GENERATIONS SWEAR BY RED PLAID COOKBOOK : COOKING CLASSIC'S METAMORPHOSIS.

Byline: Kathleen Purvis Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Some things just stick around.

Take the ``Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.'' You know the one - with the red plaid cover. Chances are there's one in your kitchen right now. One in your mother's kitchen, too. And if your grandmother even owned a cookbook, it was probably this one.

That cookbook has sold more than 30.5 million copies, making it the third-best-selling hardcover book in history, after the Bible and the dictionary.

The cookbook is in its completely revised 11th edition (Meredith Books; $24.95), and it has become more than just a cooking guide. It's a look at American life. If you have the book, you probably know exactly where you got it.

At the Wilson and Buchanan households near Latta Plantation Park, N.C., there are at least three copies: Family matriarch Laura Wilson, 88 (actually 88-1/2, she's quick to point out), has a 1953 edition that belonged to her sister. When her sister died in 1966, all Wilson asked for was a cookbook that she had obviously used.

Daughter Beverly Buchanan knows exactly how old her cookbook is. It was a wedding present when she got married 35 years ago. Today, her faded copy is stuffed with clippings from the magazine.

``That poor little book is almost worn out,'' she says.

Buchanan's daughter-in-law, Angie Buchanan, didn't need a copy when she got married. She already had one - got it in her hope chest when she graduated from high school in 1983.

There are cookbooks that tell more about our history, like ``The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.'' There are cookbooks that teach us more about technique, like ``The Joy of Cooking.'' But if you want to know what America eats, open one of those red-plaid cookbooks. Since it started as a 10-cent pamphlet of magazine recipes in 1926, it has changed right along with us, from gelatin salads to microwave ovens.

The new edition makes quite a few changes. Of the 1,200 recipes, 600 are new. There are new chapters on grilling and grains - pasta has broken out into its own chapter. There are very few microwave recipes, but there are bread machine tips. The section on how to set a table has been restored, after readers complained. And cake and cookie recipes that had been simplified to only one bowl have been restored to classic versions. ``Good taste sometimes matters more than saving time,'' note the editors.

Beverly Buchanan would be in favor of returning to those older methods. She turns to her cookbook to cook holiday turkeys and hams every year.

``I don't use what they put out on the directions,'' she says. ``I go back to that book and check.''

She uses her book to make biscuits, too. Not corn bread, though - she learned that from her mother. Laura Wilson has been a farm wife on her land since the late 1930s. When her late husband, John Henry Wilson, was alive, they grew sweet potatoes and did truck farming. She always had a houseful of hungry farmhands, plus neighborhood children.

``I used to walk through the house and count 'em all before I'd set the table.''

Her husband's favorite dish, she says, was ``food. He never said, `What have you got?' He said, `Have you got enough?' ''

With all that experience, Wilson still turns to her sister's old cookbook for bread recipes.

``You know the biggest problem with bread? People can smell that it's there, and then it's gone.''

Cooking isn't exactly a high priority right now for Angie Buchanan. With young daughter Lauren and 2-1/2-year-old son Trey to care for, she's happy her mother-in-law does so much of the cooking. But she knows Lauren will have plenty of copies of the cookbook to choose from when she grows up.

Beverly Buchanan sees the cookbook everywhere. She goes to a lot of weddings.

``Nearly every shower I go to, you see a copy of that book.''

The 11th edition is the first new edition of the ``Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book'' since 1989.

The book started in 1923, as the magazine's Cook's Round Table, which published readers' favorite recipes. In 1926, a pamphlet of 202 of those recipes was sold for 10 cents.

In 1930, the magazine started offering ``My Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.'' It cost $1, plus 20 cents shipping and handling.

The book became ``My New Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book'' in 1937. ``New'' was dropped from the title in 1939 and ``my'' was dropped in 1946. In 1953, ``new'' was added again and it has stayed the ``new'' cookbook ever since.

The red plaid cover was added in 1941, when two employees walking through a department store fabric section on their lunch hour spotted a bolt of red and white gingham.

In the 10th edition, ``Pasta, Rice & Grains'' was a new chapter. In the 11th edition, ``Pasta'' has its own chapter and ``Beans, Rice & Grains'' has been added.

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Photo, Box

Photo: (color) Grandmother Beverly Buchanan, left, holding granddaughter Lauren Buchanan, great-grandmother Laura Wilson and Lauren's mother, Angie Buchanan, show off the Better Homes and Gardens red plaid cookbook that has spanned three generations in their family. The cookbook has sold more than 30.5 million copies.

John D. Simmons/Charlotte Observer

Box: Cooking classic's metamorphosis (see text)