Do you make the 'orphan recipes' in cookbooks?

August 11, 2023·Darcie

Food writer Bee Wilson recently posed a question to readers on her blog, asking if they were more or less likely to make a recipe in a cookbook where some recipes have photos and others do not. She called these 'orphan recipes' and feels that they are overlooked by most people because they lack an accompanying image. Wilson thinks she might belong in that category because after a friend recommended a Meera Sodha recipe for Chicken in Pickling Spices, she realized that although she had made many recipes from that book, this was one that she had not yet tried - and it did not have a photograph.

A white book opened to see the blank inside pages, on a white background

Comments to Wilson's tweet (I will never, ever, call it an X post) on the subject featured a variety of perspectives. While some people agreed that it would be easy to overlook a recipe without photos, others were more likely to make such a recipe because there wouldn't be any pressure to make the finished product look exactly the same as the photograph accompanying the recipe. Another subset preferred cookbooks that contain no photographs at all, noting wonderful books from authors including Julia Child, Nigel Slater, and Elizabeth David.

I have probably overlooked a cookbook recipe because there was no image accompanying it, but I suspect that is just because of the way I leaf through books searching for inspiration. Undoubtedly a gorgeous photo will stimulate my senses if I'm just flipping through the book and not closely reading it. That said, some of my all-time favorite recipes come from books with no or few images: The Cake Bible, Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and Cook's Illustrated's bound annuals all come to mind. I do appreciate a good illustrative photo or sketch, especially when it comes to shaping or assembling something, and I enjoy looking at stunning photos. But in the end, a beautiful picture will not make up for a recipe with unclear instructions or unbalanced flavors. After reading this article, I am going to pay more attention to 'orphan' recipes in search of gems I may have overlooked.

21 comments

MayandbillAugust 11, 2023

Interesting blog. When I first got interested in cooking as a teenager and started accumulating books and magazines, I noticed that occasionally the same photos were reused in different publications for different recipes which was quite a shock. Made me realise there wasn’t necessarily a link between recipe and picture and I shouldn’t worry if my own efforts looked different. Even today I sometimes see a recipe illustrated by a picture which clearly contains different ingredients and I still get annoyed!

pitterpat4August 11, 2023

This may be due to my age, but I seldom look at the photos in a cookbook to determine what to cook. The cookbooks I saw my mother use in the seventies had few, if any, photos. The only exception of needing a photo is if I were to look for a decorative cake for a special occasion. I find it intriguing that people leave bad reviews for cookbooks that don't have a photo for every recipe.

sanfrannativeAugust 11, 2023

I almost prefer recipes without pictures! It’s kind of an adventure to follow a recipe and be surprised by how it turns out. It’s more fun! So yes, I cook the “orphan” recipes if they sound intriguing : )

anya_sfAugust 11, 2023

I definitely gravitate towards recipes with photos, although I do check to make sure the photo appears to match the recipe. I love a cookbook with photos for every recipe. But if a book has photos for most recipes, but not all, I definitely have missed seeing the ones without pictures.

lkgroverAugust 11, 2023

I usually choose recipes by searching EYB for 1-2 ingredients that I need to use. I then bookmark 3-4 recipes with "I want to cook this," and look in those cookbooks. The photos might influence me, as well as the author's notes, the full ingredients list, the difficulty level, and EYB comments. I am more likely to upload a photo to EYB if the cookbook does not have one.

When I review books on Amazon (or star books on EYB), I try to respect the author's intent. I might note the lack of photos but it does not affect my rating. Photography greatly increases the book's production costs, and I often think it is unnecessary to have everything illustrated.

EmilyRAugust 11, 2023

I have heard from many people saying they also "don't know what it's supposed to look like" if it doesn't have a photo to accompany the recipe. I've always thought it's in the cook/chef's creative power to make it look appetizing. Frankly, some of the more recent cookbooks don't even have photos that are all that appealing (the 70's vibe, overly styled, or countless photos of the blogger/famous woman "indulging"...) I just want delicious, unique, and creative recipes that work!

love2lafAugust 11, 2023

I think the obvious answer here is, I come to Eat Your Books, and start searching for inspiration by searching 'eggplant' or 'tomato salad' and read through the ingredients and say "Hey now, that looks like a stellar combo of flavours!"

breakthroughcAugust 11, 2023

I’m very cynical when it comes to photos as they are highly stylized and sometimes don’t match the finished product at all.

FyretiggerAugust 11, 2023

It's surprising when you really start to think about something how complex the answer can become. I come from a strong visual arts background. I fall heavily into the "eat first with your eyes" category of people. I'm highly unlikely to buy a cookbook from an author I'm unfamiliar with if the book is largely unillustrated. And I do prefer fully illustrated cookbooks; among other issues, it tends to indicate every dish was actually made at least once, which is not always the case with cookbooks, as evidenced by the number of times that we've all run into "that can't possibly be right."

