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Hannah | A Feral Housewife's avatar

I actually fall on the other side of the argument! I totally understand where your coming from, but I think the middle ground for the average home cook is illustrations. Books like Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat or Mastering the Art of French Cooking thread that needle of showing you how to do it, without making you feel like a failure if it doesn't look perfect. As a cookbook collector, I also think that food photography is more likely to look dated quicker than illustrations. I have some amazing cookbooks about wild/foraged foods from the 1970s with awesome recipes that have THE WORST photography by our standards/preferences today.

That being said, though, there are definitely times where photography is probably the best option, particularly for cookbooks geared towards beginners! Or if you're trying to capture a particular moment/place in time, for example Bethlehem (Fadi Kattan). But overall, I think illustration has more longevity and use case than photography.

But again, I totally see your point as well!

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Brianna Plaza's avatar

I love this! I very much agree that a book helps someone being like “that looks good I should try it!” If ingredients or techniques are new to me, it’s nice to know what my end goal is

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