The Death of the Cookbook

[Fat Guy]

Just a minor point there: electronic paper displays (EPDs) are not artificially lit. Electronic ink is reflective, just like regular ink. Unlike an LCD, it requires no backlighting and can be read under all the same conditions as regular ink. From the E Ink website:

EPDs are a technology enabled by electronic ink - ink that carries a charge enabling it to be updated through electronics. Electronic ink is ideally suited for EPDs as it is a reflective technology which requires no front or backlight, is viewable under a wide range of lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, and requires no power to maintain an image.

My feeling is that from a cookbook perspective, the main problems with current-generation ebook readers are:

1. The displays are not in color, a limitation that renders them sort of useless for illustrated cookbooks. So addressing that is going to require a step forward in the technology.

2. The displays are fairly small, on the order of a page of a paperback novel. Cookbooks tend to use a much larger format. I remember when my non-cookbook food book, Turning the Tables, was released in paperback. It had roughly the trim size of a regular nonfiction paperback. I'd go to bookstores and it would typically be shelved with the cookbooks, and it looked minuscule next to them. Especially when you're talking about spreading out a cookbook on the counter so you're viewing two pages of a recipe at once, that could be several times the surface area of an ebook reader.

It seems inevitable, though, that these issues will be addressed as ebook technology develops. Already there are prototypes of color and rollable/flexible epaper. It's more a question of when than whether.

[Daniel]

Just a minor point there: electronic paper displays (EPDs) are not artificially lit. Electronic ink is reflective, just like regular ink. Unlike an LCD, it requires no backlighting and can be read under all the same conditions as regular ink. From the E Ink website:

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Getting back to my scenario of a porch, a hammock, anything that is light by anything besides the sun would be considered artificial.. However you want to call it, looking at a screen doesnt set me at ease.. For example, have you ever fallen reading a computer? I certainly havent, but a book is better then a sleeping pill..

Edited February 9, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[Fat Guy]

There is no need for an artificial light source of any kind. If you read an EPD on the hammock, the sun illuminates the electronic ink and electronic paper just as it would illuminate regular ink and regular paper. It is not at all like reading a book on a laptop computer's LCD screen. It's an entirely different technology.

[Daniel]

I was more talking about scenarios that are currently available, like the PDA's previously mentioned.. Are the electronic paper displays currently available now? I am assuming no, because I see no amazon link..

Edited February 9, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[MaxH]

Fat Guy has presented a balanced and insightful perspective on the new EPD products here, IMO. I'm not a user either, but I know people who are. I've noticed (a) these dedicated electronic books are remarkably well human-engineered, even for their current development generation, and in ways not apparent until you look at them seriously; (b) they constitute a unique class of display device, not comparable to computer screens, and developed along a separate evolutionary path; ( c ) they've garnered a lot of skeptical commentary (including in online reviews) from people who have not actually used them and do not understand them, yet are willing to judge them publicly, at length. (One psychological professional even let fly on this point, as an example of narcissism -- a separate thread topic maybe.)

Also outside the scope of this thread is a deeper implicit issue hiding behind many modern cookbook discussions -- Terrasanct will know about this, I'd guess -- summarized once by someone I know who started collecting cookbooks seriously in the 1930s (more than 10,000) and therefore is in the unusual position of fully grasping just how little that gets published today truly is new. (Color photography excepted.) Electronic books might help, by distributing important older titles (i.e., most good cookbooks) more readily than facsimile editions and used copies have been able to. Typefaces, quirks, and all.

[Fat Guy]

I was more talking about scenarios that are currently available, like the PDA's previously mentioned.. Are the electronic paper displays currently available now?  I am assuming no, because I see no amazon link..

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Yes. The current-generation ebook readers available to retail consumers (Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, HanLin eBook, etc.) use the E Ink Vizplex technology, which is remarkably paper-like. It's not quite there, but it's pretty impressive. At least, I don't know anybody who has picked one up and not been impressed.

[mcdowell]

For example, have you ever fallen reading a computer?  I certainly havent, but a book is better then a sleeping pill..

