THE WORLD OF QUALITY COOKBOOKS

 On November 15, 2011 UNESCO honoured both the Mediterranean Diet and the French Gastronomic Meal by recognizing their World Heritage status.

Beyond the glory, in practical terms, this opens the potential for big investments by public institutions. The French plan a huge “House of Gastronomy”. The Mediterranean countries led by Spain, Italy, Greece and Morocco have cultural projects around food. Sweden, China, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and others are very busy with their own projects to promote gastronomy, food tourism, including cookbooks and gastronomic libraries.

November 15 was also the deadline for entering food and wine books in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. This year 154 countries are participating, up from 136 in 2009. Entering the competition is free, and open to all.

Approximately 26000 cookbook titles are published every year. After screening the thousands of books received for reprints and quality, 4000 books are now nominated for the competition, including 15% books on drinks.

Cookbook published by Mediterranean countries from 3 Continents total 23% of the quality cookbooks in the competition. France, which is part of the Mediterranean, totals 12%, Scandinavian quality cookbooks represent 10%. North America is 16%, Latin America 4%, Asia-Pacific 12%, Africa 2%.

The finalists that qualify to represent their country for the “Best in the World Gourmand Awards” competition will be announced in December. The “Best in the World” will be known at the Awards event in Paris, March 2, 2011.

For the 14^th time, The Grand Prix of French Gastronomy will be awarded.

The 10^th Mediterranean Cookbook Award, will be renamed  the “Dun Gifford Award”, in memory of the founder of Oldways, who promoted the Mediterranean diet with success in the United States.

 The glamorous Gourmand Award event is the opening ceremony for “Paris Cookbook Fair”, March 3-6,2011. The 4000 food and wine books from the whole world will be exhibited. It will be a unique opportunity to get to know what other countries are doing, the incredible diversity and creativity of the best, and plan the future. Most publishers and authors are still unaware of the quick and global changes in this book sector.

The general trends are clear:

-          Quality is rising very fast everywhere around the world, with much creativity. The exception is the US, because of its crisis.

-          Production of cookbook titles is rising in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

-          The number of quality wines and spirits books is increasing ever faster in the New World . At the Gourmand Awards, the total number of quality wine and spirits books has doubled in less than 4 years.

Food for Thought:

The food and wine book market is now a global market. There is much demand for translation and foreign rights deals. Change is accelerating. Food and wine publishing is bigger than digital publishing in most countries, expanding just as fast, and it is profitable. Its potential is clear, helped by the digital change, in evidence at “Paris Cookbook Fair 2011”. If you are serious about your future in food and publishing, you cannot miss it!