When you have several hundred cookbooks (or even over a
thousand, as I know some of you EYBers do!), it's hard to admit
that some of your books aren't for actual cooking. But it's true,
isn't it? There's at least a half-dozen books on my shelf
that are strictly for looking at. I've never even
contemplated attacking one of the recipes, which would be like
assaulting a citadel with a peashooter. I guess I'm talking
about the books that would be coffee-table books, if I had a coffee
table.
When I was growing up, my dad, a
graphic designer, worked on a couple of the first glossy food
books. One was called "Glorious Food!" (1982), after the New
York catering company its author ran. Another was Giuliano
Bugialli's Foods of Italy (1984). These were gorgeous
productions, photo-filled and mouthwatering, but I only remember my
stepmother cooking from them maybe once. They were strictly
for display, in other words, and you certainly wouldn't want to
splatter the coated-stock interiors with tomato sauce.
These days, my favorite just-for-show books are also intensely
visual, but they usually have some other kind of appeal as well.
One of my absolute favorite browse books is What I Eat, the
fascinating documentary by Peter Menzel and Faith d'Aluisio, which
travels the world looking at daily meals ranging from 800 to 12,300
calories (Also fascinating, if somehow less shocking, is the same
team's Hungry
Planet).
I also have a known weakness for
cake books, in particular Colette Peters' daft and surreal Cakes to Dream On,
filled with cakes that look exactly like mattresses! Fabergé
eggs! Sofa cushions! Marble fountains! And I love
looking at wedding cake books like Toba Garrett's, even though
they're far beyond my budget to buy or capacity to make.
I'm also fond of mini-books like They Draw and
Cook, with each little whimsically drafted recipe an artwork in
itself. The recipes are practical enough that it could be a
working cookbook too, but every time I open it I forget about
cooking and just feel like leafing through the colorful pages.
Which books are your just-for-show ones? And did you buy
them for yourself, or were they gifts? Is it enough to take
them out once a year or so, look at the pictures and read the
stories? Or do you feel an obligation of sorts to put them to
work?
