Seduction, via a Cookbook

What are cookbooks for? To teach you how to make things to eat, sure. But also to draw you into a particular point of view. In some cases, that view is grounded in realistic, specific practicality—vegan air-fryer recipes, say, or chocolate desserts, or weeknight suppers for families. The proposition is clear, and those cookbooks offer ideas, techniques, and recipes that promise utility. They are instruction books.

In other cases, cookbooks aren’t just about cooking, but instead are avatars for an entire way of living. They are created to express imagined ideals, to indulge fantasies, or to converse with a particular identifiable identity. They are a lot like fashion magazines, or home design television shows. Look here, they say. Don’t you want your dinner, and your life, to look more like this? Editors call this “aspirational” in sales meetings.