Print culture

Busy day. There are some musings on cookbooks over to Salon if you get tired of playing Kitten War. It seems like it might be possible to push this inquiry a little further, and use the kitchen as a place to think about print culture vs. digital culture, and the different epistemes they produce or reflect.* There have been some small gestures in that direction here, but it might be fun to try something more systematic.
*Also, for reasons I can't quite explain, cooking seems to be one of the few areas where there is still a viable scribal culture. Few folks these days circulate their poems in longhand among friends, Bradstreet stizz, but for cooks of a certain age, receipt cards remain the coin of the realm, so it might be interesting to invite Harold Love to your next potluck.

Comments

[Skeen]

One of my favorite books ever!!! With some great culinary moments (Cookie flipping the pancakes out of the window of the train, Able Baker Charlie exploding the bread ovens by putting too much yeast in his dough, the post-tonsilitis ice cream treat).

[Carlos]

I really enjoyed reading something that didn't require a decoder ring.
Great piece.

[max]

Damn, I was hoping kittenwar involved destroying cute kittens.

Yes, I'm dead inside.

[LilyRose]

I love Richard Scarry! And print culture vs. digital culture. Hmmm. Interesting subject. There really is quite a difference, isn't there. And yet, it's all pretty much visual/reading, so a lot of similarity, too. Now, a non-digital, non-print, non-literate culture, that's REALLY different!

[Skeen]

Hey, nice essay, by the way. I'm kind of new to this clicking-on-highlighted-links thing, so I only just noticed it. Looking forward to the weekly column.

[Mary Elizabeth Williams]

LOVED the story - it was perfect and relevant and smart and made me want to trot out my JoC and make homemade marshmallows.