Owning 4,239 cookbooks landed Lisa Ekus of Hatfield a world record; she didn’t stop there (2024)

HATFIELD — When a friend said he missed his family’s traditional golumpkis, Lisa Ekus had him track down the Polish recipe. When it arrived, Ekus said something about it didn’t seem right.

She might know. Ekus holds the Guinness World Record for the largest personal or private collection of cookbooks, officially numbering 4,239 titles. She wasn’t at a loss for recipes.

“I went to my Polish and Jewish books and we figured it out,” she said. “When he tried it, he said it tastes like my childhood.”

Using her friend’s descriptions of how the dish looked and tasted, Ekus spent a day creating the dish, which ended with her friend declaring the golumpkis — a stuffed cabbage dish — tasted like his family’s. They made a huge batch, divided them up and froze them for later. She wrote down the recipe for future use.

Ekus owns a culinary agency that represents cookbook authors and provides media training for chefs. She has worked in publishing since she landed an internship while at Barnard College. She then worked for several publishers, including Random House and Crown Publishers, developing a niche as a culinary public relations specialist.

She founded what is now the Ekus Group in 1982 and has represented hundreds of professionals, including chefs Emeril Lagasse and Norman Van Aken — and even served a 10-course dinner to Julia Child.

Getting in Guinness

As Ekus started talking about retiring and turning her business over to her daughter, Sally Ekus, her staff of three full-time and two part-time employees urged her to apply to the Guinness World Records.

“It was very complicated,” she said. “We have to film everything and count every shelf and we had to document everything officially.”

They submitted photographs and videos of the collection. They needed two people who did not work for the Ekus Group to serve as witnesses and to assess and count the collection. They submitted the application and documentation in the fall of 2019 and waited.

And waited. And waited.

“COVID complicated everything,” she said. “It took over three years. We would check in and there would be silence for weeks.”

Ekus’ collection is shelved in a two-story library complete with a spiral staircase and mezzanine in her 250-year-old Hatfield farmhouse, her “happy place.” The books are arranged by subjects such as Vietnamese recipes, vegan cooking and cookbooks for children. Ekus said she can put her hand on almost any book she wants.

But she also decided to hire a professional librarian who spent nine months electronically cataloging the entire collection. That helped her make decisions such as where to put a Jewish vegetarian book, which can go in two places. Is a cookbook about Pho, a single subject, a soup, or a Vietnamese book? Ekus asked.

Even before then, she consulted her favorite cookbook store in New York. “I asked them how to catalog and I was right on the money.”

While the idea was sparked by the pursuit of the record, Ekus said her collection is now easily searchable. One day, she will likely donate it and an electronic database will make it more valuable to a university or organization.

Today, her collection is close to 7,000 titles. Ekus said she has acquired many new books since 2019. In addition, the rules for the Guinness World Records don’t accept books and pamphlets that were never commercially available, such as those created as church fundraisers. While she didn’t count them for Guinness, Ekus said they are valuable, since they say a lot about a community and its culture.

Classic to quirky

Her collection ranges from the classic to the quirky. There are tons of ethnic cookbooks from the Caribbean and Europe. One of her favorite categories is different types of Asian cuisine. There is a section for southern cooking, and another for single-subject books that each contain dozens of recipes for corn, dumplings or goat cheese.

Some of the most unique date to the 1800s. Among the quirky ones are cookbooks Ekus admits she will likely never use: “The New Joys of Jello,” the “Twinkies Cookbook” and the “Toast” cookbook.

“It is very much a living library. It is fluid, it is constantly changing,” she said. “I sit and read them. I often put little markers in them.”

For example, tomatoes were plentiful and tasty last summer, so Ekus pulled out a cookbook about tomatoes. The book is still marked with a half dozen pieces of paper to remind her of dishes she wants to try.

Ekus believes her first cookbook was the “Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls Cookbook” — or at least that was the first she used.

Many of her books came from people she has represented over the years. Others are gifts. Some she bought over the years at thrift shops for 50 cents, $1 or $5.

She purchased many while traveling. Ekus admitted she had to buy two new suitcases when she visited France to haul back cookbooks.

On her table

So what’s for dinner at the Ekus house?

She calls herself a “good cook” who has learned from professional chefs in her own kitchen, such as Nicole Routhier, who taught her about Vietnamese ingredients and cooking techniques while she was coaching her on how to demonstrate recipes for a television audience.

“I’ll eat pretty much anything,” Elkus said. “I don’t love geoduck (clams) and I’m not a fan of sea urchin, it’s a texture thing for me.”

Ekus said she will pull out new recipes from her books once or twice a week. With her long experience in the industry, she said she can tell what will work and what it will taste like just by reading it.

But she also has many favorites in regular rotation.

One of her go-to books is the late Michael McLaughlin’s “The New American Kitchen.” While she does not have many duplicate books, she has several copies of this one, including a tattered and stained edition that sits with others not in the library but on a shelf in her kitchen.

Ekus learned to cook by helping her mother, baking things like rugelach and chocolate chip cookies, then graduating to dinner. She said she is pretty sure her first main course dish was lasagna.

“Some people live to eat and others eat to live. We definitely live to eat,” she said.

Both her parents were good cooks. She still uses their recipes. Her mother’s Asian salad dressing is on her table several times a week. Her mother’s wild salmon with fresh herbs has “cult status” in her household. Her father’s meatloaf is also a favorite.

And there is her family’s brisket. She tried a new brisket recipe for a recent holiday and her daughters’ reaction: “This is really good, but please make grandma’s.”

Ekus loves soups and stews during the winter. One of her favorites is split pea soup from “Good Food Soups, Stews and Pastas” by David Halpern and Julie Strand.

“Simple is good,” Ekus said. In summer, she roasts and grills seasonal vegetables. She likes to experiment with herbs.

Much of her cooking is done in big batches she will freeze for later. She entertains frequently and creates new versions of dishes for friends who are vegan or can’t eat gluten or have other food allergies.

“It is visiting old friends and making new ones and food is the commonality,” she said. ”It’s about making people happy, nourishing them.”