Nice but not required. Most of my cookbooks have no photos.

I think it depends on how similar the recipes are to something one has seen before. My mother sent me a pictureful Oaxaca cooking book when I was living in a place where there was plenty of cabbage and no lettuce. I grew up eating lots of Californio, Tex-Mex, Frontera and Sonora dishes, as well as generic Mexican, but there were things in there I'd never had or seen and the pictures were useful, especially as I was making substitutions for ingredients I coudln't get.

If the ingredients are known, what the outcome is supposed to be like is known, and the methods aren't weird, I don't care about pictures.

But I love my Jacques Pepin book with the step by step pictures of the instant deboning trick. It predates YouTube, and watching him do it on TV wasn't enough.

Though, actually, what I really would like is good diagrams for how to use the temperature probe that came with my oven. I use a meat thermometer all the time, but when I tried doing it the same way it wasn't right.

It seems like the best recipes are in the books without the pictures though, so I think a combination is good. Instruction books with pictures and cooking books with recipes.

Most of my cookbooks do not have pictures, and in most cases, I am fine with that. Sometimes line illustrations are helpful, however. I get more inspired by ingredients than I do by pictures. I've seen beautiful pictures of dishes that tasted horrible, and so I'm always a bit skeptical of photos.

Lars

Most of the time I can live without pictures of the recipes in a cookbook. I much prefer to have more descriptive writing of the history, ingredients, preparation, and serving suggestions for the recipe.

Teresa

I like having pictures in my cookbooks. I am a very "visual" person, so I taste with my eyes first!

That is not to say that I don't have or wouldn't purchase a book with few or no photos. Especially if the recipes all intrigue me.

Linda

I have cookbooks with and without pictures. I think I prefer without--my presentation might be different; the dish might not look like the sprayed, oiled, and dolled-up one photographed; and it is really the recipe that interests me.
Ditto on the Jacques Pepin cookbooks--I'd love them with our without drawings/photos! The man can do no wrong!

I'm a visual person too. I love pictures of the finished recipe in cookbooks. I also love pictures on menus at restaurants hahahha!! Well, I do.

I liked the response from barnmom, "nice but not necessary".

Hubby gravitates towards cookbooks with pictures, but he's an infrequent 'chef' and likes pictures as a guideline. Perhaps seeing is believing (LOL)!

One of his favorite cookbooks is Better Homes and Gardens "Complete Step-By-Step Cook Book" (1978) because it includes 122 cooking techniques explained with hundreds of photos detailing the how-to, not just a picture of the finished product. Our kids also used this book when they were learning to cook.

The cook-booklets (found at the end of the counter at the grocery store check-out (Pillsbury, Bisquick, Betty Crocker, etc.) are also favorites because of the great photography, and they generally have great user-friendly recipes in them.

-Grainlady

To me, all cookbook/magazine food photos are suspect. By the time the food stylists have finished with them who knows if that's what the finished recipe will actually look like when prepared? Whether it's the shortening & powdered sugar mixture used to represent yummy-looking ice cream or the pool of light motor oil depicting a rich pool of sauce under the meat... maybe the photograph of the whole 'just out of the oven' beautiful, juicy, golden roast chicken in the magazine/cookbook? To keep it nice and plump, that chicken is likely raw. And the beautiful golden color? Angostura bitters or molasses and a blowtorch.

I look at a recipe & decide if the ingredients are something we'd enjoy prepared in such a way as to be practical for our lifestyle & result in a pleasing meal.

So, no, pictures aren't important to me in a cookbook.

I do like "How To" technique tutorial diagrams in some cases.

/tricia

I don't usually need pictures and usually pass by cookbooks that use up all their space with pictures. I look for well written recipes that explain what I need to do.

Nancy

If I got rid of all my cookbooks without photos, my bookshelves would look a lot tidier. LOL I don't care one way or the other if the recipes are appealing enough that I will want to make some of them.

