Visitors to the Frankfurt Book Fair are greeted by images of aromatic spices, mouth-watering desserts and beaming chefs as cookbooks, once a niche segment, take the publishing world by storm.
“Twenty years ago, cookbooks were hidden; cookbooks were not respected,” Gourmand World Cookbook Awards president Edouard Cointreau said. “You had to be [a] specialist and if you were specialized, you never went very far in a big publishing house.”
However, nowadays “people need comfort in a world that has become more and more difficult with crises. And cookbooks are one of the ways to be happy,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
“Cookbooks are to dream, to feel good, to travel,” he said.
In the sprawling exhibition halls hosting the world’s biggest book fair until today, the Gourmet Gallery is dedicated exclusively to cooking, with recipe books on display from all over the world. A stand from Gaza sits alongside one from Israel; there are books ranging from Russian specialities and Indonesian dishes to the secrets of celebrated French cuisine maestro Alain Ducasse.
Cookbooks are a runaway success in almost every corner of the world, including Iran.
Photo: EPA
“Five years ago, our market was not like that, but now, cookbooks are more popular in Iran,” chef Samira Janatdoust said, presenting her own books despite Tehran’s boycott of the fair, sparked by an appearance from British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
In such a crowded global market, it is often difficult to stand out. Sofia Piqueras, an artist from Barcelona, offers eye-catching one-off editions with handmade covers decorated with aromatic herbs and spices.
“There are definitely trends emerging all over the world,” said Pixie Shields, international rights director at Marabout (Hachette Livre), one of the big players in the sector.
Particularly en vogue at the moment are books on healthy eating, on vegetarian and vegan cooking, and recipes for kale dishes or green smoothies.
People tend to go for brightly presented books, full of photographs, which they can show off in their kitchen and leaf through occasionally, Shields said.
For most people, cookbooks are like glossy fashion magazines.
“Statistically, people cook between one and three recipes from a book,” she said.
Among the other trends, Cointreau points to manuals on increasingly specific themes, such as cupcakes, reqional cuisine, but also cookbooks for children and self-published books.
Cointreau said the annual market for cookbooks is estimated at about US$6 billion and is growing at between 3 and 5 percent, with television programs the prime growth driver.
The market is also still very much for printed rather than electronic books, he said.
However, growth can vary from country to country. In France, for example, the market appears to be running out of steam, at least for now.
According to the specialist magazine Livres Hebdo, about 1,760 new cookbooks or new editions appeared last year, flat compared with the previous year, after the segment had notched up consistent growth between 2006 and 2012.
In Germany, books on food and drink make up about 28 percent of sales of what are generally classified as guide or instruction books. However, that proportion has also remained unchanged for the past two years, after growing consistently in the preceding years.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS