Comfort of a cookbook

This past Christmas, I did not receive a Kindle like nearly everyone else on my friends list on Facebook who exclaimed their joy for small electronics.

But the Kindle, along with every other technological advance in media, is seriously changing the way we view our reading materials.

We’ve seen the transition through the past few years.

Newspapers are going online, with full access to each article published — if you have an online account. Blogs are increasing in popularity and might well take over the magazine industry.

And of course, the Kindle is replacing books.

I think this is a superb idea, especially if it means buying my textbooks for a tenth of the price of what the IU Bookstore offers. But a thought struck me the other day as I was flipping through a few of my books, looking for a dinner recipe.

Will cookbooks be able to survive the transition to an all-digital media?

Here’s my concern. Cookbooks are used in the kitchen, meaning they are exposed to anything and everything you are cooking. They get worn down, they get stained, they get grease spots — they just get food on them everywhere.

And that’s part of the charm of cookbooks, especially those passed down through generations of families.  

The one cookbook I’m looking forward to receiving from my mom is her copy of The New York Times Cookbook that was published back in the ’60s. Sure, some of the pages are ready to fall out, but you can’t find that edition anymore.

Trust me, I’ve looked.

Now try and imagine keeping your electronic cookbook in the kitchen. Imagine your freshly made tomato sauce bubbling and bursting onto the screen. Imagine keeping it on the counter and accidentally knocking it off as you try to make room for another cutting board or mixing bowl.

It sounds like a technological and financial nightmare.

The buzz in journalism, as well as any form of media today, is that we are entering a new era. When I hear this, I can only imagine a life without paperback anything.

But this can’t apply to cookbooks. It just wouldn’t make sense.

Have you tried going online to find a recipe for dinner or for a cake? Have you noticed how hard it is to find the exact information for a certain baking or cooking technique online?

And have you noticed how much easier it is to find what you’re looking for in a cookbook you or another relative has used before?

The other problem is clipping recipes. I suppose you could scan them and save them to your Kindle or iPad or even your computer, but wouldn’t it be simpler to put them in the recipe box that has been passed down through your family for generations?

Maybe I’m overthinking this.  

All I know is I’ve tried cooking recipes found on my computer and it’s not as easy as keeping the cookbook around.

I think it’s sort of comforting to know that I will more than likely be able to find cookbooks still made with paper as times change and books become digital. Granted, I know this is not the case for every copy of Gourmet magazine or other cookbooks, and people will likely try keeping recipes in their electronics.

But if you do rely on your digital cookbook while working in the kitchen, don’t be surprised if you miss the old-fashioned, non-fancy, all-paper cookbook when your Kindle gets ruined from a cooking mishap.