Romero

José E. Romero Martínez

Dr. Mark Kamrath

ENG 5009

November 9, 2022

Cookbook Rhetoric and its Implications on Embodiment and Design: An Annotated Bibliogra-
phy

Cookbooks are a major business source for writers, chefs, and users with its alluring

promise of hearty, fulfilling meals, easy-to-follow instructions, and a community spanning di-

verse tastes and distinct generations. Even if the publishing industry has faced numerous chal-

lenges, “cookbook sales grew eight percent between 2010 and 2020” (Reid 2022). In addition,

year-to-date sales of baking cookbooks increased 42% in 2021, spurred in part by the success of

Netflix’s The Great British Baking Show, an increase in bakeware sales, and the maintenance of

baking habits brought on by the pandemic (Graham 2021). This growing market, along with so-

cial media and streaming leverage, has led to the explosive growth and visibility of the cookbook

as a genre beyond a niche.

Cookbooks are no longer the domain of housewives or community leaders trying to leave

a domestic legacy for others—rather, they can offer diverse concepts, techniques, cuisines, and

cooking styles that can satisfy even the most demanding customers. Along with the explosion of

do-it-yourself and vanity publishing, editing and technology, writers and enthusiasts can create

their own cookbooks that provide the most useful hacks for cooking scrumptious meals and pro-

vide tributes to memorialize their specific family histories. For this reason, studying the role of

rhetoric and communication can provide greater incentives on the writer’s message and inten-

tions to its audience through writing, design, imagery, and spacing, among other aspects of tech-

nical design. However, academic discourse on cookbook rhetoric has been relegated to under-
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standing the historical, cultural, and intersectional notions that briefly mention the role of design

and word choice playing an impact.

This bibliography contextualizes textual references to the rhetoric and design of cook-

books, recipes, and its role in design theory. All works cited have been published within the last

twenty-five (25) years to review the most recent discourse. These entries are interdisciplinary in

nature, affording various historical, political, social, and technological aspects of cookbook

rhetoric and instructional design. Its diverse sources acknowledge the breadth and depth of the

current scholarship while providing newer opportunities for further research. As a result, one

may see mentions of other themes such as gender studies, history, and social anthropology. Be-

cause of this, the following annotated bibliography will evaluate its sources through its value on

rhetoric and design.

Common themes offered throughout the analysis of the sources include: the role of com-

munity in creating a cookbook; the importance of word choice, diction, and tone to convey

warmth and/or success to its target audience; the value of design while respecting technological

limitations and learning gaps encountered by its readers; and how remixing and remediation

completed by cookbook readers indicate substitutions or modifications depending on the cook’s

specific circumstances. While most analyzed cookbooks are geared towards the female domestic

audience, this bibliography acknowledges that the complexity of its recipes does not factor to-

wards a comprehensive understanding of its design. To facilitate understanding, the sources have

been divided into two sections: Cookbook Rhetoric and Embodiment, which examines how this

genre uses items such as word choice and culture to provide a form of learned embodiment; and

Cookbook Rhetoric and Design, which addresses how physical design embodies the writer’s val-

ues and specific audiences.

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All following texts were accessed through the following databases: JSTOR; ProQuest;

ACM Digital Library; EBSCOHost; Taylor and Francis and New England Journal of Medicine

(NEJM); and Scholastica. All sources accessed online are denoted by either a hyperlink or Digi-

tal Object Identifier (DOI) included at the end of each citation. In addition, the entries within

each section have been organized alphabetically by the author’s last name.
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Works Cited:

Chojnacki, Robert. “The Great US Baking Craze Continues with 42% Increase in Baking Cook-

book Sales, NPD Says.” The NPD Group, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.npd.com/news/press-

releases/2021/the-great-us-baking-craze-continues-with-42-increase-in-baking-cookbook-

sales-npd-says/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.

Reid, Deborah. “First-Time Cookbook Authors Looking for Book Deals Have to Consider Social

Media Reach.” Eater, https://www.eater.com/23071313/cookbook-deal-social-media-

presence. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.

