Cookbook preference

[simcooks]

Do you prefer cookbooks with colorful meal pictures and sometimes showing a picture of the ingredients as well or just the wordy kind with very few pictures?

[Mama Mangia]

To me it doesn't matter - pictures are nice to look at but it doesn't necessarily mean that the recipes are any good. I judge all cookbooks by the recipes - not the pictures. Some of my best cookbooks have no/very little pictures in them. What good is a picture when the recipe is no good?

[simcooks]

Originally Posted by Mama Mangia

To me it doesn't matter - pictures are nice to look at but it doesn't necessarily mean that the recipes are any good. I judge all cookbooks by the recipes - not the pictures. Some of my best cookbooks have no/very little pictures in them. What good is a picture when the recipe is no good?

Erm... how do you tell if a recipe is good by just looking at the ingredients?

[Mama Mangia]

Brought up in the kitchen, cooking for over 50 years, come from a long line of chefs, pastry chefs, cooks; ran restaurants, delis and catering businesses - it's in my blood. I can also spot the errors in cookbooks and magazines in their recipes. Can't explain it - it's a natural thing.

[simcooks]

Originally Posted by Mama Mangia

Brought up in the kitchen, cooking for over 50 years, come from a long line of chefs, pastry chefs, cooks; ran restaurants, delis and catering businesses - it's in my blood. I can also spot the errors in cookbooks and magazines in their recipes. Can't explain it - it's a natural thing.

Heh! The expert spoke

I have a food "dictionary" which is useful for referencing ingredients used in Western cooking, but I have not come across a food dictionary for Chinese cooking, so sometimes I do not know in what form the ingredient is sold as.

So, for me, as a 3-year old cook, I usually go for cookbooks with pictures and better still, if they sometimes have pictures of the ingredients.

[Mrs. Chipotle]

I prefer pictures as well. I'm a lifelong cook and a good one if I do say so myself, but it just helps a lot to see how things might look together, and also with some more difficult recipes it's helpful to see how the writer intended it to look when finished.

[mtmomj]

I like the cookbooks with pictures. That way when I am just flippng through something will catch my eye.

[medako]

All of my favorite cookbooks are picture-less. I can tell by just reading the recipe if I/my family will like it. It doesn't hurt that the cookbooks I tend to go for are usually put together by members of the community and tend to be more "tried and true" type recipes.

[pinkperson]

I give my bows to Mama Mangia. I never knew anyone who can spot errors in cookbooks. Me, I just flip through the pages of cookbooks and try whatever recipe that looks good. That means, I like cookbooks with pictures. I am just lazy to read every recipe before deciding which one to try.

[pohto9]

I prefer thekind with pictures as well. I am a pretty good cook, I just hate to spend a lot of time doping it, and I like to know what soemthing looks like before I try it myself. Just my thing.