The year in cooking (with recipes galore!)
The upside to sharing and oversharing recipes. Plus, a look back at Cooks Without Borders' most popular stories and recipes of 2021.
Recipes are always top-of-mind for me this time of year; the colder it gets, the more I feel like cooking (though lol — it is unseasonably warm in Dallas this week). Add a burdensome new variant, and braising, roasting, simmering and baking inevitably seem like the best way (the only way?) through it.
Sixteen months ago, during the first dog days of the Great Confinement, I proclaimed 2020 The Year of the Cookbook, devoting an issue of this newsletter to the COVID-induced resurrection of the publishing form. As it played out, 2020 was the best year for book sales in the last decade, with cookbook sales representing well. That didn’t end when we were once again able to dine out. Though data is not yet available for all cookbook sales for 2021, we know that baking book sales were up dramatically: 42% at the end of October from a year earlier. Perhaps 2021 will break 2020’s record?!
Obviously this is fabulous news for cookbook authors — especially serious cookbook authors, a breed that was existentially threatened pre-COVID.
What do I mean by “serious cookbook authors”? Those whose books are filled with great recipes that will hold their interest for readers and cooks year after year. As a breed, they had been threatened by home cooks’ increasing propensity to use free recipes they found online rather than buying cookbooks, along with a preference among publishers for cookbooks proposed by cute young things (usually white women) whose Instagram followings were much more impressive than their ability to create compelling, workable recipes.
An upside to the pandemic for our culture is that we’ve donned aprons, learned techniques, explored traditions, improved skills and fallen head-over-heels in love with cooking. Take a look at the commitment The New York Times has made to its Cooking vertical and The Washington Post has made to Voraciously, and you get a sense of how important kitchen savvy has become. Cooking (or so it appears, and along with puzzles) is paying for news coverage. (Or, to frame it another way, it falls upon the popularity of cooking to save our democracy. Fire up those pans! But that’s a subject for another newsletter.)
In any case, the longer the public’s passion for cooking persists and the deeper it goes, the more delicious the outlook for home cooks and serious cookbook authors.
Recipe borrowing: the upside to Internet sharing
Just one more piece of this I’d like to parse before we get to the edibles. Cookbook authors and their publishers frequently complain about their work being shared without attribution on blogs, cooking websites, magazines and social media. And for good reason: When a 20-year old TikTok star buys a SoHo loft because he has made a fortune acting out other people’s recipes without attribution, that is gut-wrenchingly galling.
But with the habitual handwringing about the oversharing of proprietary recipes and cooking ideas, I suspect a giant-upside for authors and publishers is being overlooked: The more their cookbooks are talked about on blogs and websites — of course with attribution — the better for book sales, and the more likely an overshared cookbook will become a classic. In other words (and in publishing terms), long life on the backlist. Rather than going out of print after two or three years (the fate of most titles), a cookbook that continues to sell well can settle into a publisher’s catalog as a stalwart backlist title, one that provides a long-lived and dependable revenue stream for author and publisher. When an excellent cookbook meets that fate, it also benefits home cooks, as we have more better books available to acquire, to add to our cookshelves or give as gifts.
Think of it this way: Without the internet, it’s hard to imagine Ottolenghi and his publishers enjoying anything like the mad success they have in the last decade.
Again, this happy outcome depends on those who are borrowing the recipes properly citing the source — including the name of the book and the author, and hopefully including a link to purchase the book. Fortunately, there’s plenty of that going around.
Cooks Without Borders year in review
Along with our original recipes and stories that explore the history and culture behind foods, dishes and foodways (sometimes pushing them forward), at Cooks Without Borders, respectful curation is a key part of the mission. We love to tell you about the cookbooks that most impress us, sharing recipes from them as part of reviews or as otherwise appropriate — always providing links to purchase. (CWB is my cooking website, in case you’re new to The Brenner Report.)
And yes, our readers do love cookbook reviews. Our most-read story of 2021 was a review of Ottolenghi Simple — published in February, three years after the title’s release.
A number of cookbook reviews published in 2020 also made the list of our most-read features of 2021: Our second most popular was a review of Sonoko Sakai’s Japanese Home Cooking; and our fourth most popular story was a review of Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley’s Falastin. Though these reviews had been published the previous year, readers kept finding them and clicking on them a year later — a direct illustration of my point above.
Four other features in our top ten most-read of the year were cookbook-related: Our third-most popular story was an October 2020 story about celebrating butter chicken (murgh makhani), including a recipe adapted from Monish Gurjal’s 2009 book Moti Mahal: On the Butter Chicken Trail. Our fifth-most read took delight in a saag paneer recipe from Maneet Chauhan’s Chaat. Eighth most popular was a reprised 2016 review of Lidia’s Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine. And ninth was an appreciation of iconic author Diana Kennedy — part of a series of features appreciating women cookbook authors began during women’s history month in February. Consider that readers keep clicking on these stories months and even years after they’re first published, and you see what I mean about digital staying power and the potential for titles to become backlist classics.
What else they clicked on
Here are the non-cookbook-related stories in our Top 15 for 2021 (if you’re looking for recipes, you’ll find them linked in each):
• “Bring on the bayos: Showing some love for Mexico’s creamy, dreamy other bean — and its kissin’ cousin mayocoba” (#6, May 3, 2021)
• “Chinese-American culinary culture finds delicious, multi-generational expression at The Woks of Life” (#7, Jan. 21, 2021)
• “A stellar Quiche Lorraine (custardy, bacony, buttery-crusted!) is much easier to make than you might think” (#10, Jan. 8, 2021)
• “Look out chile crisp: Here comes salsa macha, the Mexican condiment that may change your life” (#12, April 8, 2021)
• “Our first guest cook: Yasmin Halima whips up her family’s wonderful thummi letho — Burmese chicken curry” (#14 — this one’s an oldie, Jan. 10, 2016)
• “We have achieved optimum Bolognese and (are you sitting down?) we grant you permission to put it on spaghetti” (#15, April 7, 2021)
Top 10 most clicked-on CWB recipes for 2021
These are recipes that are original or adapted from recipes provided by guest cooks/resident experts (not directly adapted from cookbooks or other published sources).
• #10 Perfect Creamed Spinach
• #8 Olivia’s Salsa Macha
• #7 Bayo Beans (Frijoles de Olla II)
• #6 Sweet Potato Gratin with Sage-Butter and Thyme
• #5 Cardamom-Pumpkin Spice Bread
• #4 Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb
• #2 Quintessential Quiche Lorraine
• #1 Your Favorite Chocolate Mousse
Happy cooking, happy reading and happy new year! Looking for more cooking content? Of course you’ll find it at Cooks Without Borders, where we have some exciting things planned for the coming year. Wishing you a delicious, safe and healthy 2021! 🥂🎉
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Thank you, and happy new year to you too!!
I like the the hand held printed version be it the newspaper, periodical or cookbook. I only use media for how to repair things, FB and an increasing number of things.