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Cookbook Rhetoric and Embodiment

Bloom, Lynn Z. “Consuming Prose: The Delectable Rhetoric of Food Writing.” College English,
vol. 70, no. 4, 2008, National Council of Teachers of English, pp. 346–62.

This essay describes the conventions of food writing and its impact on rhetoric from a pedagogi-
cal perspective. To the author, food writing is portrayed as “upbeat and nurturing” in the way
that it is used to foster a shared cultural identity and the expressions of language as part of its
rhetorical adaptations to discourse. Writers use food to express their values and the warmth (or
lack thereof) of their emotional relationships. Regarding ethics, food expresses abundance, and at
the same time writers attempt to visualize its decadence and indulgence through description. On
the other hand, portraying scarcity in writing is a symptom of further pathologies that get in the
way of enjoying food such as eating disorders or wartime shortages. Also, food writing is cog-
nizant of the intimate or public social contexts upon which the readers and writers share a mutual
trust that is bound to its emotional intent. Moreover, the style, vocabulary, and organization in-
vite a peculiar narrative structure.

This essay provides readers with further insight on how to inject creativity on recipe writing, as
well as integrate narrative and diversity to personalize their writing. However, the article’s out-
reach is limited on its relationship to technical communication, which detracts form its value to
the discourse.

Carrico-Rausch, Cynthia. The Legitimacy of Cookbooks as Rhetoric of Southern Culture. Florida

Atlantic U. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, M.A. Thesis, 2016.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1881563584/abstract/9836457B9D574F20PQ/1. Accessed 3
Oct. 2022.

Carrico-Raush uses the work of Carolyn Miller’s definition of “genres as social movements” to
argue that community cookbooks written in the South embody the “domestic literature” label
through a methodological approach modeling ideological and ritual discourses. The author exam-
ines books such as Blanche S. Rhett’s 200 Years of Charleston Cooking, the Junior League of
Charlotte’s Charlotte Receipts, and Charleston Recipes Repeats in order to determine the spe-
cific themes and cultural underpinnings of “Southerness” can be identified. A discussion of the
transformative role of social upheavals in the Twentieth Century has also gathered a collective
resolve to preserve the culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry “as reminders of the past while
documenting progress and change toward a future.”

The thesis provides major underpinning for rhetorical relationships between cookbooks and cul-
tural identity. However, it does not portray a direct relationship to technical writing that analyzes
its design and usage, providing an intersectional understanding of intersectionality and social jus-
tice.

Cognard-Black, Jennifer. “The Embodied Rhetoric of Recipes.” Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics,

edited by Melissa A. Goldthwaite, 1st edition, Southern Ill. UP., 2017, pp. 65–88.
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Through a personal narrative from upon receiving her grandmother’s cookbook the author ana-
lyzes and contextualizes the embodiment of cookbook recipes, their rhetoric in shaping an ideal-
ized view of middle-class American domestic life and expresses the value of literary criticism in
domestic content. She uses one of her grandmother’s recipes to deconstruct its historical period,
social class, ethnicity, and discourse community, among other details that create a special em-
bodiment between the text and the reader inhabiting its space. As a result, she concludes that
recipes exhibit an “embodied rhetoric” by invoking the “authorial body” as a metalinguist; the
usage of pen and paper (and later the internet) for writing; and the generational embodiment of
familial complexities.

While the author focuses on feminist theory—which is beyond the scope of this bibliography—,
the author’s discussions of embodiment is foundation to assess the emotional embodiment of a
well-written recipe and how these can “inspire endless optimism” by establishing a focus on new
embodiments.

Fleitz, Elizabeth J. “(Re) Mixing Up Literacy: Cookbooks as Rhetorical Remix.” Community

Literacy Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 2021, pp. 52–72. Community Literacy Journal,
https://doi.org/10.25148/CLJ.15.2.009620.