←

I've fallen asleep in front of a computer screen more often than I'll ever admit, but then I work in technology. I work on the the side of the business that is enabling these sorts of gadgets, getting paid to live five and ten years in the future. I'm a fan of these sorts of devices, and I think they really will change the way we go about the business of living.

If I were simply reading, I can easily see a day in the very near future where an eBook reader might be my primary choice. And if I were just using a text as a reference, looking for a recipe, say, then I often use the internet, and can see using the eBook.

The problem is, I rarely use cookbooks as reference -- I use them as inspiration. I don't always know when I grab one off of my shelf what it is I'm looking for. I see my cookbooks very much as analog to my art and design books.

In that regard, I think that the technology is failing us. While I can use an electronic text and scan through pictures and bold face titles looking for something to light my pilot, it's far more enjoyable to take a fat book to my most comfortable chair and flip through it. I'm almost always surprised by what I find, and I relish the intangible feelings I get from the tactile experience of touching the pages and holding the book.

I could do that on the computer, but it all just seems a little soulless to me. I want the feel of the paper under my fingertips. I want to flip the pages and be surprised. I want to navigate without a map. eBooks don't let me do that yet.

All that said, we've done some studies on the impact of these classes of technology. The "tweener" generation, the one right behind most of us, doesn't have the nostalgic and emotional ties to these physical objects. I little doubt that phsical books will go largely go by the wayside within a couple of generations, cookbooks included. I'd say sooner, but newspapers have proven that we'll support the printing business long past their need.

Me, I'm going to miss them. I'll read a novel on epaper without complaint, and already largely use the internet as my reference library, but I want my art printed, and sitting right over there on my kitchen shelf.

[Terrasanct]

I'd like to see a Kindle or its ilk--is there anywhere to look at one in person, or are they just online?

Books are not going to die. Kids are still reading books, even if they're comfortable with the new technologies.

On the topic of inspiration, sometimes the photos are important when you're looking at a cookbook--the colors can spark something in the brain that says, hey, I want to make something with tomatoes tonight, or those jalapenos look really good.

This reminds me, strangely enough, of a book I'm re-reading right now. It's called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. Talks about how image and text are processed by different parts of the brain. Reading a recipe isn't the same as looking at a photo of the recipe. We're all inspired by different things, and at different times, I think. Looking at an image is a more gestalt experience than the linear reading of text. Wanting to "look at the pictures" isn't an immature desire; it's just a different way of comprehending a whole. It doesn't mean that you just want glossy images--food porn.

[Darcie B]

I'm glad that Fat Guy explained the difference between ebook readers and other digital displays. I was under the impression it was just another LCD or plasma screen like a laptop and was not at all interested. I might take a look at one now (my boss is a total gadget freak so I might even be able to convince him to buy it LOL).

I can see its usefulness, especially for someone living in, say, Manhattan where space is at a premium. A Kindle would allow you to have a lot more books than you could cram into a small apartment. I also see an advantage for someone who moves a lot - I hate moving my library.

I for one would be very interested in moving to this technology, yes, at the expense of traditional books. I'm not a member of the tweener generation but I've always embraced new technologies where I've found them useful. I guess I'm not very sentimental.

I have problems with traditional cookbooks - the spines break, they don't stay open when I'm trying to cook from them, my cats shred them, etc. I can see moving away from printed books almost entirely - except of course for my signed copies...

However, I think it will take some time for printed books to become obsolete. TV didn't kill radio, the internet hasn't (yet) killed newspapers, etc.

[suzilightning]

and now a new product specifically for the kitchen: http://www.mydemy.com

[tan319]

"Hot Chefs, Hip Cuisine" was a pretty cool book 6 years ago when it came out and still like to give it browse every once in awhile.

Some recipes from both Adria's that were hard to find in English as it was wayyyyyyy before '98/01.

The Marx book I saw in France and I liked it but let's face it, except for the El Bulli books ( maybe), the clock is ticking on it all.

