the ingredient list may look daunting to the novice, but the directions are so simple and direct that it should be no problem."
Our Best Indian Recipes for Beginner Cooks
13
of 56
Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Herb-Garlic-Pepper Coating
View Recipe
"Thanks for this awesome recipe," says community member MaryD. "So far I have made it twice. The first time was for Mother's Day. The wet rub is fabulous and came out wonderfully. The really great thing about this recipe is the fool-proof grilling directions. Follow them precisely and you will not be disappointed."
14
of 56
Chef John's Baked Mushroom Risotto
View Recipe
If you've never made risotto before, this recipe is a great place to start since it's easier than the standard risotto recipe. It's ultra-creamy, comforting, and tastes just like risotto made on the stovetop.
13 Delicious Ways to Make Instant Pot Risotto
15
of 56
Veracruz-Style Red Snapper
View Recipe
Give snapper (or any flaky, white fish) a major kick with fresh herbs and delightfully acidic capers. It looks complicated, but it's actually simple and comes together in just 40 minutes.
16
of 56
Chef John's Coq Au Vin
View Recipe
Want to make a pack of chicken thighs really shine? Make this classic French dish and blow away the dinner table. The red wine glaze gives the chicken and mushrooms an acidic sweetness that pairs well with roasted vegetables or a salad.
17
of 56
Pork Carnitas
View Recipe
Carnitas are so easy to prepare that they belong in your meal rotation, and this recipe delivers on flavor. You can easily adjust this to work with a different cut of pork or make it in the slow cooker.
18
of 56
Blackened Tuna Steaks with Mango Salsa
View Recipe
"My family loves fresh tuna but we don't get it very often. This was a very tasty way to prepare fresh tuna," says community member EOUGH. "The salsa was zippy and went well with the tuna. The whole family really enjoyed this. Make sure to use a flipper to flip your fish in the pan rather than tongs so it doesn't fall apart."
19
of 56
Cedar Planked Salmon
View Recipe
Salmon reaches its full potential when it's grilled on top of a cedar plank, and this cedar planked salmon recipe does not disappoint. If you don't have a grill, you can make it in the oven at 350 degrees F.
20
of 56
Quick and Easy Paella
View Recipe
image
Unknown
If you want to learn how to make paella, this gateway recipe by Chef John is a good place to start. Once you're comfortable with the method, try adding additional forms of protein. Be sure to save your shrimp shells, because they're the key to making a flavorful broth.
21
of 56
Four Cheese Margherita Pizza
View Recipe
Light on the ingredients but packed with savory flavor, this easy pizza gets a nice salinity and creaminess thanks to the addition of feta cheese. To really make those tomatoes pop, marinate them in the olive oil, salt, and garlic mixture for an hour.
22
of 56
How to Cook Trout
View Recipe
This might just be our simplest fish recipe in Allrecipes history. With a handful of staple ingredients, a sheet pan, and 25 minutes, you can easily put together an incredible fish dinner.
23
of 56
Turkish Chicken Kebabs
View Recipe
For this recipe, the secret's in the sauce — well, marinade. A combination of Greek yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, spices, and ketchup guarantees outstanding flavor, even if you're not an experienced griller. The chicken comes out juicy and succulent, and the cooking process is simple.
24
of 56
Chef John's Brazilian Fish Stew
View Recipe
This recipe is written around sea bass, but any flaky white fish, such as halibut, haddock, or even catfish will work in this flavorful stew. It's impressive, but comes together in just about 30 minutes.
25
of 56
Chef John's Stuffed Peppers
View Recipe
Chef John's Stuffed Peppers
Photo by KGora.
"Although I've been using allrecipes for over 10 years, I've never found a recipe that I've enjoyed so much that I would join just to rate it, until now," says community member Tastebuddy.
26
of 56
Southern-Style Oven-Fried Catfish
View Recipe
close up view of Southern-Style Oven-Fried Catfish served with corn salsa and a lemon wedge on an orange plate
Allrecipes Magazine
"This recipe was just What I needed to make my baked catfish good," says Allrecipes member Sean C. "Followed directions exactly and the family enjoyed tremendously. I will make it again and again."
27
of 56
Chicken Chimichangas with Sour Cream Sauce
View Recipe
Prep a big batch of the chicken ahead of time and you'll have some effortless dinners in your future. You can also make these with an air fryer or the convection setting on your oven for a little less mess.
28
of 56
Baked Ziti I
View Recipe
a serving of mozzarella-topped baked ziti in a white bowl, garnished with a basil sprig
chibi chef
This is a flexible and forgiving baked ziti recipe that'll work with sausage, ground turkey, ricotta, and cottage cheese. It's also great without the meat, so you can easily adapt it to suit a vegetarian diet.
