Early Cookbooks: Bringing Many Different Recipes Together
The first cookbook published in the US was Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery or The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables. And the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and all kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake. Adapted to This Country, and All Grades of Life. The year was 1796. The cookbook promised not only a wide range of recipes from meats to sweets but also recipes to fit every budget. (If you’re wondering, “what is a viand?” according to the dictionary: “dishes of food, now of a choice or delicate kind.”)
A hundred years later, in 1896, Fannie Farmer published The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. She popularized a more methodical approach to cooking with standardized measurements (moving away from “pinch of salt” and “butter the size of an egg”) and detailed preparation and cooking instructions designed to provide direction for any level of cooking experience. In many ways, she was the first celebrity chef, as shown by the name of the book morphing from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book to Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1948)to its current name of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook. Like today’s celebrity chefs, her influence reached beyond the kitchen – she lectured on nutrition at the Harvard Medical School.
Examples of Fannie Farmer’s Cookbook through the years
My copy is a 1948 reprint of the 1946 8th edition. The copyright page touts its own popularity, with a detailed list of the number of books printed for each edition and its reprints. By 1948, there were 2.6 million copies of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook in print. The best estimate for total sales is about four million, which according to The Daily Meal isa far cry behind the all-time best-selling cookbooks:
- Betty Crocker first published in 1950 and over 65 million in print
- Better Homes & Gardens first published in 1930 with about 40 million in print
- Joy of Cooking first published in 1931 with over 18 million in print
Latest editions of perennial bestsellers
What all these cookbooks have in common is their wide range of recipes. You can find recipes for hors d’oeuvres, soups, salads, pasta, fish, poultry, bread, cakes, pies and so much more. Many have menu examples and tips on how to choose ingredients. Joy of Cooking likely wins the “you have a recipe for what?” category with recipes for porcupine, muskrat and armadillo. Joy advises:
“Small game such as rabbit, squirrel and muskrat may be substituted in most recipes calling for chicken.”
The Impact of the Internet: Bringing Every Recipe Together in One Place
Like many other products, the availability to find recipes online (usually without cost) has the possibility to seriously dampen the sale of cookbooks. Why buy a cookbook when you can visit allrecipes.com to search for a recipe based on the meal type (brunch, dinner, etc.), ingredients, occasion or cuisine? A 2023 article on Allrecipes claimed over 100,000 recipes. And, this is just the tip of the recipe iceberg. The web is brimming with recipes from sites like Food Network, Taste of Home and Simply Recipes. Even some who sell cookbooks offer free online recipes, like The Pioneer Woman. The number of food bloggers in the US is impossible to estimate, but my “AI helper” claims it to be millions. Not wanting to be left out, food manufacturers offer recipes that include their products (e.g., Hellmans.com, Perdue.com). With all these easy-to-find recipes, cookbooks should have suffered the fate as DVDs and CDs when streaming became available.
But, no! Rather, the sales of cookbooks are steady at about 20 million books annually. Why have cookbooks remained popular formats for recipes? Why pay for a book when you can get the same recipe on your iPad?
Customer Segmentation: Meeting Different Needs for Recipes
Cookbooks have evolved from large, diverse compilations of recipes covering literally soup to nuts to targeting specific consumer needs (both functional and emotional).
A walk down the book aisle at Target demonstrates this segmenting. Given the relatively small selection of all books, a significant portion of the real estate is taken by cookbooks, including:
The Forever Dog Life – 120+ recipes , longevity tips and new science for better bowls and happier homes
The Official Game of Thrones Cookbook – foreword by George R.R. Martin
The Noom Kitchen
Dinner’s Ready by The Pioneer Woman
Cookbooks now aim to meet more specific functional and emotional needs of consumers.
Customer Segmentation for Functional Needs
- Dietary restrictions like Gluten-Free, Vegan, Plant-Based
- Healthy
- Cuisine (Thai, Italian, French)
- Quick and easy
- Low calorie/Weight loss
- Appliance-specific (check out my article “New Product Examples Driven by Cooking Technology Innovation” for the success of air fryers)
Customer Segmentation for Emotional Needs
- Connections to interests like movies, comic books
- Environmental/eat local
- Celebrity connections
- Lifestyle (Vegan, For Kids, etc.)