More than becoming passive readers of cookbooks, the author attempts to reform the cookbook
discourse to “users” who engage in a form of remixing as a way to adapt their recipes to specific
circumstances. Types of manual remixing include annotations on margins, newspaper clippings,
adapting and substituting ingredients for recipes and so on, converting cookbooks into multi-
modal vessels of information. To expand her argument, the author engages in a brief textual criti-
cism and rhetorical analysis of a 1950’s cookbook owned by an unknown author, but is filled
with diverse annotations which show that “[the] user remixes the text to design…her own text
and to best serve her own kitchen.” Remixing also serves as part of a “community” that attempts
to reimagine and reinforce a sense of identity much like digital remixing. In addition, the gen-
dered practices and historical limitations are commonplace for “making do” while adapting a
cookbook’s practicality into a personal resource.

Where the article expands on the author’s previous work, the focus on multimodality and remix-
ing should encourage writer to create documentation that addresses the user’s value in remixing
and enhancement and accommodates their literary practices.

Korth, Rachelle (Shelley). An Analysis of Rhetorical Text and Design in Selected Twentieth-Cen-
tury American Recipes. Northern Illinois University. ProQuest, M.A. Thesis, 2012.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1026628461/abstract/F3C9332B1718408BPQ/1. Accessed
25 Oct. 2022.

This thesis reviews the importance of document design to explain recipes for home cooks. The
author analyzes recipes from popular nineteenth-century cookbooks like The Book of Household
management and apply the concepts of technical communication of human problem-solving and
rhetoric into its design. Also, the author evaluates the visual and rhetorical strategies by writers
—including pictures, technology, and even binding—to underscore the values to be illustrated
within the cookbook. By addressing cooks’ various skill levels through the usage of mixed in-
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strumental writing models (e.g: detailed instructional models and glossaries), writers can dually
anticipate problems and provide detailed explanations to its readers.

The thesis’ rhetorical analysis clearly shows the evolution of cookbook writing as based on their
target audiences, which can also be integrated with technology. The author also addresses the
limitations of text and images to better reflect the need for multimodal methods of learning how
to cook for beginners.

Mitchell, Christine M. “The Rhetoric of Celebrity Cookbooks.” The Journal of Popular Culture,
vol. 43, no. 3, 2010, pp. 524–39. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-
5931.2010.00756.x.

This article analyzes the different rhetorical styles exhibited by five Food Network personalities
—Julia Child, Sara Moulton, Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, and Rachel Ray—to find if there are
any significant differences for celebrity cookbooks and if they are helpful tools for teaching or
vehicles for self-promotion. The author’s findings include that male cookbooks reveal their pro-
motional intent, while women picture themselves as “cooks and teachers” to their audience. The
rhetoric used in these cookbooks range from informal, instructional, and inspiring, to tenuous
and disconnected to the point of alienation depending on the appearance of features (or lack
thereof) that can assist readers, such as measurements and pictures.

By comparing the specific rhetorical styles for each “celebrity chef” or cook (in Rachel Ray’s
case), one can understand the visual and written rhetoric of “success” in the cooking industry and
how viewers are impacted through it. One considerable limitation is the lack of “celebrity chefs”
of color in the research; future rhetorical analyses should consider casting more diverse personal-
ities, in particular Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latino network personalities.

Moeller, Marie E., and Erin A. Frost. “Food Fights: Cookbook Rhetorics, Monolithic Construc-
tions of Womanhood, and Field Narratives in Technical Communication.” Technical Communi-
cation Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1–11, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1113025.

The authors attempt to address the “field narratives” existent in cookbook rhetoric and technical
communication. Feminist reclamations of technical communication address “very specific no-
tions of technology, work, and the workplace” that has relegated cookbooks as “an ignored and
subjugated” field of research. However, cookbooks written by women reclaim the domestic spa-
ces and their significance of self-value and, thusly, should be integrated into inclusionary schol-
arship. Using examples by authors Nigella Lawson and Luke Buffett, the authors discuss the
gendered practices of the rhetoric, but are limited by simultaneously conforming women into
“heteronormative behavior patterns” that contradict preconceived notions of gendered liberation.
In the same vein, gendered performances for (heterosexual) men appear to limit them into associ-
ating cooking with objectification and gratuitous consumption.

