No More Cookbooks? No, More Cookbooks. Reflections on a Print Book in the Age of Digital Media

Despite the fact that ebooks are increasingly more popular, some print cookbooks are still being sold in large numbers. Discussing the cookbook specific nature, this essay reflects on how digital media practices made print books sales decrease in different genres whilst print cookbooks kept thriving. Change in publishing in the digital age appears to show a pattern for other book genres that doesn’t apply to cookbooks in a similar way. Considering some iconic cookbooks published in Portugal in the last 100 years as case studies, the paper navigates both the technical-scientific and narrative nature of cookbooks, whilst also looking at the relationship between form and content, plus how that impacts the reader’s choice regarding print and digital books in food-related contexts. Throughout time the cookbook as an instrument of power, a tool for change and a source of knowledge evolved to accommodate not only the print book but also the digital, keeping its specific nature of being both a handbook with recipes and a book to be read and visually experienced as part of an interplay between different components. We argue that, as food will remain a major contender in digital media landscapes in the near future, phygital becomes the norm for cookbooks and the digital dimension of food will change consumption influenced by an invisible algorithmic logic and culture. The cookbook of the future will certainly also be shaped by AI presence, regarding authorship (recipe choice, diet trends) and cookbook typology (phygital, immersive).