The $50 Cookbook

Will the 1997 harvest of cookbooks be remembered as a kind of bonfire of the culinary vanities, or is it merely a harbinger of things to come?

Big-ticket cookbooks selling for $45 and up seemed to be everywhere. And most were from chefs. “Alfred Portale’s Gotham Bar & Grill Cookbook” (Doubleday, $45), Norman Van Aken’s “Norman’s New World Cuisine” (Random House, $50) and Georges Blanc’s “The French Vineyard Table” (Clarkson Potter, $55) were among the restaurant books.

And, of course, how could we have gotten through Christmas without another $50 book from Chicago’s perfectionist chef, Charlie Trotter? In 1997 it was “Charlie Trotter’s Seafood” (Ten Speed Press, $50). In 1996, it was “Charlie Trotter’s Vegetables” and before that it was “Charlie Trotter’s Cookbook.” To come in 1998: “Charlie Trotter’s Desserts” and, in the not-too-distant future, a book on meat and game.

Georges Perrier, chef-owner of Philadelphia’s Le Bec-Fin, trumped everyone with a limited edition slipcovered, case-bound volume of his “Georges Perrier’s Le Bec-Fin Recipes,” selling for $100 (Running Press). For the rest of us, he has a $35 version by the same publisher.

British design gurus Caroline and Terence Conran had “The Essential Cookbook” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $50). And there were still enough scenic shots of Italy left for one more Beautiful Cookbook, “Italy Today: The Beautiful Cookbook” (HarperCollins, $50), by Lorenza de Medici and Fred Plotkin.

There was even a $50 coffee table book on--Kramer, are you listening?--coffee (Alain Stella’s “Book of Coffee” [Abbeville Press]).

The rising tide appeared to lift all boats as the price of even middle-level cookbooks increased.

“We’re looking at standard cookbooks coming out at $35,” says Nach Waxman, proprietor of New York’s famed cookbook store Kitchen Arts & Letters. “We’re talking about books that were $24.95 as little as two years ago and $19.95 four years ago.

“Meanwhile, what’s inflation running? About 1.7% a year? It is extortionate. The publishers know they have a relatively affluent consumer group, people who are really committed to this,” Waxman continues. “Many of them are hooked on cookbooks worse than anyone ever was on cigarettes.”

Publishers point to many reasons for the escalating prices, including higher advances for proven authors, increasing use of expensive four-color photography and even mechanical changes in the way the publishing industry works. For example, rather than stocking up on books, many booksellers are ordering smaller amounts and then reordering as necessary. In response, book publishers are printing smaller quantities, increasing the per-unit cost of the books.

Waxman says there’s more to it than that. “You’ll hear all kinds of stories about paper prices and this and that,” he says. “But those increases are not really in proportion to the way book prices have gone up.

“What’s happened with publishing is that a large number of companies have been acquired by much bigger companies--most of whom have other interests outside of publishing--and those outside business activities are inflicted on all the companies they own.

“Rupert Murdoch goes and buys that satellite or buys a new chain of television stations somewhere, and he is acquiring massive debt,” Waxman adds. “That debt is laid on the doorstep of everything he owns, including HarperCollins. They’ve got to come up every quarter with the dollars to pay the debt, above and beyond what they would normally make.”

In fact, a nonscientific browsing of “Books in Print” reveals that the number of cookbooks costing more than $39.95 more than doubled between 1991 and 1996 to 30. That was the last full year reported, but by October of last year--before the Christmas cookbook deluge--there were already 25. The number of books selling for more than $50 went from two in 1992 to 10 last year.

Pat Adrian, director of the Good Cook, the cookbook division of the Book-of-the-Month Club, says that trend is not likely to change. The fact is, she says, as much as people complain about spending that kind of money on a cookbook, when offered the opportunity, they’ll jump at it.

“I used to think that our club members wouldn’t go for a $50 book,” she says. “I no longer think that. They are buying these books. I used to think that a $25 book was expensive. I really raised my eyebrows when they hit $30.

“Then I started seeing these books from Ten-Speed Press, and Collins San Francisco started bringing out those ‘Beautiful’ books. I decided to test the waters and just try a book like that, and bingo!”

Actually, the “Beautiful” books have pretty much run their course, says Susan Friedland, a top cookbook editor at HarperCollins, which last year purchased Collins San Francisco. But it’s not because of lack of demand.

