How Do You Feel About Buying and Using e-Cookbooks?

[GlorifiedRice]

I just feel that eBooks, and iPods and stuff like this are killing this country and Jobs

[pastameshugana]

What a great thread so far. Here's my $0.02 (depending on exchange rates).

I read quite a large amount in general (last year I purchased and completed more than 100 books through Amazon). Right there the ebook wins in the space/ease of use department. I travel a lot for work and taking my whole library with me (or just the handful I'm reading at the moment) is a huge boon.

On the other hand, there are some things I want to hold. I've got a collection of books about, written during, or related to the Holocaust (lots of family history there) and for some reason those are books I prefer on paper. I'm sure a therapist could read all kinds into that...

I've also got a small-ish collection of paper cook books that I like flipping through, but I've recently really enjoyed the digital (kindle via iPad) version of Jerusalem by Ottolenghi. It was great to have sudden inspiration on the road, pull into a grocery and pull up a recipe on the iPhone for an ingredient list (of which my grocer of course only carried 1/2 the items).

As to GlorifiedRice's comments regarding the EOL of digital devices - I think you're right with a caveat. The reality is that ebooks (and their ilk) are where we're heading. When my iPad/Kindle whatever gets to the point it's phased out, there will be an enterprising individual who will enable us to make the change, bringing our 'old' ebooks into the new digital ecosystem.

OTOH: Just watch environmental legislation over the next decade or so (about which I won't offer comment) and you're going to see the cost of paper going up with the availability falling. I can see a day when buying a paper book will be a decadent luxury (hopefully not in my lifetime) frowned upon by others.

[Jaymes]

I can scribble all the important-to-me marginalia, quickly and easily, while cooking.

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I also like to make notes in the margins of my cookbooks about

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>Also, like others, I do a lot of scribbling in my books.

I can happily accept people disagreeing about the usefulness of cookingbooks in ebook format. But justifying the use of paper-books by invoking the sacrilege of writing in books will definitely keep me awake at night thinking of the sheer horror

To me, hand-written notes are a charming aspect of used books. It tells me that the book has been loved and used enough by the previous owner to have been important enough to her to annotate. I have my great-grandmother's handwritten notes in her one and only cookbook that are my only link to her as a living woman. While my handwriting is not nearly as elegant, I can only hope my own children and future grandchildren will see this the same way in my heavily used and splattered books: I cared enough to cook meals to please my family.

And...

I don't buy cookbooks for the resale value. I buy them to use them and to love them. I not only make those notes for myself to remember that I did this or that in any particular recipe; I make the notes for my children and grandchildren. I think that these personalized notes are what change any cookbook from just being some sterile hunk of paper and print into a living, breathing, individual thing.

Besides, like so many of you here have said, actual print cookbooks are going to be going the way of the dinosaur before too much longer. So what difference will it make if my books are full of splatters and scribbles when they hit some future trash bin or compost heap.

None whatsoever.

[Martin Fisher]

I just feel that eBooks, and iPods and stuff like this are killing this country and Jobs

Don't worry, there will be plenty of 'green' jobs to make up for it!!!!

And think of all the trees it saves!!!!

[Jaymes]

I just feel that eBooks, and iPods and stuff like this are killing this country and Jobs

Don't worry, there will be plenty of 'green' jobs to make up for it!!!!

And think of all the trees it saves!!!!

Not to mention the fact that a great many folks (like my sons) are working in the industries that produce the "eBooks and iPods and stuff like this."

I mean, Holy Horseshoes, Batman!

[annabelle]

Heh, Jaymes.

GR, the same amount of work goes into generating the content of an eBook as in a bound book, less the binding obviously. There are still recipes to test, text to generate, indices and galleys to proof. Additionally, the same book is often available in bound form. I think you are overlooking the great good that has been done by foundations such as the Guttenburg Project that is cataloguing and making available online many books that are out of print and/or classics that are not widely available.

The only persons displaced by lack of book binding are probably working in shipping at e-vil Apple or Amazon.

[janeer]

I'm a big ebook fan for reading, but still on the fence re: cookbooks. Bought a few, haven't really used them. I like to annotate, and I find it tedious to add notes to ebooks. With a paper book, I can scribble all the important-to-me marginalia, quickly and easily, while cooking. Less salt, more butter, doubled, halved, etc. Inserting a note using a device with a virtual keyboard is still tedious to me--the two-finger, poke typing is inefficient.

I'm sort of in this camp. I have hundreds of cookbooks (real, paper ones). I have owned a Kindle since they came out, and have an ipad. I love them both. But I only have a few cookbooks on them, and don't really like them. The biggest benefit of buying an e-cookbook is for when I travel in the summer, and want to have a book with me. But lately I've just been taking a digital photo of recipes I want to have with me on my iphone or ipad. I'm actually less inclined to buy an e-cookbook than I was a few years ago. But I am still buying real cookbooks.