Good gosh, /tricia, I'd just as soon not know all the ugly stuff about the photographs! I like books with pictures AND books without. For instance all the great cooks on this forum who are also excellent photographers catch my eye with the photograph, then after wiping the drool, the recipe. I may be inspired with the recipe but more so if it has a picture. Some of us are not as experienced in our cooking as others.
Question: How do those of you who often post pictures feel about this? Pretty obvious to me that you feel it makes a difference. It does to me!

jude

I like photos for appetizers, desserts and various ethnic and Asian dishes. Helps to show presentation and garnish ideas. Books with the photos clustered in the middle are fine.
As I type, I realize that yes, I do like photos. If I've turned to a cookbook for a recipe, seeing the finished product does inspire and challenge but most main stream American dishes don't need photos.My most used cookbook is typically Joy of Cooking.
I like to look at interesting frosting ideas, pie crust crimping ideas, bread colors, and appetizer sizes.

jude, I love the pictures here because I know they are actually food, something someone here made, and not something made up to look like food.

Cookbooks? I like both. I sometimes sit down with a cookbook and read it like other people read novels. I enjoy the pictures, it's entertainment.

However, when I'm cooking, the picture won't convince me to make something, it's the recipe and the ingredients. A couple of my favorite and most used cookbooks have nearly no photos at all.

Annie

Having a picture certainly provides me with more incentive to try a recipe. Even here on this forum, I have to say when I see a great picture of something, I'm pretty inspired to make it myself.

Now my Moosewood cookbooks have no pictures, and they are among my favorite cookbooks, but in general, I'd say that I do prefer to buy cookbooks with pictures.

Annie, I agree the picture won't convince me...it is the recipe and the ingredients and USUALLY I can tell by the ingredients whether or not it's something I want to cook, but I have to keep DH in mind. He's a much more picky eater than me.

One of my favorite cookbooks is an herbal cookbook with no pictures but the style of type and the way it is written are beautiful...also it is separated by type of herb which is great!

jude

My best cookbooks do not have pictures. I do like pictures although they definitely aren't a necessary requirement for me to buy a cookbook. It's definitely the ingredients and sometimes the method that entices me, practically never the picture. As Tricia said, those pictures will fool you. I enjoy the pictures posted here, however never have they enticed me to cook what is photographed. I will never forget DH going into a sub shop and ordering a certain one because he thought it would look like the picture....not.

If I'm paying good money for a cookbook, you bet I want the best of both worlds.

Sol

About those food photos. I have worked as an art director on food shots. Tricia is right about the mostly raw poultry. They are partly roasted and doctored with some Kitchen Bouquet. But food stylists and photographers seem to be getting away from the pump glossy bird. I have seen some more realistically presented turkeys, etc. in recent years. I have never heard of motor oil used as a sauce. And sugar and shortening looks just like what it is. It can pass as ice cream if it is not the focal point. Frozen desserts are tough to photograph but several stand-ins are used to get the lighting, etc. right and then the final one is slipped into place and shot.

Food stylists are trained chefs and the food was perfectly edible and started out as real food. Hot lights and time out of the frig made it unappealing to consider.

I like beautiful food photos as much as anyone. Older images begin to look dated as presentation and tableware fashion tastes change. I have cookbooks from the 80s filled with photos but everything looks tired. I do like diagrams/photo tutorials of difficult techniques.

Eileen, I heard once that mashed potatoes were used in place of ice cream and I thought they'd sure have to air brush that picture to make me think potatoes were ice cream...

Annie

I like the best of both worlds - a good cookbook that also has pictures, especially for a detailed recipe.

Realistically, though, if I'm hungry for dinner and can't decide what to make, a picture will often grab my interest and suck me into making that for dinner. Instant gratification. What can I say, I'm a food slut.

But if I'm planning a dinner party or some other occasion and I'm not quite sure what I want to make, no picture is necessary. I will look for a good recipe with a good combination of ingredients, picture or not.

I like pictures too. Like Linda said, I'm very visual. It's not that I'm going to aim to make something look just like it does in the book. There's not much hope for that!