A quick look at Amazon’s cookbook bestseller list in September 2024 reveals this approach
- Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan meals (QUICK & EASY)
- The Ultimate Mediterranean Refresh Cookbook: Nutritious, Healthy Recipes for Weight Loss (HEALTHY, WEIGHT LOSS)
- The Mediterranean Dish: 120 Bold and Healthy Recipes (HEALTHY)
- Half Baked Harvest Super Simple: More than 125 Recipes for Instant, Overnight, Meal-Prepped, and Easy Comfort Foods (QUICK & EASY)
- The Tucci Cookbook by Stanley Tucci and Francesco Tonelli (CELEBRITY)
- Air Fryer Cookbook: 600 Effortless Air Fryer Recipes for Beginners and Advanced Users (APPLIANCE-SPECIFIC)
- Complete Cooking for Two (LIFESTYLE)
- Love and Lemons Simple Feel Good Food: 125 Plant-Focused Meals to Enjoy Now or Make Ahead (DIETARY, LIFESTYLE, QUICK & EASY)
- Forks Over Knives; Over 300 Simple and Delicious Plant-Based Recipes to Help You Lose Weight, Be Healthier and Feel Better Every Day (HEALTHY, DIETARY, WEIGH LOSS)
- Once Upon a Chef: Weeknight/Weekend: 70 Quick-Fix Weeknight Dinners + 30 Luscious Weekend Recipes (QUICK & EASY, LIFESTYLE)
A search for “Cookbook bestsellers” on BarnesandNoble.com turns up
- Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking (CELEBRITY, CUISINE)
- Cook Once Dinner Fix (QUICK & EASY)
- Melba’s American Comfort (CUSIINE)
- Ingredient – Marcella’s Guide to the Market (HEALTHY)
- Paula Deen & Friends: Living it up, Southern Style (CELEBRITY, CUISINE)
- LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes from Patti LaBelle (CELEBRITY, CUISINE)
- Air Fryer Cookbook (APPLIANCE-SPECIFIC)
- Nistisima: The Secret to Delicious Mediterranean Vegan Food (HEALTHY, DIETARY)
- Even More Basics to Brilliance (CUISINE)
- The Italian Cookbook (CUISINE)
- The Ultimate Air Fryer Cookbook (APPLIANCE-SPECIFIC)
- No Animal Food (DIET, LIFESTYLE)
Visiting Books-A-Million turns up some additional needs are met:
- The Keto Diet Cookbook (DIET, LIFESTYLE)
- The Art of Fermentation (CUISINE)
- Kids Cookbook (LIFESTYLE)
- Eat Your Way to a Six Pack (LIFESTYLE)
Further, meeting these needs are not just for the purchaser of the cookbook. Cookbooks are a frequent gift for both men and women. I received The Joy of Cooking as a wedding gift from my mother-in-law over 35 years ago. And, I continue to receive cookbooks that reflect my current interests including:
- Tartine for my birthday last year from a friend
- American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and
Recipes Behind More Than 125 of Our Best-Loved Cakes from my daughter - The Instant Pot Bible for Christmas to go with the new Instant Pot
A Special Customer Segment: The Cookbook Fundraiser
I own almost 300 cookbooks. Most of them are the gift of a wonderful friend who bequeathed me her 200+ collection upon her death in 2010. The 1948 edition of Fannie Farmer’s Cookbook is from her collection. I have cookbooks from a wide range of ethnic foods (French, Italian, Ethiopian and Thai), cooking approaches (baking, grilling, preserving) and food-focused (seafood, desserts, chicken) but my favorites are the self-published, fundraising cookbooks with their clever names like Jambalaya (The Junior League of New Orleans, 1983), Sunny Side Up (The Junior League of Fort Lauderdale, 1980) and The Three Rivers Cookbook (Child Health Association of Sewickley, 1973). I will leave you with my favorite recipe of all time from this last cookbook:
Corn Salad “Easy and Flavorful” by Mrs. James Harris
6 ears of cooked corn, removed from the cob
¾ c. diced cucumber
¼ c. diced onion
2 small tomatoes, chopped
Dressing:
¼ c. sour cream
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. dry mustard
¼ tsp celery seed
Combine corn, cucumber, onion and tomato. Toss with dressing. Serve chilled. Can be made ahead! Bon Appetit!
Readers may also be interested in these two recent Insight to Action food trend articles:
- 2 Market Segmentation Examples: Super Bowl Parties & At-Home Entertaining
- Brand Strategy Example: Blackstone Griddles & Accessories
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