I’ve been thinking about photographs of food because I’ve finally read John Berger’s classic book, small and powerful, called Ways of Seeing. In it he analyses what was going on with oil painting from the Renaissance to the impressionists, how paintings in that period reflect the power structure, reinforce the power of wealth, and congratulate it. And then he goes on to talk about publicity/advertising photos: the way that they work to make us desire what we don’t have, to imagine ourselves in a better or more glamorous situation than we’re in.
I forgot to say that Ways of Seeing is one of the books that all right-thinking art students read when I was in art school in London 50 years ago. You have made me want to reread it and I can't find my copy. Thank you for the thoughtful essay.
I rely more on the head notes and the ingredients than the photos. I can't plate up my food like they do and still get it on the table still hot. My produce and proteins don't and won't look like the photos in the books, magazines or on line media. I want the dog-eared pages of an old cookbook where the stains and broken spine show a previous owner's favorites. You have 2 recipes in the Burma book that I do again and again. I have the ingredients, the techniques are not difficult and the taste is so much more than the ingredients on their own. I love learning about the cultures, both domestic and foreign. Pictures can only do so much.
So glad there are recipes in the Burma book that you rely on. And on the subject of headnotes, you are a person after my own heart. I write them to have a hopefully helpful conversation with you, the reader-cook.
I loved this piece, thank you Naomi. I’d never thought of the displacement of the role of words to describe the sensuousness of a recipe as food porn photography took centre stage. I’ll be thinking of this every time I read a cook book now!
I've just come across this post in my feed, enjoyed reading it, and wanted to contribute, because last year I published my debut cookbook, with, shock-horror, no photos. It was a decision made by my publisher at the time of offering me the deal (likely budgetary). It wasn't quite how I'd imagined my book (I adore good food photography) but I decided to trust the publisher and go for it. I have very many thoughts now that I'm a year out the other side. Firstly, whilst developing the recipes I gave less hoots about what the dish looked like (very anti my usual instagram strategy), which meant no extra ingredients that were just there for their looks, no silly garnishes. Taste is always first and foremost for me but I have been guilty of the extra garnishes in the past. Secondly, I've watched people flick through the book. They don't just flick like they would through a photo book. They HAVE to stop and read a little. I love this. And thirdly I've had no negative feedback from anyone about the lack of photos (aside from a friend who is a food photographer). It's been refreshing. Friends have said they feel less pressure to create an overly styled dish like most photos are. I'd still love to do a photo-led book one day, but my experience of this one has been all good. It's called It Starts with Veg and has some gorgeous vegetable illustrations in it to break up the text If you're anyway intrigued!
it’s very interesting! Thank you so much for sharing this observation about pictures in cookbooks.
It seems to me that this goes hand in hand with the sense that we’re becoming more of a visual culture : image over literature. Imagination often takes a backseat… and that comes at a cost.
Your reflection lingers with me—it articulates something I’ve felt but hadn’t quite found the words for. You write with clarity, care, and a kind of grounded defiance that feels deeply needed.
You’re absolutely right: today’s food photography often sanctifies perfection. I remember preparing a portfolio of filled bagels some years ago. The food photographer crouched over each one with tweezers, adjusting every parsley leaf and drizzle of sauce until the image looked effortlessly casual. But of course, it was entirely orchestrated. Like buying designer jeans pre-ripped to appear worn—untouched by life, but selling the illusion of experience.
And now, as you know, we’ve entered a second wave: the cooking video. I’ve learned how the apps work. You can fake the sound of chopping, the hiss of steam, even the sizzle of garlic hitting the pan. It’s theatre. Nothing is real. And yet, I’ve surrendered to it too. If you want your first cookbook to be seen, you have to play along. Edit. Trim. Dramatize. Seduce.
What’s so troubling—so tragic—is not just the artificiality, but what it reveals about us. We’ve become fast food. We want everything instantly: beauty, pleasure, results. We’ve lost the joy of getting there—the physical, fragrant, messy process of cooking that demands presence, and rewards improvisation.
That’s why your purple yam supper moved me so deeply. It‘s imperfectly perfect. The sorrel chopped by instinct. The pairing of tart and sweet a matter of feel, not formula. It’s the kind of cooking that doesn’t just feed us—it restores us.
one more thing I have noticed in this too deep a foray I am forced to make - kicking and screaming. Tiktokkers and instagrammers are often people who have no idea about cooking. The show is resplendent with spasticated moves that would never work in a professional kitchen, many times using artificial sounds for embellishment. I sorry, but I cannot connect to this really.