Through their feminist (and deconstructive) approach, the authors believe there is an opportunity
for cookbook writers to stay away from reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes and towards a
greater spirit of inclusivity. At the same time, the article does not prescribe any practical recom-
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mendations for eradicating these stereotypes, which can make its conclusions seem hollow and
incomplete.

Swacha, Kathryn Yankura. “‘Bridging the Gap between Food Pantries and the Kitchen Table’:
Teaching Embodied Literacy in the Technical Communication Classroom.” Technical Commu-
nication Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 3, July 2018, pp. 261–82. Taylor and Francis and New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM), https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2018.1476589.

Swatcha’s article attempts to define embodiment and its role in technical communication and ed-
ucation. The author explains that embodiment theory is intersectional, drawing from sources in-
cluding feminist theory, rhetoric, and communication, discussing that “we interact with the world
in physical bodies and material contexts.” As technology has altered the nature of our embodied
responses, so has students’ interactions with such items being tested through the application of a
hands-on cookbook. Swatcha uses the example of the Well-Fed Cookbook, where the students
applied the senior citizens’ concerns by applying embodiment theory in six types of literacies:
basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical.

The author understands that, despite the limitations of findings toward a single study, she be-
lieves that students greatly benefit from the real-life application of technical communication on a
finished project. The article is severely limited in its depiction of instructional rhetoric; however,
Swatcha values how a cookbook can underscore the importance of food as an opportunity to en-
gage in embodied advocacy work whilst integrating valuable rhetorical skills.
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Cookbook Rhetoric and Design

Bradbury, Jeremy S., et al. “Hands on Cooking: Towards an Attentive Kitchen.” Conference of
Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI ’03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Com-
puting Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, 2023, pp. 996–97,
https://doi.org/10.1145/765891.766113.

Using technology to facilitate the meal preparation process and minimize user frustration, reduce
distractions, and maximize the “visual and physical attention” needed as a distraction, the au-
thors create a “multimodal attentive cookbook” prototype titled eyeCOOK. This prototype com-
bines a recipe database with hypertexts alongside with a wireless microphone using Microsoft
Speech API for speech recognition to avoid unsanitary conditions. eyeCOOK uses additional at-
tentive features such as an automatic timer; and an adaptive display that can detect the eye gaze;
and adaptive input channels that provide instructions depending on the user’s presence. Also,
eyeCOOK users “natural input modalities” that are intended to make the interface easier to use.
In the end, the project is designed to create a better model of an “attentive kitchen” that is func-
tional and adaptable to the user’s time environment.

Overall, this source contributes to the ongoing discussion over the technical applications of cook-
book writing which, at the time of writing, was considered a rudimentary step towards greater
usability.

Cass, Barbara. “Rhetoric, Visual Rhetoric, and the 1950’s Betty Crocker Cookbooks.” Inter-
mountain Journal of Sciences, vol. 23, no. 1-4 December, 1-4 December, Dec. 2017, pp. 108–
108.

In this article, the author analyzes the visual rhetoric and ethical impact of The Betty Crocker
Cookbook, an “instructional manual” from the 1950’s that not only provided instructional recipes
but also exercised significant authority over the ideal perceptions of domestic life in middle-class
postwar America. Women ascribed to Betty Crocker who—despite being a fictional character
and a soothing voice on radio during the onset of World War II—she was seen as an aspirational
figure of elegance and normalcy. Representation and ethos are important aspects of identification
with a particular form of documentation. The article provides rhetorical suggestions on how to
understand the historical context and the shifting nature of consumerism.

The article is limitation on any technological implications brought forward by The Betty Crocker
Cookbook. However, this reflects the evolving aims of technical rhetoric and how it has coa-
lesced into a “standard” popular culture.

