When was the last time you stopped in on one of your favorite big box retail bookstores? Try finding your way over to the cookbook section of the store and you’ll discover the wide, over-flowing assortment of cookbook titles. The shelves are jam-packed with hundreds of beautiful, big, coffee table worthy cookbooks. Some names and titles will sound familiar while others not so much. Why the American love-fest with celebrity chefs and their cookbooks? Do buyers actually read them or do they buy the books so that their modern kitchens look more like magazine spreads?

Americans look up to chefs as stars who can do things we can’t. The appeal comes not so much in what they’re making, but how they make it. It’s easy, graceful and even sexy. Who doesn’t want an attractive, gregarious, caring, passionate person in their kitchen? Someone who is equally handy with a knife or a hot pan? It’s fantasy. Whatever the reason for purchase, there doesn’t seem to be a let up of titles. As long as chefs have book agents who find new spins on their strengths (and the fabulous photographers), there is a profit to be made.

Regional fare reigns queen of the cookbooks. Italian, southern, Indian and Asian all have plenty of representation on the shelves right next to slow cooker cooking and even cooking on your hot car engine. What could possibly be covered next? No doubt, chefs will have us dipping our bread in EVOO and whipping up a tamale pie without even breaking a sweat.

Tags: cookbook titles, cookbooks, cooking

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.