Food for thought

If you’ve noticed the pile of recipe books and food magazines on your coffee table growing recently, you’re not alone, says Robyn Yousef

 

New Zealanders have voracious appetites for cookbooks – especially those written locally – and there are no signs of the trend abating. Everything from cheap and cheerful compilations by women’s magazines through to the glossy coffee shop tomes sell well as our interest in food flourishes.

That grand old girl, the Edmonds Cookery Book, (still regularly topping local non-fiction bestsellers’ lists at age 102), headlined a handful of Kiwi titles in the 1960s and 70s when the cookbook selection was much slimmer. Celebrity cooks such as Alison Holst and Graham Kerr, who led the charge for local writers with their television cooking shows and subsequent books, have been followed by an exuberant band of newbies,

About 10% of the non-fiction titles published by Random House (NZ) last year were cookbooks. Publishing Director for the company, Nicola Legat, confirms there has been a significant upsurge in local cookbook publishing in the last four years.  

“It’s been a very, very busy field for quite some time and recently a whole new generation of food writers have come along,” she says. Legat, who is well known for her work as a feature writer for Metro and North & South and as the editor of Metro between 2000 and 2004, believes the success of New Zealand cookbooks echoes that of New Zealand’s very high quality food magazines. 

Many of the local food writers and editors, including Allyson Gofton, Julie Biuso, Julie le Clerc and Lauraine Jacobs have established a strong brand through these magazines and have gone on to write their own books. As well as the food writers’ books, there has also been a raft of books by chefs – such as Simon Wright with The French Café Cookbook and Al Brown’s Go Fish. 

 Sales have continued to be buoyant throughout the recession as more people return to home cooking and baking.  “The top four international writers, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Watson and Rick Stein, sell in strong quantities,” says Legat, “ but, really, the main activity in the market is around cookbooks by our own authors, and New Zealanders give them enormous support, buying local cookbooks in huge numbers.” 

“It’s very New Zealand DIY thing – we love cooking and are very resourceful and innovative cooks.”

 Recipe books shouldn’t be cloistered on coffee tables, but in the kitchen where you need them. The most loved will be a great companion and will be probably have a few tatters, splatters and stains and little notes from the likes of old Aunt Vera saying such as “this is very nice, but you need to add a bit more curry powder.”  Well, that’s what ebullient celebrity cook, Annabelle White thinks and she has many followers who enjoy her fun and irreverent approach to food almost as much as her recipes. She has  had 10 cooking books published since 1997. 

She also believes a good recipe book (“nearly every house in New Zealand has a copy of the Edmonds book”) with simple instructions which work well give cooks added confidence. White can’t see the Internet or television series ever replacing that tactile experience of leafing through a cookbook. “Cookbooks transport you into a whole other world and people do like to actually hold a book in their hands.” 

People want to be inspired by fresh ideas and males and females of all ages seem to love buying these books. “Often elderly people will say they haven’t the space for yet another cookbook, but they buy for their children or grandchildren. You don’t see them just grabbing any cookbook, but people are usually directional in their buying and will either buy a book in a particular style of food or by a food writer they enjoy.” 

 White doesn’t believe food writers in this country write books to get rich. “You can’t budget on royalties to pay the mortgage,” she says. “But, I think there is more profit in the new trend for food writers to publish their own books. Of course, it is very different for top international writers/television celebrities, who have their own little empires.” 

Most authors are also motivated to produce cookbooks to establish their name in the market, according to cooking and lifestyle publisher at Penguin Books (NZ), Alison Brook. “Experienced authors and publishers know that the lengthy process of producing a cookbook: writing, testing and re-testing the recipes; styling, cooking and photography is very hard work. They write and publish books because they love it, because it is their career and their passion.” 

But, she believes cookbooks can be a very profitable for all involved, “All those involved in cookbooks aim to make money out of the process and when you really understand your market it can be a very profitable exercise. The authors and publishers make cookbooks as a commercial exercise and like any commercial enterprise, if it is well executed everyone makes money.”

“Food memories remind us who we are and where we came from – it is a vital part of our social history. As a result we are food crazy and obsessed with cookbooks,” adds Brook. She trained in law and marketing, before beginning her career as a marketer and joining the publishing world.

Penguin has a strong cookbook list including many of the best loved names on the New Zealand food scene including: Alexa Johnson, Allyson Gofton, Annabelle White, Peter Gordon, Julie le Clerc, Ruth Pretty and Peta Mathias. 

  

Among the company’s recent successes are the signature book from Peter Gordon A Culinary Journey, while Alexa Johnson’s Ladies a Plate, was the 2009 Winner Montana Book Awards for Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture, Allyson Gofton’s new cookbook series is starring in the list of top ten non-fiction bestsellers. Her first books Bake and Cook in this series are to be followed by a third, Slow: Mouthwatering Recipes for the Crockpot and Slow Cooker due for release in May. From overseas, Jamie Oliver and Stephanie Alexander both continue to achieve huge followings in this country.

