For the love of cookbooks

Someone asked me last week why I prefer cookbooks to looking online for recipes.

The question got me thinking as it’s not something that I’ve really thought about before.

The quick and obvious answer is that nothing beats the look and feel of a book. The opening of a new cover, the turning of the pages, the tactile feel of the book in your hand. Like many people I have a kindle  and I’ll happily admit that in the days when I was regularly commuting it was so much easier than taking an actual book with me. But I don’t commute anymore and to be honest I’m not even sure if the kindle is charged.

In the case of cookbooks though I think there is more to it than just real book versus ebook.

A well used cookbook carries memories that the online option is never going to have. Towards the top of the pile in the photo below there is a thoroughly dog eared copy of Rachel Khoo’s  Little Paris Kitchen. The state of the book has nothing to do with a lack of care and attention, it’s all down to the fact that the book is loved and very well used. It was one of the first that i bought and is still a regular go to. The page with the Croque Madame muffins recipe has been made so many times it nearly falls open on it’s own. The recipe for the savoury picnic loaf has tell tale stains where I’ve checked cooking times just after chopping chorizo. The book is an old friend and for all it’s blemishes I wouldn’t want it any other way.

A good cookbook is so much more that just recipes. Dianna Henry’s How To Eat a Peach is a collection that is seasonal and themed. It’s as much about the memories and places that the dishes evoke as it is the actual cooking of them. It’s wonderful writing that could almost sit as easily on a travel shelf as it does cookery. If you’re  wondering about the books title it results from Dianna watching someone is a restaurant as they are served a peach which is then halved, pitted and sliced before being dropped into glasses of chilled moscato. 

The Bread Exchange probably has an even bigger claim to the travel shelf than Dianna Henry does. In this book Malin Elmlid travels around the world exchanging her homemade breads and recipes for those of people that she meets. Its a fascinating story and as much a book to sit down and read as it is to cook from.

I’m sure that the recipes from Dianna’s and Malin’s books are available online somewhere but I doubt very much if the back stories are.

Huckleberry is the cookbook from a bakery in Santa Monica. I’ve never been, quite probably never will, but by tracking down this book and having it on my shelf it feels as if a little bit of Californian baking magic has come to me.

The photo is a fairly small part of my collection, some are used more than others and there may even be one or two still waiting to have something cooked from them. It’s my cooking library, a world I can happily get lost in for hours.