[OliverB]

nothing will ever replace a nice well produced book in my book. That being said, I'd love it if books would give you a link or CD with at least the index on them, that you could then load into some standard database, thus allowing you to search all your books at once form the computer. I'm sure I'll eventually own something like the kindle (though I'm patient enough to wait for when they'll be free with some subscription) as it's great for all the novels I read, there's really no reason to keep a story book once you've read it. At least I don't have the time to read the same book again, as there are a gazillion other books out there I have not yet read that are first in line.

Now, having some reader that's hanging off my cupboard door or fridge, that's wirelessly connected to my cookbook database and can show any recipe I own in printed form, that would be great! I'm very anal with my books, if I'd ever spill something on one of my beloved expensive cookbooks I'd have to throw it out (literally) and buy it again. I'm not quite wearing white gloves paging through them (and my art and music books), but I'm close to that. Silly, I know, but that's just how I feel about books.

A kindle, no matter how fancy and in color and with video and what not, will never be the same as a nice well made book that sits on my reading table or in my bookshelf. Imagine a large bookshelf - mine holds some 2000 or so books I guess - with one, that's one thin plasticy Kindle sitting on it, in a lot of empty space. Sorry, not my thing.

I see the use of these devices much more for disposable reads like novels, newspapers, magazines, etc. I'd not mind having just one Kindle on my coffee table (that I think never saw a cup of coffee, despite the name) instead of the piles of magazines. Now, I do love magazines, but they are disposable and a reader (if in color) could pretty much deliver the same with added features like saving pages you like etc. It would have to have a touch screen that I can write on with some pen, be in color, and allow saving, highlighting, annotating, etc etc, all the good things you can do with a cheap magazine. And if I'd get an e-copy of the nice cookbooks I buy as a free download, I'd be all over it too.

But it will never sit alone on my empty bookshelf, that's for sure :-)

[LindaK]

There's a distinction, for me anyway, between a cookbook and a recipe file. I'll be slow to give up the printed page when it comes to reading the narrative or appreciating photos in a good cookbook, or any book for that matter. But I'd welcome an easy way to store recipes electronically--from cookbooks, online sources, wherever--and make marginal notes as well--which is critical as far as I'm concerned, I scribble all over cookbooks.

Lately, I've been reading the thread on Recipe Software because I'm getting tired of sifting through written notes, magazine and newpaper clippings, electronic cut-and-paste documents, hard copies of cookbooks, etc., for recipes. If there was an easy way to bring that all together electronically, I'd jump at it. Earlier in this thread, LindaCakes had a long list of "what if's..." that sounded good to me. I don't see that as being the death-knell of cookbooks at all. Though there are a lot of cookbooks out there that are just compendiums of recipes and probably wouldn't suffer if they were only available electronically.

There's another issue that I haven't seen mentioned yet, and that's sustainability. Let's face it, trees get killed for books. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but from what I've read the publishing industry doesn't rate highly on anyone's sustainability scale. As this becomes more important to governments and consumers, hard copies of books might eventually become luxury items. It pains me to think about it, because I cherish my books. But I'm starting to pay more attention to the environmental tradeoffs of paper vs. electronic anything.

[agray]

There's an interesting article about some of this on Publisher's Weekly. To paraphrase: sales of cookbooks and food-related titles are up at least 4% this year so far, while sales of adult fiction overall dropped by 9%. So books are still going strong, and interestingly there are some complementary things going on electronically - so not necessarily a replacement by ebooks or the web (not yet anyway).

There are more and more food and cooking related websites out there (the article mentions several sponsored by publishers: the Mixing Bowl and Delish websites, as well as cookbook trailers and some experiments with video websites by the likes of Molly Katzen). In terms of e-books, things are just getting started, but Kindle cookbooks are coming (if they're not here yet), and there is talk of enhanced books too, with video content, in the future.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6675427.html

For my own part, I love the form of the cookbook - the heft and authority of it, the photography, the ability (as others have mentioned) to sit in an easy chair and page through them. Plus the resistance to the grease stains and spills of the kitchen is hard to beat. But I also adore the ease of use of the Internet. Being able to search quickly through thousands of recipes is a compelling counterpoint to the durability and form of the paper cookbook.

