I’ve done more than my share of cookbook-reading over the years and have developed strong opinions on the genre. I gave my strategy for adding a cookbook to the collection in this post. Even if the recipes and other content are first rate, some cookbooks have layout and other issues that reduce the chance that I’ll use the books regularly. Here are three examples.
The font used. I don’t need bifocals (yet), but sometimes fonts can be too small or cutesy. If you can’t tell the difference between 1/3 and 1/2 in a recipe, forget about it. Many folks slammed the first Ruth Reichl-edited Gourmet Cookbook for having pale yellow titles. What was the publisher thinking? Julian bought a cookbook last week that has barely readable 3rd-grade-level block letters for titles and chapter headings. The recipes look good, but the titles and goofy drawings detract from the content.
Printing recipes on a colored background. This is a common sin in my coffee table cookbooks. If there’s insufficient contrast between the page and print, coupled with a puny font, you’ll have a hard time reading the recipe. Maybe there’s a reason these are supposed to sit on your coffee table. It’s difficult to cook from them.
Language. I do my share of cursing (as Julian knows when I have work-from-home connectivity troubles), but I try to keep my discourse on a higher level on this humble blog. It seems as if many authors (usually men) feel the need to use liberal amounts of R-rated language in their cookbooks. The originator of this trend was undoubtedly Anthony Bourdain; however, at least he wrote good prose between the F-bombs. The pretenders can’t. Come on, guys, your mother may read your book and decide to wash out your laptop with bleach.
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