Cookbooks with No Photos

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

I just returned from a visit to a used bookstore and sat on this hard floor for more than an hour looking through cookbooks dated pre-1950s. I was specifically looking for books that do not have photographs. I know we have moved into a time when we now eat with our eyes and not our mind, okay so some of you don’t know what I mean, but believe it or not there was a time when I could just write about the food and it would get you drooling. Does anybody out there remember those times? Oh, okay.

Well after teaching cooking classes off and on for more than twenty years, I now know that folks in the U.S. have come to a point where they no longer have an imagination. Where did it go? I think when these colorful, frilly cookbooks and cooking magazines came into being; we started to eat with our eyes. I guest you could say we did what you folks are doing today with video games and television. Instead of going out to play, using your imagination, popsicles sticks and good old fashioned dirt, they twiddle their thumbs, text and play.

What would happen if we went the way of yesterday and removed many photos from our texts? Could you live in a world without food photographs in newspapers, magazines and books? What words could describe this Sweet Potato Pie?