I am starting a new project. One that celebrates the cookbook as form to behold! And while I don’t know where Consider the Cookbook will take me, I do know where I'm beginning: I am interested in using the cookbook as lens to zoom in on the homecook and the creatives surrounding this humble little object.
Cookbooks play a key role in my life. I owe what little skill I have in the kitchen to my cookbook collection. Properly used they are great side-kicks, earning their keep as they make that hole in my back pocket count for something. Their force is omnipresent in my daily service to family. Are there others out there who hold these stained tomes to such esteem? If so, I would love to converse with them, in order to discuss how cookbooks can be an impetus to not only happier taste buds but also a more fulfilling life.
I don’t think they get the attention they deserve — or rather: the right kind of attention. All too often these objects are chucked onto the coffee table to collect dust. Occasionally to be flipped through, and possibly cooked from, but seldom read. There’s no relationship, here. The responsibility falls on both sides of the equation. Lately I find myself choking on complacency/mediocrity at the nearest bookstore. A stale industry churning out one derivative after another, leaving this homecook deeply uninspired. If this trend continues I don’t think we can justify their existence. What can be done?
I am not offering any definitive answers, just half-baked hunches I intend on exploring with any thoughtful reader who will have me over this next phase of my life. Personally: I think it is time to take the recipe off it’s pedestal. I think any cookbook that enters the market simply as an additional revenue should be never be printed. I think food media lost it’s taste. If novelty ain’t added to the conversation, whether through content or form, then don’t waste the paper. Anyways, I digress.
This is also connected to the hospitality industry at large. When the emphasis is placed on profitability then creativity is stymied, and as a result: food is cheapened. Off the top of my head, some of the culprits are: glue and bobby pins on commercial sets, cutting costs and hence food quality, banal stories littered with keywords, etc. And don’t get me started with AI… All of this is indicative of something much larger than the scope of this undertaking. I simply want to read and cook from cookbooks that excite me, and this is becoming harder and harder to do when everything looks and feels the same.
To the purveyors of hospitality: I say If you can’t attempt originality and you continue to shirk standards in exchange for short-term profitability then don’t expect others — or at least this hungry fella’ — to value you.
An original cookbook by definition cannot be a commodity. The pursuit of something special promises something unique. Cookbooks, like art, are sacred. And achieving mastery in anything requires dedication to a path that forks away from the mainstream. That said, my personal interest as both a consumer and creator of cookbooks is found in the word Gesamkunstwerk. A German word used to signify a “total work of art.” And so, sure, you can search for recipes, but at the same time you can search for the spirit of a place, the fruit of one’s labor, the knowledge to cook a particular cuisine, etc. Recipes are just an added bonus, if you ask me. Mr. Wagner, I am sorry, it is hospitality not theater that is capable of achieving totality. For it is the act of dining, and dining alone, that plays on all of our senses. Not even architecture can say that. The cookbook man, I tell you…
The weight of the page. The striking visuals. The smell of ink. The tiny crackling of paper. The chatter of excitement between myself and my wife as we anticipate the cooks to come! And then there’s the cook, of course, which involves the planning and shopping, the research of ingredients/techniques and lastly, before the fun begins, the mise-en-place. There's cooking and then there is Cooking, am I right? This is a multi-sensory experience available to us all. One that has and continues to reward me. And I hope by shedding light on the many different occupations, crafts and skills that go into making these objects I can entice you to start your own collection. It is passion, curiosity and attention to detail that I intend to bring to the conversation.
That’s it, for now.
Yours flavorously,
Dan