by Ann Major

Created on: August 07, 2010   Last Updated: November 02, 2011

Cookbooks are not a thing of the past but rather artifacts of the past, present and future; representing facets of life which have transcended time and in itself, is timeless.  By saying cookbooks are a thing of the past is to repudiate a distinctive part of any cultural heritage, a legacy passed down through many generations. 

Being archival information from the culinary world, printed cookbooks represent a people, a country, and a distinct food culture, as people are what they eat and cook.  Printed cookbooks are a large component of any lifestyle, as only a cook or a chef can know the loving experience of preparing food for all to enjoy.

People who love printed cookbooks think nothing of curling up with a glossy, thickly-bound book for relaxation; quietly and introspectively flipping through pages; admiring presentations; scouring ingredients; in effect, seeing the recipes as a work of art in a culinary gallery.  There is excitement and anticipation as a new recipe is focused upon; an old one tried and retried;  going from the annals of the cooking world to a collected standard of family recipes.  Within time, a years-old favorite cookbook becomes dog-eared and tagged, but it never becomes obsolete.

As much as one enjoys instant gratification of pulling new recipes from a web page with the click of a mouse, one however, cannot bond with a sterile piece of paper.  Eventually this page will either be cut up, hidden away in a recipe box, or eventually thrown into a recycling bin. Internet recipes cannot compete with the first recipes, lovingly hand-written and passed on to the next generation.  Family members have cherished these " tried and true"  recipes from mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers. 

These are recipes loved by all as they are hailed from the kitchens of one's ancestors. Age-old recipes in a recipe book can be considered as precious as historical manuscripts. They are heirlooms giving insight into what people ate, what foods were available, what was grown, and especially what meals were made, without additives or preservatives, short of salt.  So for every person who retrieves a recipe from the net, there are die-hards who prefer to return again and again to their beloved printed cookbooks. 

Internet recipes are intended for a high tech, faster lifestyle.  People turn to the net searching for recipes that are low cal, low carb, low fat; practical recipes for

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