The days of recipe book superstars may be gone, but cookbook sales are still on the rise. Does it matter if we never cook from them?
A novel I once read described a protagonist as the sort of woman who reads a cookbook in bed. I glance at my bedside and ponder the hardcovers sitting there. Hetty McKinnon. Anna Jones. Alison Roman. Are these not the great writers of our time? Steinbeck lies under a glass of water; the essential, reliable storyteller and coaster. But for practical, everyday beauty, for hope, for love, for mind-changing advice, it was always cookbooks.
My bookshelf heaves with excellent advice: the stories, instructions and bulky tomes of my chosen profession and passion. My grandmother, Margaret Fulton, – who sold 1.5m copies of her first cookbook and went on to write twentysomething others, plus countless mini-books and magazine lift-outs – once explained to me why she chose the profession. I paraphrase: Once you discover something truly magical as well as practical, it’s impossible not to want to share that with people who you can see could really use the help.
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