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.Heather Atwood, "Harvard's Cookbooks Speak of Our History", Gloucester Times, August 8, 2012 full text 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. 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. 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". 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; a digital version is available. 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 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 References Adamson, Melitta Weiss Food in Medieval Times. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. 2004. Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. Melitta Weiss Adamson