Naomi, I always look forward to your thoughtful reflections, your effortless way with food (I especially loved the rushed photos here!), your focus on beauty in all its forms. I had never heard of Ways of Seeing. I will be sure to seek it out.
We’ve become so visually driven that it’s easy to forget we don’t all learn or connect in the same way. Whether we’re auditory, kinesthetic, or visual by nature, this image-first culture tends to flatten those differences—and in the process, I think we're losing the ability (and maybe the confidence) to imagine from words alone.
Your asparagus and that first iris say so much about the beauty of the simple and unstyled—things that don’t need flourishes to be understood or appreciated.
I find myself wondering: can we shift back to recognizing those different ways of learning and sensing the world—or are we becoming a visual-first, maybe even visual-only, society?
Really interesting and thoughtful post, Naomi. Yr right - of course you are. Food photographs - a separate artform designed for a different purpose - close down the creative relationship between writer and reader.
Agree with you! I think the photos in a cookbook contribute to making the book, the recipes, the author seem aspirational. Ruby Tandoh writes about this in her book, Cook as You Are. As someone who both develops recipes that I want people to find accessible, and a photographer who wants to take beautiful food photographs, I’m caught somewhere in the middle.
I do love the way that series of books draw me into a world that I'm not familiar with. It's not just about the recipe and I can make it and serve it or eat it or share it or botch it. It puts food into it's environment. I have a collection of cookbooks, the oldest is from the 1800's that has a section for saloon owners, and a 'receipt' for deworming. I have a collection from the 1950's that have photos throughout that show a different world, a different era. The oldest cookbooks have no photos and the recipes are mainly about getting the food on the table, feeding people and sharing skills. It can be helpful to have a photo when the recipes come from an unknown culture. These days we have such easy access to other cultures through the internet that I this has changed. Some cookbooks sell glamour and luxe kitchens, bountiful resources that include time and the groceries needed to make the recipes. It's really interesting to read through this collection and see the change in cookbooks and the eras, people and tastes they represent. The mini-cookbooks from Alberta in the 1930's with make-do ingredients feel really great. They're simple, straightforward and while not the "healthiest' in today's terms, I like the basics they offer, cook and eat, together.
June 21: An update on purple yams/sweet potatoes and on tart-acid needed with them: I made some again last night, again boiling them whole with skin on until tender, then peeling them and cutting them up. I found that these ones (grown in Ontario) needed a lot, really a lot of acidity to bring out their flavour. So if you make them into a dressed dish, and use greens and a vinaigrette with them, you'll want lots of cider vinegar, and also maybe some fresh lime juice, as well as say chopped sorrel leaves for another kind of tart-sour. Yesterday's version had chopped dandelion sauteed with ginger and garlic, plus fresh arugula and tender letuce, and a mixture of garden herbs, uncluding a generous amount of sorrel, all chopped. And the small amount of leftovers are delicious the next day.
I have to leave a comment. I published the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook in, I think, 1995, and then an update, called cleverly The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, in maybe 2010 or thereabouts. Both books have sold well, both attract interesting and mostly positive comments on Amazon and the like, but the big criticism, over and over again, is the lack of pictures. "How am I supposed to know what to cook?" readers ask, as if only the photograph could confirm the attractiveness of a dish. I want to reply: Use your imagination, but instead I just keep quiet. I can understand the purpose of illustrations in, let's say, a chef's cookbook with details about elaborate presentations, but my book is about eating a healthful and delicious diet. Can you not, dear reader, picture what a Turkish bean soup with a dollop of yogurt looks like? Grumble, grumble, but it is profoundly irritation, at least to me. I'll be interested in what others say.
I wonder if some of the insistence on photos stems not just from visual culture, but from a kind of quiet insecurity. For many newer or less confident cooks, an image can feel like a safety net—a way to confirm they’re “doing it right.”
It’s not that they can’t imagine what Turkish bean soup with yogurt might look like, but perhaps they don’t quite trust themselves to get there without proof. In that sense, the photo isn’t just aspirational—it’s compensating for something they don’t yet feel they have: confidence, experience, permission to make the dish their own.
Your books, I think, do something powerful by trusting the reader to bring their own imagination and taste to the table. That’s not a flaw—it’s a gift.
I forgot to say that Ways of Seeing is one of the books that all right-thinking art students read when I was in art school in London 50 years ago. You have made me want to reread it and I can't find my copy. Thank you for the thoughtful essay.
