Something odd is going on in cookbook merchandising, and I’m trying to understand it.
We’re all familiar with the explosion of food websites and food blogs in the last 10 years and their inevitable transition into print. From Heidi Swanson and the Tipsy Baker to Food52 and Serious Eats, there’s an abundance of popular online hosts or communities who’ve turned author, and there are more every day.
Many, like Ree Drummond (the “Pioneer Woman Cooks”) and Fifi O’Neill (the “Romantic Prairie” magazine) sell a DIY kind of lifestyle that their readers don’t necessarily have the time or life circumstances to undertake themselves. It’s not the first time that cooks who are also talented photographers and stylists have taken off in print. It’s certainly not the first time a domestic-shelter editor has successfully sold a lifestyle (see “Stewart, Martha”.) So that’s not what’s odd.
What I don’t quite get is that if you look at these recipes closely, something doesn’t add up. Consider the Romantic Prairie Cookbook (by an expatriated Parisian living in Florida). Grilled chicken with mandarin oranges? No mandarin oranges on the prairie, unless I’m mistaken. There are sausages and breads in the recipes, but they’re mostly storebought. Recipes for salmon, mussels, fish in a salt crust? Exactly where is this prairie? And is it near Balducci’s?
The new Pioneer Woman Cookbook: Food from My Frontier makes me wonder, in the same sort of way, which frontier we’re dealing with: Italian meatball soup? Thai chicken pizza? Chicken Parmesan? Mango margaritas? It’s true that there is a recipe for pickles and a recipe for jam in the back. But the language of sustainability, self-reliance, and rugged wholesomeness conveyed by the photographs is not spoken equally by the food.
I’m not wearing my reviewer hat, and I don’t mean to denigrate the food itself, which I haven’t tested and which looks perfectly fine. No matter where it hails from (and I think it’s safe to say it’s not from Kansas), it’s straight-ahead comfort food, like what you might find in hundreds of midrange urban brunch places.
Some may find themselves asking, “Why make it when I can buy it in Brooklyn?” I’m not sure I can answer that. But my guess is that it’s not the cookbook’s content but its aura that you’re buying–that glimpse of a life not lived by most of us–a life of pale sunrises, endless horizons, quiet insights silhouetted on horseback. Question is: is that life even being lived by those who sell it?
7 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 22, 2012 at 3:36 pm
panfusine
Loved this article that I stumbled upon thru a share by Monica Bhide. You’ve take those lingering opinions & thoughts that subconsciously flit through the mind, but never get expressed vocally. Thank you.
March 22, 2012 at 4:02 pm
tsusanchang
Thank you! I know many people love these books, so they must give a channel to a kind of longing we all have. The longing is authentic, so does it matter if the books are? I don’t know…
March 22, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Namitha
Couldn’t agree more here ! I am sure these questions are there in many people’s mind, but you have written it here, well done
March 22, 2012 at 4:30 pm
victualling
I’d guess that maybe up to 50% of our purchases are of representational objects, ones which refer to the life we’d like to live rather than the one we do. I’m thinking of trophy kitchens, hammocks, porch furniture and swings, (most) clothing, a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables that end up going bad and getting thrown out, and on and on. Why shouldn’t books be about fantasies too?
What is the longing really about? Are the fantasies even genuine? For example, do people wish they cooked or do they just want other people to think they do?
March 22, 2012 at 4:47 pm
hungrypassport
I ponder these things as I write my book of essays and recipes from my youth on a Southern farm. Oranges were a Christmas treat, as was coconut cake. Most ingredients that weren’t native to Tennessee were exceptions. Some of them might have been available in our tiny town’s grocery, but not year round–no raspberries from Chile in January. If it didn’t grow on our farm, chances are we didn’t eat it very often.
As for the aura of the Southern farm, I doubt that it still exists, as I knew it anyway. But it’s fun to remember those days and to share the stories with others. I’m having a blast writing this book!
Thanks, Susan!
Carol
March 23, 2012 at 1:48 am
Stephanie Stiavetti
I’ve thought about this – the blurring of styles in cookbooks (and blogs as well). Honestly, at this point in time, cuisine is global. We’re finding a rainbow of ingredients in home kitchens that you might not have seen 20 years ago. My aunt in rural Minnesota has little Cutie mandarins and a tin of garam masala on her counter right now. When she adds those to her dishes, are they any less rural in nature If she still adheres to her overall “backwoods” culinary ethic? (her words, not mine!)
What makes a dish “pioneer” or “prairie?” In the eyes of readers, maybe it’s the fact that it was made by someone living that lifestyle, regardless of the influences. But, I can tell you that Ree uses Lowry’s Season Salt in her recipes, which for a lot of people is the exact opposite of “gourmet.” So maybe while we’re all existing in different areas of these modern culinary times, those areas are blurring into each other.
March 24, 2012 at 4:00 am
Sally
Good point – these are mirages not cookbooks. If they really represented the life of a pioneer people would run for the hills. It’s out of the same mould as retro-themed restaurants like Shake Shack which claim to be like ‘old-fashioned road-side burger stands’ – which at the time I presume no one (the odd truck driver?) would have touched with a barge pole!