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 I sprained my back last month getting a cookbook out of a bookcase.
Not seriously, I hasten to add. And it was my own dumb fault for reaching up to grab the gigantic volume -- Poopa Dweck’s "Aromas of Aleppo" -- one-handed from a top shelf without paying attention to what I was doing. (Could have been worse; the only aftermath was outraged messages from my back every time I stood up for the next few days.)
“How much does that thing weigh, anyhow?” I wondered. I plunked the offending object onto the kitchen scales and temporarily forgot about the lovely Syrian Jewish recipe for stuffed eggplant that I’d meant to consult. More than 5¼ pounds? I had to be dreaming.
On impulse, I hauled out the first Middle Eastern cookbook I’d ever owned, an early 1960s compilation titled "The Art of Syrian Cookery" by Helen Corey. Avoirdupois: approximately 12 ounces.
It wasn’t the first occasion on which I’d cursed the swollen proportions of contemporary cookbooks. This time, however, I decided to subject some representative exhibits to actual weigh-ins. Selected results:
"The New York Times Cookbook" by Craig Claiborne (1961): roughly 2 pounds, 14 ounces
"The Essential New York Times Cookbook" by Amanda Hesser (2010): roughly 4 pounds, 10 ounces
My first general Chinese cookbook, a skinny 1975 paperback reprint of Grace Zia Chu’s "The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking": about 6 ounces
My newest general Chinese cookbook, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo’s "Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking" (2009): about 5 pounds
My first Thai cookbook, a pretty substantial (for its time) 1983 paperback of Jennifer Brennan’s "The Original Thai Cookbook": just over 1 pound
"Thai Food" by David Thompson (2002): more than 4 pounds, 8 ounces
"Thai Street Food" by David Thompson (2010): about 5 pounds, 12 ounces
"Cuisines of Mexico" by Diana Kennedy (1972): about 2 pounds, 6 ounces
"Oaxaca al Gusto" by Diana Kennedy (2010): about 6 pounds, 3 ounces
The two volumes of "The American Heritage Cookbook," in slipcase (1964): just under 4 pounds, 8 ounces
The two volumes of "The Oxford Companion to Food and Drink in America", no slipcase (2004): about 11 pounds, 3 ounces
My cat, Angela (admittedly a very thin animal): just under 7 pounds, 8 ounces
Now, I fully acknowledge that many middle-aged Americans could benefit from upper-body-strength training. But I’d rather not get it by picking up a cookbook -- though cookbooks certainly aren’t the only instances of galloping book bloat. Any diehard who still buys real, physical books of any kind has to be amazed at the increase in general tonnage over the last 10 or 15 years. I recently received an author’s complimentary copy of a lavishly produced jeremiad on concentrated animal feeding operations to which I’d contributed an essay. It weighed in at approximately 6¾ pounds, and I had a pretty good upper-body workout merely getting it out of the wrappings.
Just what are such mighty tomes for? Not reading; the human lap’s ability to balance 6-pound slabs of eloquence on any subject is painfully limited. Nor do today’s jumbo cookbooks belong in kitchens. Unlike such utilitarian predecessors as "The Art of Syrian Cookery," they are both too heavy to be easily pulled from a shelf and too gorgeously produced for deployment anywhere near the gravy-spattered front lines.
Maybe these behemoths should be regarded as latter-day analogues of folio Bibles in gilt leather bindings -- with the further parallel that the actual contents may be no holier than those of the plainest, cheapest cousin. Size doesn’t imply either superior or inferior culinary insight. Often huge cookbooks in stunning formats contain more information (or more recipes, or more thoughtfully presented recipes) than plain-Jane volumes like my first Thai cookbook. But just as often, they amount to nothing more than grotesquely hypertrophied art designers’ fantasies on heavy coated stock, with dozens or hundreds of color photographs wagging the dog.
Even where photographs aren’t part of the mix, cookbook publishers seem hypnotized by the popular belief -- already a near-religious tenet as regards flat-screen TVs, breasts and mocha lattes -- that big means important. (Authors sure think it does.) Has it occurred to anyone except me that big also means less room? Already I find 5 feet of shelf space holding only about two-thirds the number of new cookbooks than they did when I started in this business.
Modest proposal: I’d like to put cookbook publishers in touch with authorities on liposuction.
Anne Mendelson is a freelance writer and culinary historian who has written for various newspapers and magazines. She is the author of "Stand Facing the Stove" (a biography of the authors of "The Joy of Cooking"; Holt, 1996) and "Milk" (Knopf, 2008). The past recipient of honors including a fellowship at the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library and the Oxford Symposium's Sophie Coe Prize in Food History, she is currently working on a book about Chinese food in America with the assistance of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
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