I've heard John Berger mentioned for years, but somehow only recently got the book out of the library. Yes I'd love to own a copy!
It’s also on the Internet Archive as well as the BBC series Ways of Seeing. 😊
I need to go find it. Thanks for the nudge!
There is always A Libris and ABE Books. I did a quick look and prices were all over the map.
I rely more on the head notes and the ingredients than the photos. I can't plate up my food like they do and still get it on the table still hot. My produce and proteins don't and won't look like the photos in the books, magazines or on line media. I want the dog-eared pages of an old cookbook where the stains and broken spine show a previous owner's favorites. You have 2 recipes in the Burma book that I do again and again. I have the ingredients, the techniques are not difficult and the taste is so much more than the ingredients on their own. I love learning about the cultures, both domestic and foreign. Pictures can only do so much.
So glad there are recipes in the Burma book that you rely on. And on the subject of headnotes, you are a person after my own heart. I write them to have a hopefully helpful conversation with you, the reader-cook.
I loved this piece, thank you Naomi. I’d never thought of the displacement of the role of words to describe the sensuousness of a recipe as food porn photography took centre stage. I’ll be thinking of this every time I read a cook book now!
I've just come across this post in my feed, enjoyed reading it, and wanted to contribute, because last year I published my debut cookbook, with, shock-horror, no photos. It was a decision made by my publisher at the time of offering me the deal (likely budgetary). It wasn't quite how I'd imagined my book (I adore good food photography) but I decided to trust the publisher and go for it. I have very many thoughts now that I'm a year out the other side. Firstly, whilst developing the recipes I gave less hoots about what the dish looked like (very anti my usual instagram strategy), which meant no extra ingredients that were just there for their looks, no silly garnishes. Taste is always first and foremost for me but I have been guilty of the extra garnishes in the past. Secondly, I've watched people flick through the book. They don't just flick like they would through a photo book. They HAVE to stop and read a little. I love this. And thirdly I've had no negative feedback from anyone about the lack of photos (aside from a friend who is a food photographer). It's been refreshing. Friends have said they feel less pressure to create an overly styled dish like most photos are. I'd still love to do a photo-led book one day, but my experience of this one has been all good. It's called It Starts with Veg and has some gorgeous vegetable illustrations in it to break up the text If you're anyway intrigued!
Congratulations on your first book. It's such an achievement. 👍☀️
Thank you so much !
it’s very interesting! Thank you so much for sharing this observation about pictures in cookbooks.
It seems to me that this goes hand in hand with the sense that we’re becoming more of a visual culture : image over literature. Imagination often takes a backseat… and that comes at a cost.
Dear Naomi,
Your reflection lingers with me—it articulates something I’ve felt but hadn’t quite found the words for. You write with clarity, care, and a kind of grounded defiance that feels deeply needed.
You’re absolutely right: today’s food photography often sanctifies perfection. I remember preparing a portfolio of filled bagels some years ago. The food photographer crouched over each one with tweezers, adjusting every parsley leaf and drizzle of sauce until the image looked effortlessly casual. But of course, it was entirely orchestrated. Like buying designer jeans pre-ripped to appear worn—untouched by life, but selling the illusion of experience.
And now, as you know, we’ve entered a second wave: the cooking video. I’ve learned how the apps work. You can fake the sound of chopping, the hiss of steam, even the sizzle of garlic hitting the pan. It’s theatre. Nothing is real. And yet, I’ve surrendered to it too. If you want your first cookbook to be seen, you have to play along. Edit. Trim. Dramatize. Seduce.
What’s so troubling—so tragic—is not just the artificiality, but what it reveals about us. We’ve become fast food. We want everything instantly: beauty, pleasure, results. We’ve lost the joy of getting there—the physical, fragrant, messy process of cooking that demands presence, and rewards improvisation.
That’s why your purple yam supper moved me so deeply. It‘s imperfectly perfect. The sorrel chopped by instinct. The pairing of tart and sweet a matter of feel, not formula. It’s the kind of cooking that doesn’t just feed us—it restores us.
With admiration,
Elli
Thank-you... These intuitions can take a while to identify and pin down.
Using photos and videos as a promotional tool seems such a diss of the reality and integrity of treating food with respect
one more thing I have noticed in this too deep a foray I am forced to make - kicking and screaming. Tiktokkers and instagrammers are often people who have no idea about cooking. The show is resplendent with spasticated moves that would never work in a professional kitchen, many times using artificial sounds for embellishment. I sorry, but I cannot connect to this really.
