MET Gastronome Talks Cookbook Culture
Associate Professor of the Practice Megan Elias thinks cookbooks tell you much more than just how to prepare a meal. “When we’re looking at [cookbooks], we are looking for our next self,” Dr. Elias, director of MET’s MLA program in Gastronomy, recently told the Meant To Be Eaten podcast. “[It’s] not just that what we eat becomes us,” she said, “but that we present ourselves to the world through the cookbooks we’re using.”
Dr. Elias, author of Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture, also believes that publishers of such recipe collections have incentives to keep their readers hungry for more. “The business is booming, and to keep it booming you can never give people the only cookbook they’re ever going to need, right?” she asked.