When recipes are available on the internet with just a few clicks and we're all rushing about trying to accomplish a never-ending list of tasks, why do so many of us still enjoy sitting down with a cookbook and leafing through its pages? Cynthia D. Bertelsen attempts to answer this question.
EYB Members can probably relate to this quote from the short piece: "If someone says to me, "Oh, I read cookbooks like I read novels," I know what they mean. Since the day I bought Simple French Cookery, I gone places, cooked, and dreamed impossible dreams, thanks to the cookbooks surrounding me as I write this."
Cynthia enjoys the "escape clause of cookbooks." She notes that not only can you learn about the foods of different places, you can also "travel through time to medieval England - think The Forme of Cury (1390), written by the cooks of King Richard II - or Renaissance Italy, through works like Platina's De Honesta Voluptate (1485), the first printed cookbook ever."
What's your motivation for reading cookbooks--escapism, curiosity, health, or something else?
Photo courtesy Cynthia Bertelsen
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