Meet Our New Members: Tim White, Books for Cooks

Tim White of Books for Cooks in Melbourne introduces us to his business and history as a bookseller.

Describe your business in a nutshell.

An open shop selling exclusively new and old books and related material on wine, food and the culinary arts, open every day. The business started in 1983. We bought it in 2000.

What was your route into the book trade? 

Before joining the book trade, I was a commercial disputes lawyer, a dabbling collector of sorts, and a ‘haunter’ of second-hand and antiquarian bookshops. I also had a passion for cookery and wine and a burgeoning practical library of cookbooks. One day in 2000 I read the Saturday issue of our local broadsheet newspaper cover to cover and hidden in the shipping notices was an ad “Cookbook shop for sale” – a business we had never seen or heard of. An hour or two later my wife Amanda and I had a very sore credit card and about 8,000 second-hand cookbooks and a business name. Four weeks later we opened our bookshop. Our friends had always joked that I would have a traditional dusty bookshop next to my wife’s artisanal bakery/café and I’d have cake of the day and she’d have book of the week. It took me two years to join my wife Amanda and become a full-time bookseller. We never opened the bakery.

If you had to choose just one, what would you say your key specialism is, and what drew you to it? 

Wine. Although we are interested in all aspects of gastronomy, cookery and food, and drink, I find myself over and over being drawn to wine related material. There are several reasons for my interest: first, an interest in wine outside of books; second, in the Australian canon, there were many wine books published in Australia decades before any cookbooks; third, wine allows me to consider material in other specialties e.g., natural history, botany, religion, poetry, cartography, art (wine labels) economics etc.

What is your favourite aspect of working in the world of rare books? 

The never-ending learning. Every book I pick up raises questions, piques my interest, adds to my knowledge, and often results in an addition or two to my reference library. The prospect of endless learning and using that knowledge to place books with the right customer excites me.

Describe one item from your stock, past or present, that you think is outstanding.

A tricky question. Cookbooks by their nature, are practical working books, often made cheaply, almost always used - sometimes quite hard - and invariably stored in the most dangerous room in the house full of heat, fire, fat etc. Not many of the books we handle would be considered ‘physically’ outstanding. For cookbooks to survive these conditions is of itself often ‘outstanding’.

Is there a book or item that you regret not buying? 

A long time ago during the GFC, there was a chance we could have bought a building for our bookshop. I’ve always regretted not chasing that opportunity.

Is there a ‘holy grail’ item for you that you’re always on the lookout for? 

Yes. I would love to have the first cookbook to arrive in Australia. Playing the odds, it is probably a Glasse or Raffald, but we just don’t know; and we will probably never know what books were brought out on the various convict and early supply ships. The oldest extant ‘Australian’ cookery book is Edward Abbot’s The English and Australian Cookery Book (1864, published in London). However, there are references in publisher and bookseller advertisements in colonial Australian newspapers to an earlier specifically Australian edition of an English cookery book printed in Australia from the 1830s that the advertisements suggest has significant Australian content. There are no known copies of this.

Have you observed any recent collecting trends that have surprised, delighted or bewildered you? 

Recently publishers have been producing cookbooks related to all sorts of modern popular culture: the cooking of Tolkien, Marvel comic hero cookbooks, Star Wars recipes, Star Trek cookbooks (which is itself odd as in the movies they have computers replicate foods) World of Warcraft cookbooks, Discworld cookbooks, Game of Thrones recipes etc. Some are based on a close textual analysis of the original text; most are a stretch or a gimmick. There are more every year. We’ve had several customers interested in collecting these sorts of books... and cooking from them.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing booksellers today? 

The inexorable rise of online auctions; the cost of freight; cross border sales taxes; inertia.

Books for Cooks

Specialisms:
Food and wine, cookery, agriculture, dining, food history, artisanal food production and drinks.

booksforcooks.com.au

Tel: +61 3 8415 1415
E: shop@booksforcooks.com.au

115-121 Victoria St
Queen Victoria Market
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia