Editing Style for Cookbooks

A question often posed by both male and female beginning writers: how do you format a cookbook manuscript? How are recipes presented? In the many decades that I've been writing and cooking, I never gave this a thought, and I have an extensive collection of cookbooks and recipes. Indeed, after inheriting many from my mother and grandmother, I have an embarrassment of cooking literature. Most of it is easy to follow because it is fairly uniform in presentation. Difficulties show up most often in the home brew versions--collections put out by clubs as fundraisers, one of the original true self-publishing efforts.

One source of advice for cookbook authors comes from Ten Speed Press' Editorial Director, Lorena Jones. The "Ten Speed Press Cookbook Style Sheet" even offers tips on preparing an electronic file for submission to a publisher. The advice is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed; Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed; Recipes into Type, Whitman & Simon, and The New Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed, Herbst, if you want to go to the sources for more details.