Why Do We Read Cookbooks

I am sure I am not alone in wondering what makes me do it, when I could manage perfectly well at my time of life with just a copy of the unillustrated, spirax bound PWMU Cookbook.

This wonderful article explains everything. I am not mad after all!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/15/why-we-read-cookbooks

Thanks for that. It was a very pleasant read.

Good article. I'd never thought about why I, and my mom and sister, have so many cookbooks. Chasing after the perfect recipe sounds plausible.

I remember reading a little while ago that spectators at sporting events achieve a similar heightened level of some hormone or other (the happiness one, the excitement one, the achievement one - you get the idea) as the watched players do, and I'm wondering whether reading recipes and looking at gorgeous photographs of food might give us feelings similar to those we would experience if we actually ate the food itself. It would explain a lot (of cookbooks).

So... if I read less cookbooks over the holiday season, I can eat more yummy holiday food? Works for me.

But will you Jim? Read fewer cookbooks, that is.

No, I'll probably read the high-sugar, high-fat cookbooks excessively over December and go on a horrible diet of low-joule cookbooks in the new year.

I might even have to read a book on jogging or some other exercise as well. Oh, the pain!

.... au chocolat.

That article made me think of my late mother-in-law. She passed away last year. She was a fabulous cook. Her gravy was unlike any I have ever had. The problem was when she made it, she made sure no one was in her kitchen.

While we were in the hospital one night my husband said to me how much he was going to miss her gravy. (You'll have to understand this was after about 2 months at the hospital and we were all just trying to get by and keep each other going)

After spending several nights there, he broke down and asked her for the recipe. She just looked at him as if to say: are you kidding? She never did give it to anyone. I did manage to find her turkey stuffing recipe tucked inside one of her cookbooks!