The Inner Book, Cooked

A few days ago in One Hit Wonders I alluded to the notion that everyone has a book inside just waiting to be written. I think I've discovered what kind of book it is: a cookbook! Have you ever marveled at the never-ending parade of books on cooking and recipes? I didn't realize how many there are until the big box book stores appeared. The Barnes&Noble search engine returned 29,672 titles about cooking and 11,747 on recipes, probably with some overlap. At least 400 hardcover cookbooks were published during this year alone!

I can't imagine feeling I need/want a cookbook and pawing through selections until I find one that suits. Mine accumulate in a more organic fashion -- sometimes as research for an article, or because I was interested in a particular culture (Amish, Shaker) or area where I lived (New England, Middle Atlantic, Florida, Midwest, Southwest) or visited (France, Australia, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean), or a particular or peculiar culinary interest (organic, whole foods, vegetarian, herbs, convection oven, microwave).

See a pattern here? The best cookbooks grow out of an interest. How many general cookbooks do you need? I've used the same one since 1965 (but I'm on my fourth paperback copy). There is a cookbook lurking inside me after all. Not only do the younger generations not know how to write well, they have no idea how to cook, either. So, I could produce a well-written cookbook as a model of how to write. No? How about a well-written book on how to cook, really cook, home-cooked, made-from-scratch cooking?

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