Here is an amusing, short summary of the history of cookbooks from Economist.com, and what they mean about the nation in which they were fried up or grilled. Here are two quotes:

"Britain and America are the two great cookbook-writing nations, which is not the same as being nations of great cooks. It is precisely because neither country can boast a coherent, admirable, traditional cuisine that cooks have such need of guidance and distraction."

This is a quote from a British cookbook which paints a picture of post-war practicality:

“Melt 1oz of margarine in ½ teacup milk, and when the mixture is warm put through a cream machine—the five shilling kind which many of us bought before the war and still, I expect, possess."