I actually thought about this a lot a couple of years ago, and decided to try to do something about it. I wanted, as OliverB mentions, a way to use my cookbooks like I'd use something like Epicurious. After kicking ideas around for a while, I started a website (link in my signature line) that lets people catalogue their cookbooks and food magazines and rate and review the recipes individually. The idea being that you'd write all your notes on the site and then you could search through them later: find recipes quickly. As more people use it, eventually we'll get complete indexes of most books, rated and ranked so you could get ideas about what you haven't cooked yet. It's about a month old now.

I do hope that cookbooks don't vanish, and I really don't think they will, but I'm very curious to see what new technology will bring; multimedia, connections to other people with interesting tastes, community - all these things could very much enhance the cookbook without diminishing it.

[OliverB]

I think your site is a great idea! Like Amazon reviews with (eventually) page by page detail. Hopefully I'll find some time to add my own books and reviews. I'm working on short reviews of books on my own blog in the store section, but that would not include recipe discussions, I like your idea.

I just made up a new project I call threesomes, I plan to make (at least) 3 dishes from any of my books, in sequence, meaning I won't use an other book for that week (or weeks) until I'm done with those three. I'll be posting results here and on my blog. Part of the idea is to actually use the books I have in the kitchen, not just on my reading table, part is the selfish reason that I want to be able to search my own notes, as I usually remember a recipe I made, but not necessarily the book it came from

If your site gets enough contributers it can really be a useful tool!

I still wish publishers would at least allow one to download an electronic version of the contents and the index of their books. Regardless if you own the book or not, as I'd guess such a service could lead to book sales too.

[adey73]

As Apple release it's much anticipated ipad/islate/itablet later today I wonder how many cookbooks will be available and whether it will be splash proof?

[John Rosevear]

I doubt it'll be splashproof, but I'm sure that, just as with the iPhone, splash-resistant cases will be readily available for it sooner rather than later.

As for whether cookbooks will be available... if they're available via Amazon's Kindle, it's a safe bet they'll be available on this thing (only in bright sharp color!) too.

[OliverB]

Apple's new toy sure looks nice, though a bit expensive for now. Of course, soon enough these will come down in price just like cellphones and maybe even free with some service contract.

I'd love to be able to buy a cook book (or any book) and have access to a digital copy that I can download or read via some such device. I don't like having expensive books in the kitchen, I could see creating some kind of contraption to hang a reader of some sort on my cup board though. And the future sure looks interesting, not just recipe and photos, but interactive stuff, video how tos, things like that. Updates etc.

I doubt the book will ever go away, but I also doubt that there'll be many book stores left in 10 or 20 years. Most books are fiction or text books or travel or biographies etc. All of those tend to get read once and then just sit and take up space and dust in a regular house. No reason really, to have a physical copy if the readers develop a bit further. (I've looked at the Sony and the B&N one, nice but not quite "there" yet for me. And way too expensive)

But art books (and I consider many of my book books to fall into that category) will never look that nice on a small screen. (of course, they'd look a lot nicer on a 55inch HD screen display I guess, so we'll see....)

I'm looking forward to play with the new Apple thing, but I'll wait for prices to drop a bit. I don't really need one, as I have this laptop (Apple) here right smack in the middle of the living room anyway. I'm sure I will own one such thing in the future though :-)

[Dakki]

Sounds interesting, my concern would be that you would end up loosing data due to upgrades etc. A lot of data from earlier on in my career (10 years ago) is no longer accessible (without great effort) due to either the software or the format it is stored in.

This problem has been mostly solved by storing data in open, standards-compliant formats like HTML rather than proprietary formats like MS .doc. Things written in "old" HTML will remain readable to any software that can read "new" HTML (such as a web browser) and, being open, anyone can freely write and distribute software that reads HTML without fear of beig hauled off to court (for example, Firefox). Thing is, open standards do not support copy protection schemes, which is naturally going to bother any publisher. Your main problem, then, is going to be keeping the Digital Rights Management-protected books you bought readable after Amazon goes kaput and your Kindle buys the farm.

