The enduring cookbook

We live in the computer age, a world of cooking Web sites, e-mailed recipes, downloadable how-to videos and electronic cookbooks. So why does the old-fashioned cookbook, an often grease-splattered, yellowed and dog-eared tome, still matter today?

"I love cookbooks," wrote Marlena Spieler, an American writer and cookbook author, in an e-mail from her home in England. "The fact is, the whole story is there, between the first and the last page. For it to capture my heart, it must come from the author's heart."

With dozens of cookbooks under her belt, Spieler's enthusiasm for the form may seem obvious. But her e-mail touches the heart of what other authors, editors and booksellers say is the reason the cookbook survives and thrives: It does indeed touch the heart, engage the mind, delight the eye.

"What you get with cookbooks that you don't always find with other sources are stories," said Bill LeBlond, editorial director of food and drink at Chronicle Books. "The best cookbooks are those where the authors tell a story: Every (recipe) headnote is a story that invites the reader in. You can Google chicken and asparagus and get a thousand recipes. But in a cookbook, the author tells you why he likes the recipe and how it works."

Yet the best-selling cookbooks of today, according to LeBlond, are works by stars of the cooking shows and competitions on channels such as the Food Network and Bravo. And North Americans are cooking less and eating more, often at fast-food chains that would seem the antithesis of home cooking. The irony is not lost on LeBlond.

"It works in a funny way in favor of the cookbook," he said. "Seems people are cooking less, but there has never been a time when people are so interested in food. &hellip; Cookbooks let you dig deeper; you can learn more in cookbooks."

Nach Waxman, owner of Kitchen Arts &amp; Letters in New York City, agreed that cookbooks are all about "discovery" by "browsing" through the actual pages.

"Everything comes from the browsing process," he said. "You can browse electronically, but you have to know what to look for. In the food area, that doesn't work at all."

"I suspect few people who call themselves cookbook readers read through in sequence," he added. "What (cookbooks) do have, the best ones, are a variety of recipes, approaches and extremely good reading."

While books by food celebrities sell 20-to-1 over books by the average writer, industry expert Lisa Ekus-Saffer said "the lesser-known non-TV stars are publishing, and publishing well."

"We've sold a lot of books in the last 12 to 18 months," said Ekus-Saffer, owner of an eponymous public relations and literary agency in Hatfield, Mass. "They're not getting the same fame, but there is still a huge audience."

Who are these readers? Waxman and Ekus-Saffer agree: Readers hungry for more in-depth topics than the often broad-based cookbooks of the big stars.

Her comments back up the findings of a 2008 report on "cooking enthusiasts" by Mintel, the consumer market research firm. It revealed that "casual cooking enthusiasts" or "non-enthusiastic cooks" looked to friends and family when asked: "How do you learn about new cuisines and cooking techniques?" So-called "serious cooking enthusiasts" rely on a number of sources, but cookbooks get heavy play, Mintel reported. Of the "serious" cooks surveyed, 74 percent turned to a cookbook as opposed to 31 percent of the "non-enthusiastic" cooks.

Cookbooks sell well because food is an exciting "mainstream" topic, said Maria Guarnaschelli, vice president and senior editor at W.W. Norton &amp; Co., the New York-based publishing house. Selling 50,000 copies of a cookbook in the first six months after publication is considered a lot, she added, but there are more than 300 million people living in the United States.

"It's a drop in the bucket," she said. "When you think about it, we're not after much of the population."

Nor does Guarnaschelli believe the cookbook market is immune to the digital revolution: "A lot of people are going to download the recipes onto the iPad," she said.

Ekus-Saffer said publishers are looking toward development of online food applications, but that doesn't translate into fewer actual cookbooks.

"No matter how versatile iPad and Kindle are, most people cooking now grew up with cookbooks," she said. "Cookbooks have been resistant to new technology, but I'm not saying that will be forever."

That's something Waxman would likely not want to hear.

"God willing, it will continue to be books as opposed to patterns of electrons on a screen," he said. "Nothing compares to holding the object in your hand."

The best cookbook of 2009?

Different group, different choice:

James Beard Foundation Media &amp; Book Awards: "The Country Cooking of Ireland," by Colman Andrews (Chronicle Books)

International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Awards: "Rose's Heavenly Cakes," by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Wiley)

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