29
of 56
Chef John's Italian Meatballs
View Recipe
Italian meatballs in tomato sauce
happyschmoopies
Meatballs are already pretty easy, but this recipe, which utilizes the oven instead of a frying pan, is even more seamless. To really take them over the top, simmer them in your favorite tomato sauce for 1-2 hours after they come out of the oven.
30
of 56
Chef John's Beans and Greens
View Recipe
Escarole and cannellini beans are the base for this hearty, nutritious, and affordable meal. If you don't have anchovies on hand, try using some leftover ham or a strip of bacon with the fatty parts removed.
15 Quick Meals That Start With a Can of Black Beans
31
of 56
Quick Chicken Piccata
View Recipe
quick chicken piccata over spaghetti
Sydney Bassing
This foolproof chicken piccata is just waiting to hit your dinner plate. It has a lovely, slightly acidic flavor from the capers, lemon, juice, and white wine that ultimately helps the buttery poultry sing even more. Serve over your favorite pasta, or angel hair.
32
of 56
Beef Bulgogi
View Recipe
"Okay I'm that guy who is just starting to cook....I'm still pretty bad, no lie," says community member tbender36. "But when I made this dish last night, I felt like a chef. This was the best thing I've ever made and words cannot describe how delicious this was. There's no way you can screw this up unless you cook the London broil too long or don't slice it thin enough."
12 Super-Flavorful Korean Beef Recipes
33
of 56
Bow Ties with Sausage, Tomatoes and Cream
View Recipe
Hearty and satisfying, this simple recipe comes together in 45 minutes and only requires 10 ingredients (two of which are olive oil and salt). The cream sauce helps balance out the savory notes and grease from the sausage.
34
of 56
Chef John's Spaghetti with Red Clam Sauce
View Recipe
This pasta takes 20 minutes total, and the only prep work required is mashing your garlic and chopping some herbs. "This is too quick and too easy to taste this good," says community member Amanda Becker. "This recipe is going into our rotation."
35
of 56
Best Ever Meat Loaf
View Recipe
"This was absolutely the best meatloaf I have ever made, or had for that matter, in my life," says community member Donna. "I highly recommend it. The savory sweet glaze is fantastic!"
36
of 56
Baked Spaghetti
View Recipe
a serving of spaghetti baked with ground beef, 3 cheeses, and a tomato-based sauce on a green plate
abluejean70
If you think pasta can't get more comforting, then you haven't tasted a spaghetti bake like this. The addition of eggs, cheese, and butter takes everything up a notch, and the dish is the perfect size for a group.
37
of 56
General Tsao's Chicken II
View Recipe
"Don't be fooled by other General Tsao impostors: this is simply the best Chinese chicken you will ever have," says creator ChefDaddy. "With a flair of peanut oil, a streak of sesame, a dash of orange, and a sweet spot for hot, this is sure to be a favorite. Just don't forget to deep-fry twice!"
38
of 56
Cindy's Jambalaya
View Recipe
This one-pot jambalaya recipe is so easy, and works well with other ingredients — so feel free to add whatever meat or seafood you want. Community member Mike recommends sautéing the rice until it's white before adding the wet ingredients to make the rice "grain for grain."
39
of 56
Homemade Pho
View Recipe
overhead view of pho in white bowl with chopsticks on the side
Dotdash Meredith Food Studios
"A slightly lengthy process but outstanding and easy," says one Allrecipes member. Could not get star anise — I used authentic Thai basil as a garnish adds plenty of the anise flavor. I use thin sliced flank across the grain for extra tender meat."
40
of 56
Oven Pot Roast
View Recipe
2560103-oven-pot-roast-photo-by-renny-sabina
Renny Sabina
"I've never had much success with making roasts. They always end up tough and hard to cut," says community member Kim Toth Smiley. "This recipe was so easy, and everyone in the house LOVED it and raved over it. Out of 5 people, there are no leftovers."
41
of 56
Simple Garlic Shrimp
View Recipe
This simple shrimp recipe gets lots of flavor from garlic, caper brine, and lemon juice. For best possible results, go ahead and set out everything you need before you start cooking. This way, you won't overcook the shrimp.
42
of 56
Braised Corned Beef Brisket
View Recipe
Braised Corned Beef Brisket
KGora
You've never had corned beef like this — slowly braising the beef makes it tender and flavorful, and gives it a nice caramelized exterior. Serve it with veggies like colcannon, carrots, cabbage wedges, and parsnips for a rounded out meal.