Naomi, I always look forward to your thoughtful reflections, your effortless way with food (I especially loved the rushed photos here!), your focus on beauty in all its forms. I had never heard of Ways of Seeing. I will be sure to seek it out.
We’ve become so visually driven that it’s easy to forget we don’t all learn or connect in the same way. Whether we’re auditory, kinesthetic, or visual by nature, this image-first culture tends to flatten those differences—and in the process, I think we're losing the ability (and maybe the confidence) to imagine from words alone.
Your asparagus and that first iris say so much about the beauty of the simple and unstyled—things that don’t need flourishes to be understood or appreciated.
I find myself wondering: can we shift back to recognizing those different ways of learning and sensing the world—or are we becoming a visual-first, maybe even visual-only, society?
Thank-you!
Really interesting and thoughtful post, Naomi. Yr right - of course you are. Food photographs - a separate artform designed for a different purpose - close down the creative relationship between writer and reader.
Yes you nail it: "...close down the creative relationship between writer and reader"
Agree with you! I think the photos in a cookbook contribute to making the book, the recipes, the author seem aspirational. Ruby Tandoh writes about this in her book, Cook as You Are. As someone who both develops recipes that I want people to find accessible, and a photographer who wants to take beautiful food photographs, I’m caught somewhere in the middle.
I do love the way that series of books draw me into a world that I'm not familiar with. It's not just about the recipe and I can make it and serve it or eat it or share it or botch it. It puts food into it's environment. I have a collection of cookbooks, the oldest is from the 1800's that has a section for saloon owners, and a 'receipt' for deworming. I have a collection from the 1950's that have photos throughout that show a different world, a different era. The oldest cookbooks have no photos and the recipes are mainly about getting the food on the table, feeding people and sharing skills. It can be helpful to have a photo when the recipes come from an unknown culture. These days we have such easy access to other cultures through the internet that I this has changed. Some cookbooks sell glamour and luxe kitchens, bountiful resources that include time and the groceries needed to make the recipes. It's really interesting to read through this collection and see the change in cookbooks and the eras, people and tastes they represent. The mini-cookbooks from Alberta in the 1930's with make-do ingredients feel really great. They're simple, straightforward and while not the "healthiest' in today's terms, I like the basics they offer, cook and eat, together.
I like your phrase, I put food into the environment.
Cookbooks as communication rather than as promotion
June 21: An update on purple yams/sweet potatoes and on tart-acid needed with them: I made some again last night, again boiling them whole with skin on until tender, then peeling them and cutting them up. I found that these ones (grown in Ontario) needed a lot, really a lot of acidity to bring out their flavour. So if you make them into a dressed dish, and use greens and a vinaigrette with them, you'll want lots of cider vinegar, and also maybe some fresh lime juice, as well as say chopped sorrel leaves for another kind of tart-sour. Yesterday's version had chopped dandelion sauteed with ginger and garlic, plus fresh arugula and tender letuce, and a mixture of garden herbs, uncluding a generous amount of sorrel, all chopped. And the small amount of leftovers are delicious the next day.
I have to leave a comment. I published the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook in, I think, 1995, and then an update, called cleverly The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, in maybe 2010 or thereabouts. Both books have sold well, both attract interesting and mostly positive comments on Amazon and the like, but the big criticism, over and over again, is the lack of pictures. "How am I supposed to know what to cook?" readers ask, as if only the photograph could confirm the attractiveness of a dish. I want to reply: Use your imagination, but instead I just keep quiet. I can understand the purpose of illustrations in, let's say, a chef's cookbook with details about elaborate presentations, but my book is about eating a healthful and delicious diet. Can you not, dear reader, picture what a Turkish bean soup with a dollop of yogurt looks like? Grumble, grumble, but it is profoundly irritation, at least to me. I'll be interested in what others say.
I wonder if some of the insistence on photos stems not just from visual culture, but from a kind of quiet insecurity. For many newer or less confident cooks, an image can feel like a safety net—a way to confirm they’re “doing it right.”
It’s not that they can’t imagine what Turkish bean soup with yogurt might look like, but perhaps they don’t quite trust themselves to get there without proof. In that sense, the photo isn’t just aspirational—it’s compensating for something they don’t yet feel they have: confidence, experience, permission to make the dish their own.
Your books, I think, do something powerful by trusting the reader to bring their own imagination and taste to the table. That’s not a flaw—it’s a gift.