Cookbooking: A Fan's Guide

You probably know which of your favorite cookbooks have cracked spines, and which have pages that stay open on their own. You know where the stains are, and maybe even when they happened. What you may have never asked is why some make you hunt for the ingredient list while others put it exactly where your eye lands first. Why does one have the author on the cover, while another has a finished dish, and a third relies just on type.

Debbie Berne, a longtime book designer with a special love of cookbooks, invites you along on her exploration of how cookbooks have been designed since the early twentieth century. Her focus is primarily American titles, and anyone who's been building a collection will find many old friends here.

In a section called recipe anatomy, she deconstructs how information gets arranged on the page, tracing the evolution from The Boston Cooking School Cookbook through Mastering the Art of French Cooking to The Silver Palate Cookbook, illustrated throughout with photos of well-worn, well-used copies. Elsewhere she follows cover design across three decades of Perla Meyers' publishing career, watching a single author's books change face as tastes and marketing shifted around her.

The books under examination run from The East Village Cookbook and Ruth Reichl's Mmmmm: A Festiary to Princess Pamela's Soul Food Cookbook and The Food Lab. 

This is fresh light on books you already love.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.