Davis, Hilary, et al. “Homemade Cookbooks: A Recipe for Sharing.” Proceedings of the 2014
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, 2014, pp.
73–82. ACM Digital Library, https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598590.

Homemade cookbooks serve as more than treasured family heirlooms. According to the authors,
these also provide the underpinnings for technological innovation and interactive aptitude, more
so with the advent of online recipe sharing. The authors define a cookbook as “a collection of
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recipes that is used as a reference for cooking food,” the embodiment and retrieval of informa-
tion. These recipes are also embodied into a family’s shared sense of identity. To analyze this,
the authors conduct a study by engaging with five “intergenerational family pairs” and their in-
teractions with cookbooks, as well as the physical technology in the kitchen. Through the usage
of ethnographic techniques, the authors conclude that, regardless of type of composition, cook-
books embody family identity and materiality, and provide recommendations that digital cook-
book software include the ability to explain contextual backgrounds of recipes, incorporate anno-
tations, and use colors, fonts, and formats to extend the family narrative using technology. An-
other example recommended by authors is to create a “digital fingerprint” where users can pro-
vide a time-stamped recount of all the times the recipe was used.

This article provides an alternative perspective on the social aspects of cookbook rhetoric and
how it can be amplified through technology, proper formatting, and interactive engagement. The
authors eschew theoretical ideas on cookbook rhetoric to provide practical recommendations for
transitioning homemade cookbooks into the digital sphere.

Fleitz, Elizabeth. “Cooking Codes: Cookbook Discourses as Women’s Rhetorical Practices.”

Present Tense, vol. 1, no. 1, 2010, https://www.presenttensejournal.org/vol1/cooking-codes-
cookbook-discourses-as-womens-rhetorical-practices/.

Fleitz’s journal article explains the rhetorical practices of women through the validation of the
kitchen as part of their cultural sphere of impact. As the author argues, “Cooking has historically
been a gendered practice” and its major consumers in the public, private and digital spheres,
even if many of its public figures are male. Because women have been rhetorically shut off from
“models of communication” and textual interaction has been nominally affected by gender,
women have used gendered language as a form of resistance through coding. Women’s texts in
cookbook and recipe rhetoric are also multimodal in the sense that it provides greater flexibility
in its presentation and direction, more so when transported into the Web as it “relies on linguis-
tic, visual, typographic, and embodied or experimental modes of literacy.”

The author’s understanding of multimodality provides a holistic perspective on different types of

communication. This article encourages an opportunity to frame multimodality as an interactive
necessity for cookbook and recipe writing without isolating the gendered language of domestic-
ity.

Kelly, Casey Ryan. “Cooking Without Women: The Rhetoric of the New Culinary Male.” Com-
munication & Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, June 2015, pp. 200–04. EBSCOhost,
https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2015.1014152.

If cookbooks generally embody the growth and extent of women’s spaces in their environment,
then male-oriented cookbooks serve as a (tongue-in-cheek) reclamation of the kitchen as another
gendered space, importing the habits of “a male locker-room culture in the restaurant history”
into domestic spaces. Kelly grounds Bondrieu’s theory of habitus to explore the internal, gen-
dered rhetoric of the male cookbook rhetoric through the rhetorical analysis of Esquire Maga-
zine’s Eat Like A Man Cookbook. Beyond a simple recipe, the author notes that the cookbook
combines advice, essays, and glossy imagery to present a nuanced notion of machismo to its tar-
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get male audience. At the same time, generational tensions between “domestic-avoidant” Baby
Boomers and a nuanced domestic vision for Generation X men are explored.

While the article does provide a contrast with typical gendered notions of cookbook rhetoric, the
article does not discuss the notions of textual heteronormativity and how its presentation might
alienate other groups of men (e.g: queer men) who may find this cookbook useful. The rhetoric
must be confronted and not merely alluded to in terms of embodying an inclusive domestic
course.

Paradowski, Michał B. “What’s Cooking in English Culinary Texts? Insights from Genre Cor-
pora for Cookbook and Menu Writers and Translators.” The Translator, vol. 24, no. 1, Jan. 2018,
pp. 50–69. Taylor and Francis and New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM),
https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2016.1271735.

