"Kurlansky's 'Cod' and 'Salt' were actually history books," he says, adding that a forthcoming tome on ice meets the same criterion. To name two other bestsellers, Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" was filed under culture and Patricia Volk's "Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family" shuffled off to memoirs.
"Publishers like to hedge their bets, with seven subjects listed on the cover," Stern says. "But a book has to be in one place in the store."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday May 13, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Book title -- In Wednesday's Food section, an article on recent books about food said Michael Ruhlman's book "The Soul of a Chef" was about his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America. "The Soul of a Chef" profiles three chefs. Ruhlman's book "The Making of a Chef" is about culinary education.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 18, 2005 Home Edition Food Part F Page 3 Features Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Book title -- In last week's section, an article on recent books about food said Michael Ruhlman's book, "The Soul of a Chef," was about his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America. "The Soul of a Chef" profiles three chefs. Ruhlman's book "The Making of a Chef" is about culinary education.
Prime table placement
Only when it is first published does a book have a shot at a front table, and only when the chain decides it has "wide popular appeal." No food book will set sales records if its audience is too narrow; everyone wants the equivalent of "Sideways," the art-house movie that hits the multiplex.
"Maybe 50%" of all books on food wind up segregated in the cookbook aisles at Barnes & Noble, Stern says, particularly those that are "restaurant dish-dirt" books, such as Jeremiah Tower's memoir, or "pure food memoirs -- Ruth Reichl's, Jacques Pepin's -- that are entirely on their life in food and not much else." Books on "food in a culinary context," such as several out on honey, or Mort Rosenblum's takes on olives and on chocolate, also wind up there.
But the less obvious books have the best chance at breaking out of the confines of food and hitting the bestseller list. Baran noted that her Careme biography "did not get reviewed in many food publications -- general interest media sold that book."
Both Stern and Wareham cited Julie Powell's forthcoming book, an outgrowth of her Julie/Julia blog that is due this fall from Little, Brown and Co., as a model for a food narrative. Wareham sees it as a metaphor for dealing with unhappiness in life; Stern says it crossed over so agilely that "we haven't decided where to go with it."
"It's a memoir, but it's structured around cooking every recipe in 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking,' " he says. "It's a story and an idea that will have interest that transcends interest in food and food writing.
"As far as the consumer goes," Stern says, it doesn't matter if a book is about food. "If it's a good book or a good subject, it sells."
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A banquet of storytelling
Here are just a few food books, both new and established, that you can actually sink your brain into:
"Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World" by Gina Mallet, (W.W. Norton, $25.95). Much more a memoir than the screed the title promises, luckily.
