New York Times: "I Was a Cookbook Ghost Writer"

"I was a Cookbook Ghost Writer" is is a wee bit of a dark, but it is certainly a good read. Julia Moskin recounts her career as a ghost writer for cookbooks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/dining/i-was-a-cookbook-ghostwriter.html

I find this article interesting because I have noticed an exorbitant amount of new cookbooks on shelves these days. I know food is "in" right now-- if a necessity of life can ever be a trend. The article touches upon how "chefs", such as Rachel Ray, have published thousands of recipes. But at what cost? I have been wondering how these busybodies have had time to produce these books and perfect so many recipes.

 It turns out that very few chefs write or test their own recipes. Someone else is hired to do it and receives minimal credit for doing majority of the work! On top of that, many of these recipes lack the attention to detail, accurate measurements, or specific directions that classic cookbooks have, such as Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food or Irma Rombauer's Marion Romauer Becker's, and Ethan Becker's The Joy of Cooking. Just yesterday my former teacher Greg and I were discussing how unreliable recipes in various cookbooks can be. We noted how often they require adjustments in ratios and flavor. He even noted that in one well- reviewed cookbook, a recipe did not include basic ingredients like salt! Reliable and well-tested recipes are depreciating in value.

I think this loss of value is an utter shame and a greater reflection of the general population's dying relationship with food. In an odd combination of new behaviors such as a demand for immediate gratification, a constant flow of new products, and less value placed on quality, our instructive tools for cooking are becoming a mimesis of many American's relationship to food. Our cookbooks are becoming equally poor in quality and detached from their original sources just as much as our food quality has decreased and our removal of knowledge about a food item's origin or production process has increased.

Am I getting too worked up over this? All I know is that after working for a food magazine and trying to test chefs recipes as well as my own, I can tell you that it is a ton of work. It is hard and requires multiple testing.  In fact, there are books on how to test recipes and how to write cookbooks! It is an art for the patient and obsessive.  I remember testing this roasted purple cauliflower recipe over and over again this summer in 90 degree weather in my third story apartment with a poorly insulated oven and without AC. Then, I had to call up all my friends and family and ask to test the recipe and their ovens and using their baking trays! Do you know how much cauliflower a person can eat in one week? (Not that much). Hopefully Moskin's article enlightens the public that ghost writing is not just a weird -lack of credit- process only happening in the world of super celebrities. Let's give the ghosts some more credit!

Purple cauliflower from Rhode Island Nurseries--noms