43
of 56
Millie Pasquinelli's Fried Chicken
View Recipe
"This is the best fried chicken recipe ever," says community member BAKINGBETTY88. "With simple ingredients, the chicken turns out golden brown and crunchy. And it works great on all pieces of chicken, drumsticks included!" For best results, let the chicken sit a few minutes before re-flouring.
20 Top-Rated Fried Chicken Recipes
44
of 56
Chef John's Classic Beef Stroganoff
View Recipe
This hearty recipe was written for chuck roast, but it's also great (and much more affordable) using stew meat. If you can't find creme fraiche, sour cream will work just as well.
45
of 56
Chef John's Red Beans and Rice
View Recipe
This red beans and rice recipe is comfort food at its finest. Using chicken broth instead of water gives the beans an even better flavor. If you don't eat or care for pork, chicken andouille sausage will also work.
46
of 56
Crispy Baked Chicken Thighs
View Recipe
A platter of Crispy Baked Chicken Thighs and Roasted Red Cabbage. Served with crescent rolls.
Allrecipes Magazine
This chicken thigh recipe proves that less is more — seriously, it only requires three ingredients, and you definitely already have them in your kitchen. Feel free to play around and add more spices, since the key to this recipe is its technique.
47
of 56
Spinach and Feta Pita Bake
View Recipe
This is one of those meals for when the kids are in the kitchen or you just don't feel like cooking. All you have to do is assemble, bake, and enjoy. Sun-dried tomato pesto is usually right next to the basil pesto at the store and adds a huge degree or flavor.
20 Recipes That Start With Frozen Spinach
48
of 56
Pico de Gallo Chicken Quesadillas
View Recipe
You'll have to chop a few veggies to make the pico de gallo, but it's absolutely worth the bright flavor it brings to the chicken. Assemble the pico de gallo ahead of time for a super speedy dinner.
49
of 56
Spicy Thai Basil Chicken (Pad Krapow Gai)
View Recipe
Spicy Thai Basil Chicken (Pad Krapow Gai) served in a bowl with rice
Chef John
"This is absolutely delicious!! My husband would eat Thai food EVERY day if he could," says community member Heidi. "I've always been so intimidated to try cooking Thai cuisine, but, Chef John made this so easy."
50
of 56
Mississippi Roast - Slow Cooker Pepperoncini Pot Roast
View Recipe
Mississippi Roast - Slow Cooker Pepperoncini Pot Roast
Buckwheat Queen
There's pot roast, and then there's Mississippi pot roast, which gets a slightly acidic and heated flavor from pepperoncinis. This recipe only requires 5 ingredients, and just needs to spend a day in the slow cooker — it doesn't get much simpler than this.
16 Slow Cooker Pot Roast Recipes That Are Guaranteed Goodness
51
of 56
A Scotsman's Shepherd Pie
View Recipe
image
Unknown
Creator Larry Short gives shepherd's pie a flavorful twist by adding a Scottish touch. It's a distinct take on comfort food, but it's still familiar enough to prepare on a Sunday evening.
52
of 56
Broiled Tilapia Parmesan
View Recipe
This fish dinner is so quick and easy (seriously, it comes together in just 15 minutes) that we wouldn't blame you for making it multiple times a week. The Parmesan and seasonings add some zing to delicate tilapia.
53
of 56
Perfect Baked Jerk Chicken
View Recipe
close up view of Baked Jerk Chicken, white rice, black beans and green beans on a red plate
ReneePaj
"Great recipe!" raves home cook Ken. I"’ve used it several times, and my family loves it. The only problem is there’s never any leftovers for lunch the next day."
54
of 56
Arroz Con Pollo
View Recipe
chicken,rice, and red peppers
pomplemousse
"I grew up on Gramma's Arroz con Pollo (or with chorizo) and this recipe is by far the best I've used," shares reviewer Bill. "I double the rice and spices because my kids cannot get enough of it. I also add chorizo to the pot since I love that, too. I've made this dozens of times!"
55
of 56
Creamy White Chili
View Recipe
mid angle looking at a white bowl of creamy white chili
DOTDASH MEREDITH FOOD STUDIOS
To take this creamy white chicken chili over the top, serve each bowl with a dollop of sour cream and fresh jalapeno slices for a little heat. Tortilla chips add welcome crunch, if you have them on hand.
56
of 56
More Inspiration
overhead shot stroganoff on white patterned plate
Meredith
20 Recipes So Good You Could Call Them 'Perfect'
99 Recipes You'll Want to Make Forever
More Hall of Fame Recipes
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