The acquisition of merit
Oct. 30th, 2015 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceAs you know, people, I do like to cook. As you've also probably picked up by now, I do also like cookbooks. When I emigrated [eventually, I suppose I will learn to say "immigrated", but at the moment I still feel that I came from, not that I came to] 95.83%* of what I shipped was books, and the bulk of those were cookbooks.
Since I came, I have acquired ... more. They used to fit on the shelves in my study; since the move I have added more shelves, and now they overflow to stacks on the floor.
You may also have gathered that I don't often cook from recipes. Most of my kitchen time comes down to habit, built from experience with a pinch of experimentation. Also, when I do need a recipe to work from, the internet is full of 'em.
So why all these books, a study full of books that let's face it I don't really need?
Partly again, that's just habit; I date from a time pre-internet, when I had fewer acquired skills and recipes were more useful, and books were what they came in.
Partly, of course, it's that collectors' instinct: books have always been my thing, in every interest I pursue. And collections have a critical mass: once they reach a certain size, you kind of have to keep adding to them, or you're not doing it right. Did anyone ever say "This collection is now complete"? Not in my hearing, they didn't.
And partly, I confess, it's a fetish. Cookbooks can be lovely in themselves, desirable objects to possess: pictures, bindings, paper, silk ribbons, the whole shebang. Where design rubs against craft snuggles up to art like a frotteur, I am so there. Which is probably why I don't want them as e-books, because who wants to snuggle with a tablet?
But - since we are now in the realm of the confessional - I have also figured something out this week. For me, cookbooks are a balm against inadequacy. It's magical thinking at its most profound, where it fastens onto impostor syndrome like a tumour to a blood supply: if I buy a better book, I can be a better cook. Of course I'll fail again, but surely I'll fail better if I just have this other book to help me...
And for that, I suspect, there is no cure.
*Actual fraction: that's 115 boxes out of 120.
Since I came, I have acquired ... more. They used to fit on the shelves in my study; since the move I have added more shelves, and now they overflow to stacks on the floor.
You may also have gathered that I don't often cook from recipes. Most of my kitchen time comes down to habit, built from experience with a pinch of experimentation. Also, when I do need a recipe to work from, the internet is full of 'em.
So why all these books, a study full of books that let's face it I don't really need?
Partly again, that's just habit; I date from a time pre-internet, when I had fewer acquired skills and recipes were more useful, and books were what they came in.
Partly, of course, it's that collectors' instinct: books have always been my thing, in every interest I pursue. And collections have a critical mass: once they reach a certain size, you kind of have to keep adding to them, or you're not doing it right. Did anyone ever say "This collection is now complete"? Not in my hearing, they didn't.
And partly, I confess, it's a fetish. Cookbooks can be lovely in themselves, desirable objects to possess: pictures, bindings, paper, silk ribbons, the whole shebang. Where design rubs against craft snuggles up to art like a frotteur, I am so there. Which is probably why I don't want them as e-books, because who wants to snuggle with a tablet?
But - since we are now in the realm of the confessional - I have also figured something out this week. For me, cookbooks are a balm against inadequacy. It's magical thinking at its most profound, where it fastens onto impostor syndrome like a tumour to a blood supply: if I buy a better book, I can be a better cook. Of course I'll fail again, but surely I'll fail better if I just have this other book to help me...
And for that, I suspect, there is no cure.
*Actual fraction: that's 115 boxes out of 120.