A cookbook contains information on cooking, and a list of recipes. It may also contain information on ingredient origin, freshness, selection and quality, e.g. the Slow Food movement's ark of taste criteria.

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, sweets. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.