I'll compare it to maps vs directions. I'm much better off looking at a map to see how to get somewhere than I am reading "turn left" or "go 4.2 miles". Now, once I've looked at the map, then I'll also glance over the instructions to get the complete story.

Same with recipes. I like to see a picture. That gives me an idea of what the recipe is for. Then I'll look at the ingredients and directions to see if it's something I want to make. That's not to say that if there's no picture, I will bypass the recipe. But there's something laborious about reading through ingredients & directions, and seeing the picture first can somewhat relieve that feeling.

In addition, there are some pictures I can look at right off and KNOW it's not something I want to make. I'll still look at the ingredients, just out of curiosity, but 999 times out of 1000, I'm right, and the picture told me everything I needed to know.

I don't think I'm explaining it just right, but being a very visual person, it just works for me. I generally do avoid cookbooks with NO pictures, especially those with pages that feel or look like news print. I do have SOME cookbooks with no pix, but I tend to turn to the ones WITH pix first. I don't often buy cookbooks except at used book sales and the like, and a book would have to have some extremely redeeming quality to convince me to buy it if it has no pictures.

Yeah, I recognize the pictures aren't necessarily authentic right-out-of-the-oven real food, but that's ok. Again, it's about the visual stimulation that my brain seems to crave.

DL, I wouldn't have bought that book either!

AnnT's food is real. Now there are some awesome food pictures!

I just realized something. I just got the Hungry Girl 123 cookbook and as I was going thru it looking at the recipes, when I got to a section with all the pictures, there were several pictures that made me want to make that recipe; even though I had read it. It didnt appeal to me by just reading it. But the picture inspired me to make it.

My favorite cookbooks are those put out by organizations,
usually as fundraisers.

No pictures, just real, tried & true recipes.

At least most of the time.

I have probably somewhere between 300 and 400 cookbooks of all kinds.

The ones I read the most, and find the best recipes in,
have no pictures.
The lists of ingredients tells me all I need to know about whether the finished dish is something we will like or not.

My 'rule of thumb' is to never pay more than $3.00 for a commercially produced cookbook.
So they are bought in thrift shops, garage sales, etc.
But, depending on the recipes, I will pay as much as $20.00 for a cookbook produced by a group or organization.

The main requirement I have is that there must be an index.
You'd be surprised how many are put out without one.

Rusty

Nope, mine never come out looking the pictures, anyway!

Me too, love pictures. If they can post a picture for every recipe, even better. Having said that, I do have a few cookbooks completely picture-less and I still like them. But I prefer pictures especially when I am trying something new the first time. I want to know how it supposed to look like when it's done. :-) By the way, I am very guilty of buying cookbooks just to look at the pictures! Silly, isn't it?

Al

Another picture person here! A picture of something that looks wonderful tasting will definitely incourage me to try it. Pictures also let me know, quickly, that I don't want to try something. Unfortunately though, a lousy picture will discourage me from trying something that might be awesome.

That being said, my favorite cookbooks are the local charity/bazarre cookbooks from churches and local organizations. No pictures there.

There are a lot of people on this forum who've sold me on trying things by their pictures. AnnT and SharonCB are always getting me with their stuff. Heck, my goal, once my oven is fixed, is to make a pizza that tastes as good as Ann's looks! And Sharon has convinced me to go with a different breading for meats.

Beth

Y'know... I was thinking about pictures so you'd know what it was supposed to look like. A lot of you say you like pictures for the shopping for a recipe to try--does it look yummy?

I'm also a visual person--I certainly shop for ingredients that way, most of the time it's what looks good rather than what's on the list--but I don't look for recipes that way. Flavors, especially spices, don't show in the picture unless it's paprikash or something obvious. I read the ingredients first, then the background information, then the method. I suppose it's because I've been served so much good looking food that was inedible, and apparent glop which was divine, that I just don't trust pictures. In fact, most of my favorite recipe foods (cooked stuff, not produce) aren't pretty!! And even some of the produce isn't, like the eggplant I just made. Eggplant is almost never pretty, but it sure is yummy!

I get it now about the pictures though. Looking for inspiration and all..

I was thinking as I read through this thread and you know what?

