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APERTURE/GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM
The Photographer's Cookbook
Text by Lisa Hostetler.
In the late 1970s, the George Eastman Museum approached a group of photographers to ask for their favorite recipes and food-related photographs to go with them, in pursuit of publishing a cookbook. Playing off George Eastman’s own famous recipe for lemon meringue pie, as well as former director Beaumont Newhall’s love of food, the cookbook grew from the idea that photographers’ talent in the darkroom must also translate into special skills in the kitchen. The recipes do not disappoint, with Robert Adams’ Big Sugar Cookies, Ansel Adams’ Poached Eggs in Beer, Richard Avedon’s Royal Pot Roast, Imogen Cunningham’s Borscht, William Eggleston’s Cheese Grits Casserole, Stephen Shore’s Key Lime Pie Supreme and Ed Ruscha’s Cactus Omelette, to name a few. The book was never published, and the materials have remained in George Eastman Museum’s collection ever since. Now, nearly 40 years later, this extensive and distinctive archive of untouched recipes and photographs is published in The Photographer’s Cookbook for the first time. The book provides a time capsule of contemporary photographers of the 1970s—many before they made a name for themselves—as well as a fascinating look at how they depicted food, family and home, taking readers behind the camera and into the hearts and stomachs of some of photography’s most important practitioners.
Featured image is reproduced from The Photographer's Cookbook.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Vogue.com
Suzanne Shaheen
Selected for Vogue.com's Best Photo Books of Spring 2016
Food 52
Kenzi Wilbur
This is a book where "I just looked at the pictures" actually flies. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t at least marvel, like I did, at some of the very excellent recipe-writing from these artists... But should you keep this book on your coffee table or in your kitchen? Get a copy for each room.
Vogue.com
Rebecca Bengal
The Photographer’s Cookbook constructs its own vintage picture of the literal and visual tastes of the era, mixing with the contributors’ striking images recipes both esoteric and generic and utterly of their times.
T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Laura Neilson
The Photographer’s Cookbook seems an especially timely tome, given our hunger-inducing Instagram feeds and voyeuristic appetites.
Have you always wished that you could try William Eggleston’s cheese grits casserole? Is there any food that screams “Ed Ruscha” more loudly than a cactus omelet? Do Stephen Shore’s definitive photos taken inside American eateries of the 1970s make him somehow more qualified than other people to suggest a key lime pie recipe?
The answer to all of the above is, of course, yes. But, more importantly, if you have any sense you’re also now wondering where and how you can find all of these recipes—and then a second later, which is now, you’re remembering that you're reading a review of the recently discovered cult tome, The Photographer's Cookbook. (And all of this thinking is taking place faster than you can poach an egg in microwaved ale, per the instructions of Ansel Adams on the first spread of the book). continue to blog
Mark William Pearson is a lifelong bookseller, sales rep, experimental musician and instrument builder. He sent us his top 10 forthcoming titles during a rare break at his home near a creek in Chapel Hill, NC. continue to blog
A total gem. This small, impeccably made book contains a trove of recipes (and accompanying photographs) by some of the world's great photographers. Gathered in the 1970s, but never published until now, The Photographer's Cookbook contains contributions ranging from Robert Heinecken's Serious Martini to Robert Adams' recipe for 'Mom Borland's Big Sugar Cookies.' Featured here is Ralph Steiner's "Ham and Eggs," first published in a 1929 ad for the Delineator, and here accompanying Steiner's recipe for "Zwei Vier Minuten Eier," aka "Two Four-minute Eggs." continue to blog
Richard Avedon's "Elise Daniels, Bracelet by Balmain, Le Pré Catelan, Paris," originally published in the October, 1948, issue of Harper's Bazaar, is reproduced alongside the photographer's recipe for "The Royal Pot Roast" in Aperture's delightful new release, The Photographer's Cookbook. Originally gathered on a whim in 1977 by Deborah Barsel, short-lived assistant registrar at the George Eastman Museum, this legendary but never-before-published compendium is "a virtual time capsule of the photography of the 1970s," according to current Eastman curator and editor Lisa Hostetler. "Famous masters of the medium such as Ansel Adams, whose iconic black-and-white landscapes were synonymous with the emerging market for art photography at the time, are here, but so are William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, young upstarts whose work was just beginning to draw the attention of the contemporary art world." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 6.5 x 8.5 in. / 160 pgs / illustrated throughout. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $37.5 ISBN: 9781597113571 PUBLISHER: Aperture/George Eastman Museum AVAILABLE: 5/24/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: No longer our product AVAILABILITY: Not Available
Published by Aperture/George Eastman Museum. Text by Lisa Hostetler.
In the late 1970s, the George Eastman Museum approached a group of photographers to ask for their favorite recipes and food-related photographs to go with them, in pursuit of publishing a cookbook. Playing off George Eastman’s own famous recipe for lemon meringue pie, as well as former director Beaumont Newhall’s love of food, the cookbook grew from the idea that photographers’ talent in the darkroom must also translate into special skills in the kitchen. The recipes do not disappoint, with Robert Adams’ Big Sugar Cookies, Ansel Adams’ Poached Eggs in Beer, Richard Avedon’s Royal Pot Roast, Imogen Cunningham’s Borscht, William Eggleston’s Cheese Grits Casserole, Stephen Shore’s Key Lime Pie Supreme and Ed Ruscha’s Cactus Omelette, to name a few. The book was never published, and the materials have remained in George Eastman Museum’s collection ever since. Now, nearly 40 years later, this extensive and distinctive archive of untouched recipes and photographs is published in The Photographer’s Cookbook for the first time. The book provides a time capsule of contemporary photographers of the 1970s—many before they made a name for themselves—as well as a fascinating look at how they depicted food, family and home, taking readers behind the camera and into the hearts and stomachs of some of photography’s most important practitioners.