Brook says high priced cookbooks featuring top restaurants and chefs tend to be bought by people for whom food is both an interest and a hobby.  “These purchasers love to read about cooking and buy the books as much for their coffee table beauty as their recipes. At the lower-priced end of the market consumers tend to look for an author they recognise and recipes that they can rely on. They are generally looking for nutritious meals that are easy to make, and most importantly, taste good.

 “The economy also has a strong influence on the types of cookbooks that sell. In recession times people tend to buy lower-priced books as they head back to the kitchen in an attempt to save money and to live more sustainably. The emphasis is on developing home cooking skills and simple food that they remembered their mothers and grandmothers making in the past. In boom times when people can travel and tend eat at restaurants, their taste in cookbooks reflects this and more exotic flavours appear.”

Or as award-winning celebrity cook/writer, Julie Biuso says, cookbooks can take us to places that we might not otherwise get to go to. “Through books we can feel as if we are part of a large Italian family enjoying course after course of amazing home cooked food, as if we have travelled through India and tasted surprisingly fresh spices, or that we have returned to our roots and are re-discovering the favourite dishes from our childhood.”

 

Her first book All This and More was published in 1987 and she has followed this with another 13 titles including Never-ending Summer, which was launched just before Christmas. Her books have won eight Gourmand Awards, a Montana book award and a Goodman Fielder Wattie award, while her latest has been a “runaway success.” I don’t think our appetite for cookbooks is going to slow down just yet – cooking from scratch is going to be huge, and is the way for the future.

“There is definitely a huge variety of cookbooks – particularly by New Zealanders - on sale today and the number has practically doubled since the 1980s,” according to Barbara Rosie.

Books have been the focus of her working life for more than 30 years. Rosie owns Readaway Bookshop, which has retained a charming old-fashioned ambience, since her Aunt, Margaret Clarke, opened it in Howick 52 years ago.

  

Rosie points out that Alison Holst is arguably our most prolific food writer with about 100 cookery titles (including some with her son, Simon) to her credit. Her book Marvellous Muffins sells now complete with the New Zealand Booksellers Association Platinum stamp - denoting it has sold more than 250,000 copies in this country.

“Our big international sellers are Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, but most shoppers are very loyal to local titles. Ladies, A Plate by Alexa Johnson has been re-ordered the most recently and Sophie Gray’s Destitute Gourmet books are very popular.

  

Rosie notes that a plethora of cookbooks are published locally with recipes for special health conditions – such as gluten intolerance and immune deficiencies. “There are as well a number of interesting crossover books such as travelogs or biographies with some recipes thrown in.”      Before the electronic age and the internet books took a lot longer to write, edit, produce, print and transport. A commitment from a publisher to an author signing a contract took several months and books often took up to 2 years or longer from commissioning to launching. Nowadays, books can be churned out at the drop of a hat, editing can be done on line and they can be printed on demand. You don’t even have to be a great writer or a good cook to have a recipe book published.

I don’t think our appetite for cookbooks is going to slow down just yet – cooking from scratch is going to be huge, and is the way for the future.
sl Barbecue Food- Awarded Best Barbecue Book
Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards 2006 Special Award of the Jury Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2007
Publishers, writers and booksellers see this fascination with cookbooks as a strong trend set to continue, but possibly with some of the current retro themes fading.

Annabelle White predicts a future when cookbooks will reflect a growing interest in simple sustainability and the use of local produce in season will have a strong influence in the new titles on the shelves

And Nicola Legat sunos up: “the current fascination with nostalgia and baking echoes the ‘cocooning-and-cottage-garden’ phase of the 1990s, but I believe the demand for cookbooks by our own writers, made for our kitchens and our lifestyles will continue.”

Footnote:

This excellent piece by Robyn Yousef was first published in the New Zealand Herald’s My Generation magazine, March 2010 issue.

This is a much longer piece than I normally post on the blog but because cookbooks play such a major part in the NZ book trade, and because I am an obsessive collector of them myself (!), I decided to run Robyn Yousef’s most interesting story in its entirety.
The illustration at the top shows the pork belly recipe from Peter Gordon - A Culinary Journey.

Robyn Yousef is an Auckland-based freelance writer, who started her working life as a cadet reporter on Dunedin’s Evening Star in 1971. She began freelance work about 18 years ago and has written a history book for the Papakura Historical Society, Papakura: the Years of Progress 1938-1996 and edited the NZ Breast Cancer Network publication, Upfront, between 1999 and 2003. Married to an Egyptian food importer for 35 years, she has two adult sons and a grandson and loves travelling – particularly back to the Mainland and Egypt.