While I certainly own cook books with pictures the cook books I use regularly do not have pictures. Hmmm....

Despite their anal methodology and a proclivity to introduce chaos theory and quantum mechanics into a recipe, I think Cook's Ill in all their iterations present one of the best blends of recipe/illustration/photography available.

I love seeing pictures of the food in cookbooks. If I had a choice I would certainly want pictures and the more the better!
Joann

I probably have as many cookbooks without pictures as with. Pictures have never been the deciding factor as to whether I buy a cookbook or not.

And as for what the food stylists are actually using in a picture to look like a roasted turkey or a bowl of ice cream, who cares? The pictures are so realistic that I doubt anyone can tell whether the turkey was really roasted or the skin painted to look like it was fully roasted. If they could they wouldn't buy the book. That isn't what I'm thinking about when I look at a beautiful photograph in a cookbook.

If you want to see what real food cooked by real people looks like, check out some of the Food Porn sites, like Tastespotting and Foodgawker. Great sites for inspiration.

Ann

I like pictures, but don't think they're absolutely necessary, as usually my dishes don't end up looking like the photos, anyway. As others have said, the ingredients and methods in the recipes are what inspire me.

As for fake stuff being used in the photos, it can go the other way, too. I'm guessing most of you already know this, but in the movie Psycho, Hitchock used Hersey's chocolate syrup to represent the blood going down the drain in the shower scene.

Sally

Actually, if it's for advertising purposes (though I'm not sure if a cookbook counts) the food you see in pictures has to be the actual food by law (though of course people cheat.) That is, if there's a restaurant picture of a hamburger they might drape the pickle chips temptingly at the front so you see all three pickle chips (this being a place that gives you exactly three), and that would never be the way they'd make it. They're real pickle chips, though, and not six when they only give you three.

The mashed potatoes thing is an old filming trick for ice cream that doesn't melt, for when they're doing take after take of a movie or something, but in an ice cream commercial they use real ice cream and change out the dish between takes.

"If they could they wouldn't buy the book."

Uh, yeah. I guess that's what I was saying. I just assume in today's world the pictures are faked so they don't 'inspire' me to anything especially to make a purchase. I read the recipe for inspiration.

To me, it borders on false advertising. There should be one of those disclaimers, "Not representative of average results. Your results may vary." lol I'd much rather see a picture of the dish made in a home kitchen by a home cook.

Also, I'm paying for recipes not photos. It is, afterall, a cookbook. If I want a coffee table photo book I buy something on Big Sur or the Grand Canyon or, more likely, a garden book. Guess I feel about garden books much like some here feel about cookbooks. I am inspired looking at pictures of successful garden compositions.

Food pictures here on the forum are fun because they are taken by home cooks. It's nice to share the successes & offer sympathies for the not so successes alike. I don't much look at the food photo websites unless somebody here has a photo. Then, I'll go look.

/tricia

Tricia - I kind of hear what you're saying. Sometimes in life it's better not knowing how things got to where/what they are, LOL. If you look at a picture of ice cream and caramel sauce and "see" shortening and motor oil, then I guess it wouldn't be to appealing to you, LOL!

For me, as pictures in a cookbook go it really depends on what I'm buying the book for. For $35 (list price) I can buy Cook's Illustrated's "Best Recipes" and have over a thousand reliable recipes, or I can buy Ina Garten's "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook" and have probably less than one hundred - but it sure has some great pictures! Both are on my shelf.

On the side-topic of forum pictures, while I certainly wouldn't want to see every thread overrun with pictures, I find the food pictures from our members very inspirational whether professional or slightly blurry. Personally I wish more people would pick up their cameras and post pictures of their successes even if the lighting is off and they haven't played with the presentation.

FOAS, I agree, I'd love to see more pictures here, and they don't have to be great. I just like to see what everyone else is cooking!

Annie

I like pictures. I know they are doctored, I still like them.
Many people like pics, hence the popularity of Foodgawker and Tastespotters, etc. You decide if you want to make it just by looking at it. Different strokes for different folks..
:)