Over at Slate, L.V. Anderson has stirred up a lot of
controversy with a provocative essay on why she's OK with the
extinction of cookbooks. In her article, The Future of
Cookbooks: They'll Go Extinct. And That's OK she makes
claim to a number of controversial statements. Among these are: the
primary reason people buy cookbooks is to give them as gifts;
"The Internet is far superior to cookbooks for helping
readers suss out recipe quality;" and those who claim to enjoy the
aesthetics of cookbooks are really just expressing some
nonsensical sentimental musings.
Her concluding paragraph sums up her case,
"Will some cookbook lovers resist these improvements? Yes,
but eventually they will all be dead. Will some rich people always
seek out obscure memorabilia to display as status symbols or art
objects? Yes, but in the future, cookbooks will be quirky art
objects in the same sense that typewriters are today. Their value
will be in their history, and the rest of us will wonder how anyone
ever cooked from them in the first place."
Needless to say, there are protests -- join in the
skirmish here.