The article portrays distinct translation techniques, norms, and conventions displayed by profes-
sionals to assist with the curation of cookbooks to English. Because English is considered an in-
ternational lingua franca for business, tourism, and hospitality, the imperative for translating
recipes to English is oftentimes greater than the reverse. Also, challenges in translation arise
when, besides maintaining the “conventionalised, interculturally stereotypes and easily recogniz-
able” cookbook genre, translators must also consider the texts of celebrity chefs that provide a
mixture between “technical texts and literature.” In addition, the author addresses linguistic dif-
ferences between English dialects, particularly British and American English, the differing levels
of formality between texts, and the integration of parts of a sentence, such as articles, preposi-
tions, and textual ellipsis.

This article addresses the technical concepts and mastery needed to provide a successful transla-
tion that is engaging, readable, and faithful to the original recipe. The standardized practice of
cookbook writing allows readers to engage with the text with a significant degree of accuracy
and completion.

Santich, Barbara. “Cookbooks and Culinary Culture.” TEXT, vol. 17, no. Special 24, Oct. 2013,
pp. 1–10. Scholastica, https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.28260.

This article analyzes the historical role of cookbooks in understanding a country’s “culinary cul-
ture,” which refers to “the values, traditions, practices and beliefs” that mold a specific commu-
nity’s eating, drinking, and cooking patterns. The author examines the idea of a recipe as “a
generic example of written instructions,” which can be interpreted based on the reader’s specific
circumstances. Along this interpretation of a recipe, any alteration and substitution of ingredients
suggest that certain items were either too expensive, scarce, or superfluous to be used at a spe-
cific moment in time (e.g: substituting honey for sugar during the winter season). The author also
discusses the example of Australian cookbooks in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the grad-
ual emergence of an Australian identity through the values of thriftiness and adaptation—itself a
form of remixing.

The anthropological implications portrayed in this article are beyond the scope of this bibliogra-
phy. Rather, the author provides a valuable discussion on remixing, adaptation, and integration
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of clear instructions to facilitate readers’ attention.

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Index

A written, 11

annotations, 6
K
B Kelly, Casey Ryan, 10
kitchen, 6, 10
baking, 1, 4 attentive, 9
Bloom, Lynn Z, 5 Korth, Rachelle (Shelley), 6
Bradbury, Jeremy S., et al, 9
M
C
Mitchell, Christine M, 7
Carrico-Rausch, Cynthia, 5 Moeller, Marie E, 7
Cass, Barbara, 9 multimodality, 6, 10
Chojnacki, Robert, 4
Cognard-Black, Jennifer, 5
community, 1, 6, See
P
discourse, 6 Paradowski, Michał B, 11
cookbook publishing, 1
discourse, 2
rhetoric, 2
sales, 1
R
cookbook rhetoric, 2 Reid, Deborah, 4
Cookbook Rhetoric and Design. See cookbook remixing, 2, 6, 12
Cookbook Rhetoric and Embodiment. See cookbook digital, 6
cookbooks", 1 manual, 6
rhetoric
D adaptations to discourse, 5
analysis, 6, 11
Davis, Hilary, et al, 9 practices of women. See theory, feminist
design theory, 2 strategies, 7
style, 7
E rhetorical relationships, 5
rhetorical suggestions, 9
embodiment, 3, 6, 10
of cookbook recipes, 6
of familial complexities, 6
S
theory, 8 Santich, Barbara, 11
emixing, 6 Swacha, Kathryn Yankura, 8

F T
Fleitz, Elizabeth, 10 technology, 1, 7, 8, 9
Fleitz, Elizabeth J, 6 family narratives, 10
Frost, Erin A., 7 kitchen, 10
textual criticism, 6
I theory
design, 2
instructional models. See instructions embodiment. See embodiment
instructional rhetoric. See instructions feminist, 6
instructions, 1 habitus, 11
manual, 9 translation, 11