The enduring magic of cookbooks

May 7, 2025 by
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While the print publishing industry continues to contract, one area bucks the trend, and has for years. In fact, it shows no sign of slowing down. That area, of course, is cookbooks. So what it is about this genre that allows it to be a publishing juggernaut? Sophia Podini, writing for Her Campus, gives us her theory for why cookbooks continue to beat the algorithm.

Podini starts out by comparing cookbooks to ‘relics’ like DVDs and iPods. Whew, that made me feel old because I remember when those items were introduced! However, it does drive home the point: cookbooks continue when fads die or technologies are replaced by the latest invention. At one point, people were convinced that the same would happen to cookbooks: e-books or online sources would replace books and they too would quietly fade away. Of course, that has not happened and in fact, cookbooks continue to grow in popularity.

The reason behind this, explains Podini, is that “There’s an unexplainable grounding and almost luxurious feeling about flipping through a great cookbook.” She notes that unlike seeing the latest viral TikTok and trying it, cookbooks are more cohesive and generally contain a collection of recipes that go together, so you can make an entire meal from one source. Podini also loves the tactile feel of cookbooks – something that resonated with me. Since I worked in a library from the age of 16 until I was through college, the feel (and smell) of books has always been special to me. Long live the cookbook.

Category: Cookbook Lovers

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7 Comments

  • KatieK1  on  May 7, 2025

    While I love my printed cookbooks and my library keeps growing, sometimes it pays to get e-cookbooks instead, especially when the print editions have tiny washed-out type. Maybe some of the current cookbook designers just don’t cook.

  • debakken  on  May 7, 2025

    I want to be able to pull multiple recipes from books in my cookbook collection, look at them side by side, and choose which one I’m going to use on any given day. EYB lets me do this so easily, but it’s so much better with physical books. Besides, I love reading cookbooks. I want the full size page with color illustrations in front of me, both when I read and when I cook. I love seeing the physical books on my shelves and I love pulling them out to use.

  • FuzzyChef  on  May 8, 2025

    I think Podini is wrong about the reasons. First, its just much harder to use ebook cookbooks than print ones. Second, given that one keeps cookbooks for decades, one has to worry about file formats and obsolescence. Third, folks who want recipes from an electronic device get them from the internet, they don’t want an ecookbook either. My prediction is that ebooks for cooking wont succeed until paper gets way too expensive.

  • RElisabeth  on  May 8, 2025

    I have a small house with a very small kitchen. E-cookbooks have the great advantage that they don’t need bookshelf space, and in the kitchen, I can read the recipe from a phone or tablet balanced on the bread bin or washing-up rack. Yes, it’s lovely to browse through a printed book – right back to the wedding present Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, 1973 printing – but thanks to EYB I can discover recipes in both formats. And you can make notes in an e-book; you just don’t get the fingerprints and grease stains that belong in a well-used paper book.

  • racheljmorgan  on  May 8, 2025

    I think e-cookbooks would be more successful if they just published in pdf style format. Cooking magazines have started doing this and I’m grateful. The standard e-cookbook is so difficult to read, even for me as a millennial! Text always on multiple pages, loss of ingredient list formatting, minimal photos, hard to browse…just awful.

  • gamulholland  on  May 8, 2025

    I agree with the comment about cookbooks being in PDF format— Sara Forte’s latest is in PDF style, and it’s a lot more readable and also keeps the beauty of the page layout and photos. Also— I love print books, but if one of my print cookbooks goes on sale as an ebook for $2.99 or thereabouts, I get a copy so that when I’m hitting Trader Joe’s on the way home from work, I can look at the recipe and figure out what I need. So I have print and ebooks of the same book in many cases.

  • demomcook  on  May 8, 2025

    I’m going to put in my two cents for keeping the current digital format. You can use your kindle settings to adjust the type to make it very large, and even change the font. I’m legally blind, but I can use my cookbooks on Kindle. Many newer print cookbooks will not work for me, even with a special magnifier. PDF magazine formats are actually images, so that anyone who relies on software to read aloud to them cannot use this format.

    As for space, I thinned out the “cookbook herd” several years ago, and enjoy shopping the “Cookbook Deals” and using the Kindle Rewards program to make e-books collectable. If I do get a print book, I try to keep to a “One in, one out” rule so I stay withing my shelf space.

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