Once upon a time, there was no internet. If you wanted to check up on your friend, you had to write her a letter or call her on the phone or drop by her house. If you wanted to know about basically anything, you had to read a book—if you wanted to know how to cook something, you had to read a cookbook.
Of course, that wasn’t your only option. You could ask your friend how they made that thing that time. You could ask a professional: Your butcher could advise you on how to cook a certain cut of meat, or your grocer could tell you what to do with vegetables you may not have seen before. You could even write into Gourmet Magazine and ask them how to make a dish you tried at a restaurant while you were on vacation, and there was a pretty decent chance that they’d reply with a recipe. Oh, the olden days!
Today we search hashtags on Instagram to watch 12-second videos on how to make cake in a mug in the microwave. Usually, a pair of disembodied white hands makes quick work of pre-prepped ingredients, and upbeat “mood music” replaces cooking sounds. This is not what cooking used to look like. And the biggest gap between internet and pre-internet cooking is in the concept of the recipe.
On the internet, a recipe merely exists among other recipes that may share a lifestyle (paleo; egg-, nut-, gluten-, and dairy-free; world’s busiest mom cooks dinner every night), but are often weakly connected beyond that. For many, this is just fine. If you simply want to know how to cook something, if you want to understand the order of operations and the necessary ingredients, then the internet can help you. If you already know how to cook and you know exactly what you want to make and you know how to evaluate a prospective recipe for potential disasters, Google away.
But so much is lost—or is simply absent—on the internet, in this place of mostly anonymized, context-less versions of recipes. The big questions go unanswered: how this recipe came to be and why it exists, what conditions (cultural, sociological, political, religious, technological) led to its development and refinement, who helped it along over time, whose life was shaped by it. These are the questions that we can learn from. The answers to these questions give meaning to our meals and, potentially, our understanding of who we are and where we come from. Because cooking is a cultural, historical act. And cookbooks are our primary source material.
A book author is someone who can communicate the essential information about a culture and its ingredients and methods. They are the opposite of disembodied hands; they are full characters with clear voices and perspectives and experiences. Their purpose is not simply to distract you for a moment, but to change you for the rest of your life.
Contemporary cookbooks can offer some reprieve from the hollowness of internet recipes. There are beautiful writers today working hard in their kitchens and in the wider world to bring new stories, new recipes, and new approaches to the hungry masses. (The Piglet is an excellent place to find some of the best new books out there.)
But given the nature of the contemporary cookbook market—up from $420 million in US sales in 1994 to $780 million in 2001, and growing at a more-or-less steady rate of 4-6% every year since then—there’s a harsh reality in the numbers: More cookbooks does not mean better cookbooks.
More cookbooks means more books: more creativity and more new voices, to be sure, but also more books that are, in the parlance of our times, “content.” So many of these books were born from the internet and reflect that in their, put simply, flat ubiquity. Looking back in time, before the internet, we are faced with a higher density of intentionality, and out of this comes books of substance.
So where to begin? There are cookbooks dating back to very ancient times (written in Latin) and there are cookbooks dating back to less ancient times (Chinese and Arabic and German cookbooks from the 13th and 14th centuries) and then the printing press was invented and even more cookbooks were produced (most notably Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton [1845], Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton [1861], and The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer [1896]). But in the United States some of the most compelling, creative, and enlightening books were written in the second half of the 20th century—after World War II and before the invention of the internet.
I’d like to recommend some books to you, dear internet reader, and offer you a place to start or expand or reaffirm your pre-internet cookbook repertoire. All of these books will teach you something you did not know. All of these books were created by men and women who sat and talked and ate and shared with other men and women, who learned about their own cultures and the cultures of others, and who dutifully and spiritedly wrote those lessons down (with all the attendant details) so that we may experience the essential acts of cooking and eating as fully as possible.
If you want to imagine (or, better yet, live) a life marked by parties and celebrations:
Read The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso (1985), which will give you the experience of having your kooky but completely lovely elderly neighbor corner you in the hallway and sweetly lecture you about the past in the most absolutely charming way. Or Martha Stewart's Hors D'oeuvres (1984), which will have you alternately rolling your eyes at the amount of energy Martha assumes you have and taking notes for the party you just started planning.
