My Passion for Cookbooks
There are many things I like, but rather few for which it might be said I have a passion bordering on obsession. One of those is cookbooks, about which I've been meaning to write for some time, although I don't think I've accomplished it yet. If I have already, you'll forgive the meanderings and forgetfulness of an old fart.
There is one thing we need to establish right here at the start: my passion for cookbooks does not derive from a passion for cooking. Although I do enjoy cooking, and I'm pretty good at it when I'm in the mood (having learned in my early days most of what I know from Mastering the Art of French Cooking), it is no more than perhaps a catalyst for my interest in cookbooks.
I like to read cookbooks; I like to collect cookbooks. We have some 500 in the house at the moment. Most of these I bought either remaindered or used — my local library's bookstore nearly always has something obscure on offer. My criteria for selection are dimly realized in my own mind, but include many aesthetic considerations as well as content, but I usually insist that any cookbook I'm considering have at least two recipes that strike me as ones that I would be tempted to make, should I buy the book. I may never get around to it, but it happens sometimes. So, there's a vestigial thought that cookbooks should be practical.
But really, there are many things about cookbooks that delight me:
- Variety. Even thought they deal with the single topic of food, cookbooks are remarkably varied — at least to the eye of the connoisseur. You can find beginner's books, advanced books, and everything in between; general cookbooks that try to explain everything, comprehensive cookbooks that try to cover everything on some particular topic, and books on very narrow topics; pretty books, text-only books, and some remarkably ugly books. I suppose to some they may all look the same, but not to me.
- Design. I am interested in book design as a thing in itself, and cookbooks are one of the few publishing categories where excursions in novel book design are commonplace. To be honest, some designs that make it out of the printer's really suck and it's not surprising that they've appeared in the remainder bins that I'm looking through, but many offer fresh and stimulating ideas in design.
- Style. As a literary form, you might think that the recipe — like, say, the sonnet — wouldn't exhibit much variation, but that's far from the truth. I'm fascinated to read how various authors solve the problem of describing the preparation and presentation of a dish of food. Some are laborious, some are telegraphic. Some belabor the obvious, some are cryptic. Some have an amazing amount of attitude, which I usually lampoon along the lines of "take one free-range chicken who died happily in it's sleep…". (It would be over hasty to blame California authors for this because New England cookbook writers can be just as opinionated.)
- Anthropology. Every cookbook tells stories about the people who would prepare the food it describes, and about the people who would eat the result. Plus, I'm fascinated to read older recipes and see both how tastes in food have changed, not to mention how the perceived need to explain various kitchen techniques have changed.
- Lasting Appeal. Cookbooks are neither reference books or merely nonfiction books to me. Unlike novels — which I enjoy thoroughly but almost never expect to read twice — I enjoy cookbooks for a lifetime. They simply don't get used up, but I can read bits of them over and over and find something new or something worth remembering from each one. Most of our friends are aware that I like getting books as gifts and my favorite is a cookbook, because it seems to me like a gift that never wears out or gets used up, but one that lasts forever.
I doubt that these reasons explain my passion for cookbooks; however, they do serve as good excuses.
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on Sunday, 1 October 2006 at 00.41
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Although I don't share this particular passion, I can appreciate how you or anyone might indulge. For one thing, I often watch and enjoy the Food Channel. This isn't because I hope to gain the skills of an Emeril. It's because they make the whole field of food informative and interesting. They have a roster of incredibly creative people who are enjoyable to watch, and they augment the how-to's with all manner of food- and dining-related information.
They had one show where this sort of humorist cook guy went with his "host," a retired cop, to all the best fast-food joints in a southern California town. They ordered, sampled, joked around. It was whacky but great fun. Who'd a thunk it, as they say.
Since you brought this up, I'll share a favorite gripe about recipe books and those published in the newspaper. I'll see one that looks interesting, maybe even worth giving a try someday. But then, too often, I look down the list of ingredients and start seeing things like "two sub-tundra jellick root barks, lightly ground," and "oil of Tasmanian bacachabe rind."
Later, cruising the aisles at Safeway, I look in vain for either of those items. And no one who works there has ever heard of them. Much later, I venture into an exotic foods shop downtown and mention these items.
Turns out sub-tundra jellick roots are only harvested every other leap year. When available, you're looking at about $29.95 a gram. Tasmanian bacachabe rind oil can be special ordered, takes about three weeks, costs about $9/oz. But you have to order four ounces. As Al Franken has been known to say, oy!
OK, unable to bring to mind actual exotic ingredients mentioned in published recipes, I made those two up. But you get the idea. Too often I run into an otherwise nice recipe that calls for at least one or two outrageously expensive or hard to find ingedients. I ask myself, outside of folks like Emeril, who can afford to stock their kitchen with these things?