On-topic, I guess I'm in the "room for both" group. I'd say I probably get about half my recipes and much of my techniques online and, as FatGuy said, eReaders are already good and getting better with every generation. I completely understand people who don't feel they'll get the same pleasure reading from an electronic device as from a dead tree book, as I feel the same way about my own little library of classics and literary novels.

(Nope, leaving a well-thumbed hardback copy of Gravity's Rainbow where the guests can see it doesn't come into this at all. )

On the other hand the internet has given us access to thousands of books (including cookbooks) that are just not realistically available in hard copy anymore. I challenge you to find a copy of Miss Beecher's Receipt (sic) Book in a used book store for a price you'd pay for a book and not a historical artifact.

Electronic media also has a big advantages in that amateurs can share their knowledge with others, and we're not constrained by the economics of traditional publishing. I've posted my frijoles charros recipe on another forum, with dozens of color photos and longwinded clarifications regarding the different kinds of beans, the variety of aromatic vegetables and pork products one can put in and the differences between varieties of chiles. Printing it up in a cookbook would be prohibitively expensive.

Finally, I use my cookbooks as reference tools that get opened when cooking and compiling a shopping list, not bedtime reading, but I can see there's a lot of people here who like nothing better than curling up with Julia Child. The publishing industry is going to cater to us all, luddites, food porn readers and kitchen engineers.

[Kent Wang]

So are there any good cookbooks available in electronic format yet?

[Dakki]

Virginia Tech has a nice collection of old cookbooks online (there are others):

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/digital_books/

I see 3931 Food, Wine and Cooking eBooks on Amazon's Kindle store. Too lazy to check other stores (is Apple's open yet? They just introduced their tablet today, and apparently they have deals with just about everyone to publish books in an iTunes-like store).

[hsm]

The talk about books with CDs makes me think I wouldn't have an aversion to an e-version of the Time Life series - the hard bound books with the editorial and photos plus a recipe-only CD. Not that the spiral-bound recipe books aren't easy to use, just that I like being able to print out a recipe to take to the kitchen. And occasionally trash it.

[MartinH]

The iPad promises to take the cookbook to a new level. Cookbooks downloaded to it might contain hyperlinks, embedded videos, apps of other kinds, automatic conversions of measurements from metric to english ... and much else besides. So, for instance, that book by a TV chef might contain bits of the TV show within it. Or, it might link into the many variations of a recipe in online collections. Could be interesting.

[johung]

I think these 3 weakness are still there despite we have entered the iPad era, and yet to overcome:

1. Digital media, because of their search capabilities, means you jump straight into reading what you need, but you will never have the urge to explore other dishes in the book.

2. A lot of people read not just to obtain information, but to "feel" the information as well. If using the modernist terms, it is a combination of left and right brain activities. I personally find it hard to "feel" the reading process if it is read on electronic media.

3. A lot of people will concur as well, you will always miss reading something if it appears in front of an electronic display, versus of reading it on paper. (I'm a heavy electrical engineer in my day job, and trust me, no matter how convenient electronic media are, you will always find you missed reading the entire sections when you read the hardbound copy of an engineering standard versus reading it on your computer screen or PDA)

Edited January 29, 2010 by johung (log)

[Dakki]

Martin: No objections to your premises if applied to most devices, but you should be aware the iPad does not multitask or support Flash, so no embedded videos, etc.

johung: I think your objections are valid, depending on how you use hard-copy cookbooks in the first place, and your personal attitude towards media that's delivered digitally. I for one don't feel much of a difference reading a novel on my PC or on paper. The PC does make it easier to search and skip to the good bits in manuals etc, but the way I use cookbooks this is a positive advantage.

(Also, I get inspired to try cooking something new far more often from seeing it in forums etc. than I get when leafing through a cookbook. Something to do with the possibility of popping in and asking questions if necessary, maybe?)

So, there's space for both types for the foreseeable future I guess?