Cookbook Watch

As fewer people grow up learning the basics of cooking--and as the sales of cookbooks rise--an inevitable genre to grow in strength is the encyclopedic cookbook. Lessons in how to bone and stuff a duck as well as pictorial comparisons between salmon and salmon trout are just two of the many basics covered in the new edition of “The Cook Book,” now known as “The Essential Cook Book” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $39.95 until Jan. 1; then $50), from the British team of Caroline and Terence Conran and Simon Hopkinson, with American conversions and recipes by Rick Rodgers. It’s too soon to tell whether the book, given its lovely layout, is more show than substance, but it’s certainly, well, encyclopedic.