“We just ran out of beautiful places,” Friedland says. “These things are not infinitely expandable.”

But there don’t seem to be any signs of slowing in the market for chef books. There’s always another cook on the scene who needs a book to prove himself or herself. A glossy large-format, full-color cookbook is now considered a necessary part of a star chef’s resume.

“It’s part of their self-promotion scheme,” Friedland says. “They don’t even have to make money on them. These chefs are businessmen, and they have to think about ways to promote themselves and their restaurants.

“For publishers, [the chefs’ restaurants are] an additional sales outlet. The book is set near the coat rack in case anyone wants one on the way out. In Charlie Trotter’s case, they bring them around to your table in between courses, like a little entremets. Really, it’s pretty painless in an expensive restaurant to buy an expensive book. Fifty dollars? Your mineral water almost costs that.”

Actually, Trotter says, the books will be brought to your table only if you express an interest, although there are color advertisements for them on every menu. And, though he was prepared to go in the hole on his first book, Trotter says he’s made money on all of them.

“I had very specific ideas about what I wanted to do, and I wanted to be able to control everything, and I knew that might cost me money,” Trotter says. “No New York publisher would give me that control, but [Berkeley-based] Ten Speed was very generous in going along with my vision.”

Well, not all that generous. Trotter says Ten Speed ponied up only $25,000 for the color photography in his first book, so he picked up the rest of the $115,000 budget himself.

“I figured I’d keep a couple thousand books and sell them at the restaurant. Even if it ended up costing me $15,000 to $20,000 in the end, it would be worth it.”

As it was, the book quickly went into the black. Ten Speed says it has sold 45,000 copies of “Charlie Trotter’s Cookbook,” 35,000 copies of the vegetable book and a little more than 20,000 copies of the seafood book in the six months it has been in release. To put those figures into perspective, most successful cookbooks sell about 20,000 copies.

“We sort of held our breath with the first one and really felt it was a risk,” says Lorena Jones, senior editor at Ten Speed Press. “Actually, we kind of held our breath with the second one, too. Maybe the first one was a fluke. They definitely were not. Charlie has been able to establish a niche and broaden cookbooks into the art book market. He’s reminded people that food is art.”

Of course, not all chef books are so lucky. Joachim Splichal ended up buying back 12,000 copies of his “Patina Cookbook: Spuds, Truffles & Wild Gnocchi” four months ago rather than allow HarperCollins to remainder them after the company acquired his original publisher, Collins San Francisco. He sells them at the restaurant and uses them as promotions at events.

“It was a substantial investment, but we sell 3,000 copies in the restaurants every year,” he says. “We’re having a platinum card American Express dinner this week, and everybody gets a book. That’s 80 books. We’re having a Super Bowl party for the top sponsors. That’s 60 books. It goes very quickly.”

Meanwhile, all of this big-ticket glamour may be squeezing out the less famous members of the cookbook world.

“Our sales are very author-driven, and there are only a few authors with that kind of name recognition,” Adrian says. “We’re doing a survey where we ask people to name their three favorite cookbooks. Time and time again, I see answers like ‘Every book Marcella Hazan has ever done.’ They name the obvious titles, ‘Joy of Cooking,’ ‘New York Times Cookbook,’ then it’s all author.”

All of that leads to an inevitable narrowing of the selection of cookbooks available.

“The days are dwindling when I can do a book just because it’s a wonderful book,” Friedland says. “It’s the worthy books that are suffering. That’s not to say that a lot of wonderful books aren’t commercial; I think Marcella is wonderful, but she’s also commercial.”

(She’d better be, Friedland paid a near-record $650,000 advance for her last book.)

“But I’m thinking about a book I did several years ago [Jennifer Brennan’s] ‘Curries and Bugles.’ I loved that book so much, but people don’t seem to be buying those books anymore.

“They’re buying brands. They work hard for their money, and they don’t want to waste it. It’s the same reason they go to McDonald’s. They know what they’re going to get.

“They can do that with Marcella, or the ‘Joy’ [or] with Rose Levy Beranbaum. Pat Wells is a brand name too, and so is Giuliano Bugialli. Alice Waters is a brand name now.

“But what about all those wonderful books that weren’t written by brand names?”