But from a strong source like New York Times or America's Test Kitchen or a chef I trust, I'm not daunted by a lack of photos.

Ganga108August 11, 2023

I grew up in the era of "no pic" cookbooks, so I don't pay a lot of attention to photos. Mine is going to look different anyway. And a lot of the classic cookbooks, such as those by Elizabeth David, Nigel Slater, Diane Kochilas, Arto der Haroutunian, Diane Holuigue, Madhur Jaffrey etc are not illustrated (or were not originally illustrated), and it is only recently that cookbooks from India (my fav cuisine) routinely began to have pics. (I seem to have an inordinate number of cookbooks without pics!)

Pics assist when the recipe isn't written well. How thin you slice the paneer, for example, a real life example from making Chilli Paneer the other day. Mind you, I have bought cookbooks purely because of the pics. The Art of Pasta and Tiffin spring to mind.

GenieBAugust 11, 2023

I guess I grew up with cookbooks without photos, so they aren’t a requirement. I am more used to looking at the ingredients in a recipe to determine whether I want to try it or not. A lot of the older classics, like Joy of Cooking ( I’ve had the 1975, 1997, and 2019 versions), have no photos.

I have noticed that the photos in some cookbooks don’t have the same ingredients as the recipes!

FuzzyChefAugust 12, 2023

I have over 400 cookbooks. Fewer than 70 have more than a handful of photos. I only care about the photo if the dish requires complex assembly, like many filo dishes.

jaxcapAugust 12, 2023

I definitely tend towards the recipes that have photos. So I really appreciate people who upload photos of their finished dish on EYB.

Indio32August 13, 2023

As has already been alluded to the vast majority of cookbook recipe photography is so staged* that it becomes irrelevant. It's not only celebrities that get photoshoped to boost their egos and make others feel inadequate.
*Who cooks a stew then decants it into a new Le Creuset casserole to take the recipe photo or how many recipes seem to have chopped parsley placed with tweezers? All very instagram!

FoodycatAugust 13, 2023

It's probably an age thing - many of the cookbooks in my childhood had few or not very good photos, so I don't really mind if a recipe doesn't have a picture. And of course now I am less likely to choose a dish to cook based on flicking through actual pages so I don't need bright colours to catch my eye.

bhasenstabAugust 15, 2023

Having grown up in the era without pictures, it is much more likely that I will be just fine with the "orphans." My first adult cookbook was Mark Bittman's photoless How To Cook Everything in 1998, and I still don't mind it. Kinda fun to see photos in his newer books, but it doesn't determine which items I cook.

ellabeeAugust 16, 2023

As late as the 1980s, most cookbooks had photos of just a small selection of the recipes, if any. The wildly successful Silver Palate books had no photos at all. 1998's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, an instant classic, has a small number of photo pages grouped together, for obvious print production reasons, and thus far from the recipes they illustrate. (Every recipe an orphan!) Martha's magazine and her Entertaining changed the landscape forever, along with Lee Bailey. Feeling old and dusty now,,,

CutCookEatAugust 18, 2023

Some of the classics don't have an "pictures" except maybe some drawings like Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child or French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David

AnneOtherAugust 18, 2023

Honestly, I'm probably less likely to make a recipe that has a photo. The pictures are so overly styled these days that there's only a slight chance that my version of a recipe would even resemble the cookbook photo. I prefer not to set myself up for disappointment, lol. And don't get me started about those overhead shots...

valente347September 3, 2023

I like images, but the author/publisher should make sure the budget for photos and illustrations is reserved for the food and techniques - not glamour shots that aren't helpful for the cook. It makes me mad when most of the pictures are of scenery, people, or events that don't teach anything.

My EYB membership has really helped me focus on recipes and not the photos. I'm fine cooking without them because I grew up that way, but I'm happy I have a resource that can pull me to recipes I may have overlooked because it didn't have a photo.

bittretteOctober 4, 2023

I too grew up in the era of cookbooks with few or no pictures of the food. It was a more text-oriented, less image-oriented era. So I had to read this post to know what the **** an orphan recipe is, and when I found out my reaction was "So what?"
I am of the unromantic opinion that a cookbook is an instruction manual.
IMO the most helpful pictures are the ones that illustrate techniques or show varieties of produce.
The worst offenders are those cookbooks that contain pictures of the author doing nothing helpful, often just mugging for the camera. (Those, and the one with a picture of the author on the spine.) Honestly, will such pictures make me a better cook?
When my sister gave me a cookbook that seemed more of a picture book than a cookbook, I exchanged it for a photoless cookbook.