Ghostwritten celebrity cookbooks: Do you care?

Gwyneth Paltrow is denying claims that her book was ghostwritten, but many of the cookbooks on your shelf — particularly the celebrity cookbooks — may have been largely written by ghostwriters. Does that matter?

Mon, Mar 19 2012 - Mother Nature Network

Photo: Robin Shreeves

In my freelance writing career, I have done my share of ghostwriting. Let me explain how it works. I write something for someone else for a one-time fee. Sometimes, I’m given a lot to work with — a piece that’s mostly written but needs a lot of editing, polishing and some additional information. Sometimes, I’m told, “write 400 words on ball bearings,” and I have to research everything, write and hope it’s what the person who will eventually take credit for the piece wants to see. When all is said and done, I get paid, someone else’s name goes on the piece, and I keep my mouth shut.

Last week, The New York Times ran “I Was a Cookbook Ghostwriter” by Julia Moskin. “Tales from the ink-stained (and grease-covered) wretches who actually produce most of the words attributed to chefs in cookbooks,” is the teaser for the piece.

Moskin paints the world of cookbook ghostwriting as an entirely unglamorous one, where the ghosts are often taken for granted by the chefs. Their job is to “produce a credible book from the thin air of a chef’s mind and menu — to cajole and probe, to elicit ideas and anecdotes by any means necessary.”

She names specific chefs, cooks and celebrities who have published several cookbooks including Gwyneth Paltrow’s “My Father’s Daughter,” April Bloomfield’s “A Girl and Her Pig” and others. Here's more from the Times piece:

Many real-world cooks have wondered at the output of authors like Martha Stewart, Paula Deen and Jamie Oliver, who maintain cookbook production schedules that boggle the mind. Rachael Ray alone has published thousands of recipes in her cookbooks and magazine since 2005. How, you might ask, do they do it?

The answer: they don’t. The days when a celebrated chef might wait until the end of a distinguished career and spend years polishing the prose of the single volume that would represent his life’s work are gone. Recipes are product, and today’s successful cookbook authors are demons at providing it — usually, with the assistance of an army of writer-cooks.

Since the piece was published, both Paltrow and Ray have publicly denied through Twitter that they used ghostwriters.