Hobby of gourmet cooking
The hobby of gourmet cooking entails the skillful preparation of high quality or exotic foods during free time and for pleasure. It is one of the most popular pastimes in the north America and has several million participants. The hobby is a serious leisure social world, a collective that shares practices, culture, a discourse, and tools (Unruh, 1979).
There are features to the hobby of cooking that make it especially fascinating to library and information science. Information on cooking is abundant, exists in all media channels, and stimulates every sense. There are vivid genres such as the recipe, menu, and cookbook. In the homes of those who cook, culinary information tends to accumulates over the years or even generations into collections that pose unique classification, retrieval, and use challenges. For more than a decade, I have been studying informaton phenomena in gourmet cooking. A sample of my work in this area is below and collected in my dissertation, Information Activities, Resources, and Spaces in the Hobby of Gourmet Cooking (Hartel, 2007).
There are features to the hobby of cooking that make it especially fascinating to library and information science. Information on cooking is abundant, exists in all media channels, and stimulates every sense. There are vivid genres such as the recipe, menu, and cookbook. In the homes of those who cook, culinary information tends to accumulates over the years or even generations into collections that pose unique classification, retrieval, and use challenges. For more than a decade, I have been studying informaton phenomena in gourmet cooking. A sample of my work in this area is below and collected in my dissertation, Information Activities, Resources, and Spaces in the Hobby of Gourmet Cooking (Hartel, 2007).
More scholarship on culinary information behavior
Marian Knopp built upon my dissertation research and published "Information Needs, Preferences, and Behaviors of Home Cooks" in the online journal Library and Information Research [link to the TOC with full text PDF]. She utilized survey techniques and extends our understanding of culinary information behaviors, with attention to the resources used by home cooks. Marian is an MLS graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, and is currently an evening librarian at Central Penn College.
"Cooking Up a Home Library"
A portion of my findings about information in gourmet cooking were reported in a poster (abstract and photo reproduction below); a more comprehensive discussion is available in Hartel (2010).
Abstract. Gourmet cooking is a popular hobby in North America, with several million participants who typically cultivate cookbook and recipe collections in their households. My dissertation is a scientific ethnography that explores the dynamic between information activities and documentary information resources in gourmet cooking from the vantage point of the home. This poster focuses on two related lines of inquiry in the study: What are the features of culinary home libraries? And, how do culinary home libraries work? A data gathering approach from visual anthropology, the photographic inventory, has been conducted in the households of 20 gourmet hobby cooks in Los Angeles and Boston. Drawing upon preliminary insights from the fieldwork, the poster answers the questions by displaying a culinary home library in its natural domestic setting, and as a personal version of a bibliographic pyramid (Shera & Egan, 1952).
Abstract. Gourmet cooking is a popular hobby in North America, with several million participants who typically cultivate cookbook and recipe collections in their households. My dissertation is a scientific ethnography that explores the dynamic between information activities and documentary information resources in gourmet cooking from the vantage point of the home. This poster focuses on two related lines of inquiry in the study: What are the features of culinary home libraries? And, how do culinary home libraries work? A data gathering approach from visual anthropology, the photographic inventory, has been conducted in the households of 20 gourmet hobby cooks in Los Angeles and Boston. Drawing upon preliminary insights from the fieldwork, the poster answers the questions by displaying a culinary home library in its natural domestic setting, and as a personal version of a bibliographic pyramid (Shera & Egan, 1952).
Coverage in popular media
Given the popularity of gourmet cooking, my research has been covered in mainstream media, such as The Gazette in Colorado Springs (shown below).
Related work
Hartel, J. (2011). Information in the hobby of gourmet cooking: Four contexts. In W. Aspray, & B. Hayes (Eds.), Everyday information (pp.217-248). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hartel, J. (2010). Time as a framework for information science: Insights from the hobby of gourmet cooking. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, London, UK. Information Research, 15(4), colis715.
Hartel, J. (2010). Managing documents at home for serious leisure: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. Journal of Documentation, 66(6), 847-874. [PDF]
Hartel, J. (2008). Enthusiasts and their documents: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. ALISE Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2007). Information activities, resources, and spaces in the hobby of gourmet cooking. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles. Chair: Gregory Leazer; Committee: Leah Lievrouw, Mary Niles Maack & Megan Franke.
Hartel, J. (2007). Three temporal arcs in the hobby of gourmet cooking: Implications for information behavior. ALISE Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2006). The culinary home library. Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Boston, MA. (conference presentation)
Hartel, J. (2006). Cooking up a home library. ALISE Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2004). An American passion for the hobby of cooking. American Voices Conference, University of Turku, Finland. (conference presentation)
Web-based case study of Marian Wolfe's Cooking Library at the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
...and many invited lectures and public talks.
Hartel, J. (2010). Time as a framework for information science: Insights from the hobby of gourmet cooking. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, London, UK. Information Research, 15(4), colis715.
Hartel, J. (2010). Managing documents at home for serious leisure: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. Journal of Documentation, 66(6), 847-874. [PDF]
Hartel, J. (2008). Enthusiasts and their documents: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. ALISE Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2007). Information activities, resources, and spaces in the hobby of gourmet cooking. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles. Chair: Gregory Leazer; Committee: Leah Lievrouw, Mary Niles Maack & Megan Franke.
Hartel, J. (2007). Three temporal arcs in the hobby of gourmet cooking: Implications for information behavior. ALISE Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2006). The culinary home library. Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, Boston, MA. (conference presentation)
Hartel, J. (2006). Cooking up a home library. ALISE Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX. (poster)
Hartel, J. (2004). An American passion for the hobby of cooking. American Voices Conference, University of Turku, Finland. (conference presentation)
Web-based case study of Marian Wolfe's Cooking Library at the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
...and many invited lectures and public talks.