[Bill Klapp]

I have tired of lugging and storing books like many above, and have disposed of far more than I currently own. I think many of us hang onto books as long as we can, and then perform triage, keeping the ones that are from loved ones, rare first editions, autographed or otherwise have sentimental or practical value to us. Of the books that I chose to ship to Italy, over 90% are food and wine-related, overwhelmingly cookbooks. I do not recall throwing out a single cookbook over the years, and indeed, bought duplicates of those misplaced over the years (or lost in divorce!) and before moving here, to have copies of the most important in both countries. Desire to read certain books in English has made me an ebook purchaser and reader, but cookbooks are different. Easy summer reading is one thing, and probably best served by ebooks, but cookbooks are reference books that provide more ultimate satisfaction than any others. Language per se is not the issue (my French and Italan are both good enough to use cookbooks written in those languages, and I have many), but rather, the extra hoops that I must now jump through and extra expense to have hard copies of things like Jerusalem and the new edition of Charcuterie. Thus, I bought both as ebooks. It will be a fair test. However, I wonder if I will end up replacing one or both with hard copies someday!

Pastameshugana, you did make a point that resonates with me, the idea that you can use your cell phone to pull ingredient lists while shopping. As I have gotten older, I find that I make notes or send myself e-mails more frequently to avoid forgetting things that I need to buy or do, and access to recipes and even entire cookbooks takes that to a whole new level...

[quiet1]

I doubt I would ever buy an ecookbook. If there is a particular recipe I want to investigate with an eye toward making it, I'll look it up online. But when I'm bored with my current kitchen endeavors and am looking for inspiration, I want to sit down with an actual book and leaf through it, jumping ahead, or back, as the mood suits. Also, like others, I do a lot of scribbling in my books.

I buy other sorts of ebooks - novels, biographies, reference books, etc. But have never even been tempted to buy an ecookbook.

Don't see that changing anytime soon.

This describes my habits pretty much exactly. I have a couple of cookbooks in my collection already that I might have considered buying in ebook format in addition to the actual book, because they're the kind of cookbook you can really comfortably sit down and READ, and due to arthritis in my hands and wrists I find ebooks more physically comfortable for that kind of thing, but there's just something about having an actual physical book that seems to be more inspiring somehow.

(I also like to write lists and notes by hand, for similar creativity-related reasons. Sometimes I type them up to make a final draft, if I need to be able to share the information easily with other people who might not be able to read my handwriting, but the initial list? Paper and pen.)

[Bill Klapp]

I am chuckling as I write this. I had to go to Torino yesterday, so I decided to go to the Porta Palazzo market and stock up on meats and vegetables for Thai cooking. I was in a hurry, so I ended up taking 5 cookbooks with me, picking the recipes and then making the shopping list during the hour-plus journey. The cookbooks were not available as e-books in any event, but after sudden stops sent the books flying at me a couple of times, I could envison having been able to do the entire exercise on a tablet...

[quiet1]

I am chuckling as I write this. I had to go to Torino yesterday, so I decided to go to the Porta Palazzo market and stock up on meats and vegetables for Thai cooking. I was in a hurry, so I ended up taking 5 cookbooks with me, picking the recipes and then making the shopping list during the hour-plus journey. The cookbooks were not available as e-books in any event, but after sudden stops sent the books flying at me a couple of times, I could envison having been able to do the entire exercise on a tablet...

My ideal would probably be a package deal where you could get the book and an ebook copy for something less than buying them separately, so you'd have the book for when you preferred that, and the ebook to be used as a more portable reference.

[marlonmark]

For me it does not matter whether i read it on E-books or the normal books. According to me if you have a passion of reading then can adjust with whatever you like. Also I will say E-book is better than normal books not in terms of reading but say for instance if you are out on a vacation, or tour, travelling some where instead of carrying the bunch of books (which will obviously weigh more) i would prefer E-books..

[Bill Klapp]

I am chuckling as I write this. I had to go to Torino yesterday, so I decided to go to the Porta Palazzo market and stock up on meats and vegetables for Thai cooking. I was in a hurry, so I ended up taking 5 cookbooks with me, picking the recipes and then making the shopping list during the hour-plus journey. The cookbooks were not available as e-books in any event, but after sudden stops sent the books flying at me a couple of times, I could envison having been able to do the entire exercise on a tablet...

My ideal would probably be a package deal where you could get the book and an ebook copy for something less than buying them separately, so you'd have the book for when you preferred that, and the ebook to be used as a more portable reference.

I am chuckling as I write this. I had to go to Torino yesterday, so I decided to go to the Porta Palazzo market and stock up on meats and vegetables for Thai cooking. I was in a hurry, so I ended up taking 5 cookbooks with me, picking the recipes and then making the shopping list during the hour-plus journey. The cookbooks were not available as e-books in any event, but after sudden stops sent the books flying at me a couple of times, I could envison having been able to do the entire exercise on a tablet...

My ideal would probably be a package deal where you could get the book and an ebook copy for something less than buying them separately, so you'd have the book for when you preferred that, and the ebook to be used as a more portable reference.