If you want to travel, read:
- Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco by Paula Wolfert (1987)
- Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni (1980)
- How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao (1945)
- The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking by Barbara Tropp (1982)
- Good Things by Jane Grigson (1973)
- Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan (1992)
- Simple French Food by Richard Olney (1974)
- A Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (1968)
- The Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas (1982)
- Please to the Table by Anya Von Bremzen (1990)
- The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy (1989)
All of these books do travel differently (some focus more on technique, some more on ingredients, some more on culture) and all their authors have wildly different personalities. So try out a few, see who whispers in your ear most clearly, and remember that these books are best read with a glass of wine in hand to aid in teleportation.
If you feel overwhelmed—low on energy, money, or inspiration; buried by work, stress, or other people’s needs:
Read The Pauper’s Cookbook by Jocasta Innes (1971). You’ll know you’re going to be okay because you’re laughing and you’ve got your appetite back, which are both good signs.
If you want to be in the presence of a master:
Read The Making of a Cook by Madeleine Kamman (1971). Whatever your skill level, Kamman knows what you need to know, and knows how to transmit that information as by a laying of hands: firmly but gently, with perfect intuition.
If you want to know what living intentionally as a part of a true community looks like:
Read The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis (1976). I have yet to encounter a more glorious portrait of people living in harmony with each other and the earth.
If you want to bake, and experience the deep pleasure and magic that come from the alchemy of mixing butter and eggs and sugar and flour:
Read Cocolat by Alice Medrich (1990), or Delia Smith’s Book of Cakes (1977), or Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts (1974), or Stars Desserts by Emily Luchetti (1991). These are books that, at the very least, allow for us to imagine a life with (actual) sweetness, and give us the simple tools to realize those dreams.
If you want a friend:
Read Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (1988) or As They Were by M.F.K. Fisher (1982). If you want a frenemy, read An Omelet and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David (1984).
If you miss your grandmother or want to know how people used to cook and eat before the internet was a twinkle in anyone’s eye:
Go to your local used bookstore and find whatever comb-bound community cookbooks they have gathering dust on the bottom shelf. These are true jewels.
Read these books and cook from them and then live with them; make them a part of your physical space. Keep them on a shelf where you can see and touch their spines. Let them remind you of the vast possibilities that are held in a day and in a lifetime, and of the multitude of worlds that are possible.
Sarah Whitman-Salkin is an editor and writer, and the founder of the online bookshop Classics Cookbooks.
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Written by: Sarah Whitman-Salkin
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48 Comments
The comments about the libraries are wonderful. I have a large cookbook collection - going back to 1963 with the 'Betty Crocker Cookbook' I received as a wedding gift. The spine is gone - only the metal binder showing, it is grease/food spattered, but has been used a lot. Today, I use the library as a way to preview new cookbooks so as to not duplicate those I already own. My local library is very gracious when I recommend a new purchase for their collection.
Also, as a librarian, I'd just like to say thanks for all the lovely comments about libraries from all of you! Just know that even though I try to keep these classics on the shelf, the turnover in the cookbook section is tremendous. They're not building any additions onto my library, so if I'm going to keep buying cookbooks, the ones that aren't getting used have to go. Of course, that's when you get to pick them up at the Friends of the Library book sale for a couple of dollars!
I'd also recommend Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. Though the author isn't vegetarian, all of the recipes in Plenty are—and in addition to being creative, flavorful, and inspiring, all the recipes work!
And for a more nutrition-centric approach, take a look at Heidi Swanson's books. All of them are great (and you can test out her recipes on her blog, 101cookbooks.com). She's a perfect example of a blogger whose recipes really deliver.
Also, if one (or more) of them speak to you, you can learn a cuisine or a technique or a grouo of dishes by living with and working through most of the book.
Doesn't have to be as complete or scheduled as Julie and Julia, but yes the depth and breadth of cooking is important.
Re libraries - I'm kind of a library rat in general, but they also give you a chance to 'test drive' a cookbook before buying it, when you're not sure. And ditto what Windischgirl said about great finds at their used book sales - and flipping that equation, an easy non-wasteful way to jettison your old/unwanted cookbooks while supporting the library - win win.
"The Zuni Cafe Cookbook," by Judy Rodgers. Though strictly speaking not "pre-internet age," it provides a wealth of useful information, generously shared in Judy Rodgers' straightforward and authoritative, but altogether likable, voice.
"Humble Pie: Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust," by Ann Dimock
and
"Clementine in the Kitchen" by Samuel Chamberlain.
And I second bhilz's suggestion to browse in your local library. Our library system, like most, has an online catalog where you can see every book in all branches. One search function allows you to go to any Dewey Decimal number to "see" all the books to its left and to its right on the "shelf". Great, great fun, in addition to going to the actual shelves at the branches or main simply to browse. ;o)
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