Dianne Jacob on the future of cookbooks
December 15, 2016 by Darcie
Despite the popularity of food television shows, Instagram posts involving food, and the continued strength of cookbook sales, Americans are cooking less. Food writer and former editor Dianne Jacob takes a look at this trend, and asks an important question: what does this mean for the cookbook industry?
Jacob notes that 2015 was the first year that Americans spent more on eating out than they did on groceries, and during the last few years several news articles have reported on a decline in home cooking. So why do cookbooks continue to sell briskly? There are a few answers to this conundrum, says Jacob. First, people may buy cookbooks “for other reasons than cooking. They might aspire to cook from them, but then don’t. They might think cookbooks are beautiful enough to display as art,” she notes.
Another well-established trend is that the most popular cookbooks are personality-driven rather than recipe-driven. This comports with the recent discussion on the EYB blog about bestselling cookbooks being those that told a story rather than just the books that contained a collection of recipes. People seem to want to read about food more than cook it.
All of these developments lead Jacob to wonder what cookbook publishers could do make readers want to cook more. She leaves us with this question: “Do cookbooks need to change, fundamentally?” What do you think?
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