Episode description

When there are so many recipes available for free online, why does anyone still buy cookbooks?

In this programme we look into the business of selling cookbooks, what future the format may have and hear about the treasured tomes you turn to time and time again.

Ruth Alexander visits Books for Cooks, a specialist cookbook shop in London, to chat to Eric Treuille who cooks lunch for his customers from a different cookbook each day.

She speaks to cookbook writers Mogau Seshoene in South Africa, author of ‘The Lazy Makoti’ books, and Joanne Molinaro in the US, author of ‘The Korean Vegan’.

Doris Cooper tells Ruth what a publisher is looking for in a cookbook. She tells Ruth about her big hits and misses as editor-in-chief of Simon Element, a division of Simon and Schuster in New York.

And listeners in Italy, Malta and the US tell us about their favourite cookbooks.

If you would like to contact the programme email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk.

Presented by Ruth Alexander.

Produced by Beatrice Pickup.

(Image: Ruth Alexander with her grandmother’s cookbook, which still holds her handwritten pastry recipe. Credit: BBC)