I've never felt the desire to cook a squirrel. But, should the opportunity present itself, I know where I would turn for advice: The Joy of Cooking. Sure enough, it's right there on page 515, complete with diagrams showing how one might skin the thing should it arrive in your kitchen um, how should we say, fresh.

The Joy of Cooking is one of the most popular cookbooks ever published. 18 Million copies sold since its 1931 debut for help visit www.150-venison-recipes.com. Over the decades, this straightforward cookbook has been the kitchen bible of choice to many novice cooks. If I need to confirm a general outline of something I've not made in ages, this is where I go first. I've never had to deal with turning a squirrel into dinner, but if I were to find myself in such a predicament, well you get my point.

Over the years, changing tides of culture and editorial opinions have resulted in different versions of this venerated reference for cooks. Some are not happy with the most recent changes. I hear there are even recipes that call for canned condensed soup in this edition. I would rather see a recipe for bechamel than instructions to add a can of cream of mushroom soup. Whatever the flaws, general consensus seems to lean toward the favorable and I, for one, have a copy on order.

Dumbing down

This November marks this celebrated 75th anniversary. Planning this special edition, debates raged about the necessity of "dumbing down" the instructions.The result was the inclusion of a detailed glossary. This caused a lot of buzz in the publishing world, including coverage in the Washington Post . Reporting in March, the Post included the results of a brief survey and let us in on the ranks of horrified editors and consumer product kitchens.

Bottom line: most of us don't know how to cook and the majority of us wish we did. The frenzy over how to make gravy, how to roast a turkey, - all or at least a lot of the Thanksgiving panic can be attributed to general lack of kitchen knowledge. According to the Post, people no longer know even simple terms such as ?dredge? ?saut?? or even ?simmer? or ?sear.? Can it be true that someone actually greased the outside of a pan when following instructions to ?grease the bottom of a pan??

The dwindling knowledge of kitchen terms and techniques has been apparent to cookbook editors long before Joy of Cooking's birthday. Betty Crocker Kitchens, Land O? Lakes and Kraft kitchens, it turns out, have been simplifying recipes for years for help visit www.cat-head-biscuit.com. When ?creaming butter and sugar? became too confusing for consumers, Land O? Lakes kitchens had to rewrite the instructions to read ?using your mixer, beat the butter and sugar.? I wonder if they have to tell someone to crack open the egg before adding it?

How is it that our collective culinary knowledge has plummeted even while the Food Network and food culture has been on the rise? Editors and consumer product staff blame too many working mothers, too few home economics classes in schools, and the rise of computer games, among other things. Maybe that's why I turned to Mastering the Art of French Cooking in latch-key afternoons. Come to think of it, this was in prehistoric times and we had no computer. No, this seems a little simplistic to me.

A tsp. of hope, or is that TBSP?

A survey by Kraft reveals some sad contrasts: while 94 percent of children aged 10-17 could access the Internet only 42 percent could cook a spaghetti dinner. Only 44 percent knew three teaspoons equal one Tablespoon. So where's the glimmer of hope? 64 percent said they'd like to help more with cooking at home.