That makes great economic sense, too. Wine journals and no doubt other magazines do that, some with complete double counting (on the spurious theory that the two products really are different). It would be an additional source of revenue for authors and everyone else in the supply chain, none of whom expect that one person would buy both formats. Of course, cutting the other way is the number of publications moving away from the expense and trouble of hard copy as quickly as they can...

[pastameshugana]

This just in: Amazon has just announced a program called 'MatchBook' that appears to offer discounted and sometimes free digital versions of physical books you own.

Google 'Kindle Matchbook' for the news stories.

[Syzygies]

Naomi Duguid's ebooks are steeply discounted this month (for a few more days), on Amazon and elsewhere. See http://www.workman.com/ecookbook-club/deals/

Browsing "other recommendations" from any of these books on Amazon, one sees other interesting books for a song.

My buying patterns in used bookstores are primarily limited by my limited shelf space and my limited attention. With some notable ebooks costing even less, shelf space is not a problem, but attention is more of a problem.

I do think the Amazon programmers are being fools by not supporting a uniform folder structure synchronized between all devices and apps. Some people churn through trashy novels, only to abandon them like yesterday's newspaper. For people who collect books to keep, returning years later to books they know they own, Amazon's lack of organizational support for one's collection is going to limit their best customers. We'll simply slow down, there's a limit to the number of books one can appreciate owning with their current file systems, akin to "flat" file systems of the earliest personal computers. Apple learned this lesson nearly 30 years ago, only to realize there's money in keeping iPod interfaces as stupid as possible. Amazon seems mired in this latter view.

[SobaAddict70]

I prefer using non-electronic cookbooks whenever possible.

[Smithy]

I have a mix of the two. I still prefer leafing through hard-copy books and magazines for inspiration, and I find it easier - well, slightly less risky, anyway - to have a cookbook or printout sitting on the counter than to have my tablet on the counter. (I've had to replace the keypad/docking station because of an expensive mishap with a fresh batch of salad dressing.) I also find it easier to put intelligible bookmarks in magazines and cookbooks, although they're usually just random pieces of scrap paper, or occasionally color coded Post-It ™ notes.

Since we began traveling so much, I've started down the path of ecookbooks for their ease of transport. I find I can get just as wrapped up in a good electronic read as with a good paper read, and the programs do allow for bookmarks of a sort. Inkling has just released their Android beta platform, and that's supposed to allow notes to be added. I'll be interested to see how well it works.

The biggest risk, I find, is forgetting that I have a particular book. At first I thought it was peculiar to the electronic format - I don't keep seeing it when I look at the bookshelf - but, in fact, I've rediscovered old favorite hard-copy books too, as in: 'wait, when did I get that?!' :-D

[G Nicholas Phillips]

 E books are really good to work with 

  At work I use an Android based Tablet wrapped in a ziplock baggie.   Every station in our kitchen is being set up for using tablets instead of paper/ white boards/ cookbooks. It seems a very easy way to send recipes to a CDP ( as well as prep lists)

 We are setting up a kitchen Cloud drive so all the cooks can access what ever they need.

 At home I prefer paper to read, unless I am looking for a very specific recipe.

[lindag]

While I exclusively buy e-books now, the exception is cookbooks. I need the real thing when I'm studying recipes or when cooking. I have a few e-cookbooks but they just don't work well for me, I need to be able to flip back and forth thru the pages.

[Volition]

I'm loving a mixture of both. I love the ability to search on my ipad through cookbooks. I suppose I get more reference type cookbooks on the ipad.

Since my discovery of 'eat my books'website the paper based versions are now more useful then ever too.

If I love the book I'd rather have paper based for example Stephanie Alexander's tome 'the cooks companion' I have the paper book and I have the app. I prefer the paper but love searching the app when I'm out as a reference.

There is room for both.

[Edward J]

Just a quick question...

 

Is there any other option to purchase "E-books" besides using a Visa/M/C via internet?

[eldereno]

I have hundreds of cookbooks and love perusing them when I am in that mood.  Have not found e-cookbooks as enticing.  I do have a Kindle and have had one for 5 years or so.  Have hundreds of books on that but only fiction and reference.  Love it for when I travel!  Audiobooks and the e-reader is my choice for travel and reading.  When food is my focus, I need my books.  Love having them on my shelves, they are part of the decoration of my kitchen, they are there when I need inspiration. 

[Anna N]

Just a quick question...

 

Is there any other option to purchase "E-books" besides using a Visa/M/C via internet?

I can't imagine how else they could be delivered to your device. Or are you asking if there are alternate payment options?

[Smithy]

On 4/15/2014 at 4:45 PM, Anna N said:

I can't imagine how else they could be delivered to your device. Or are you asking if there are alternate payment options?

I think he's asking about alternate payment options. Gift cards are an option: they're basically prepaid debit cards that have a set amount and aren't linked to your bank account. Amazon has them, and I'll bet the others have them also.

[Smithy]

Let us not forget: a lot of libraries now have e-books on loan, including e-cookbooks. Just as with a hard-copy loan, you can borrow the book for a set time period. Sometimes I've gone on to purchase the e-book for myself after the loan ended, and sometimes not.