Out of all the available types of how-to manuals, cookbooks are probably the ones that people have the most experience with, but the majority of cookbooks published in the past do not offer step-by-step instructions with photographic accompaniment; instead they are merely pages of recipes with the occasional enticing photo.
As few as photographic cookbooks might be, there are even fewer actual cookbook comics, but a number of people have stepped up to the challenge regardless. Now you can try your hand at a number of recipes, lovingly rendered or photographed to guide the reader through every step of the process.
Lucy Knisley is currently working on Relish, a collection of “stories, histories and recipes of food, all inspired by growing up with a chef for a mom,” due out from First Second in “a couple years.” Until then, you can enjoy her recipes for summer pickles and chai tea syrup.
Other recipe comics include:
- Gobi Mattar by Anil Kandangath – Though the blog appears to have been abandoned, they at least put up one photo-comic showing how to make this vegetarian curry dish
- Miso Soup by Derek Badman – Created for 24 Hour Comics Day 2009
- Guacamole Eggs Benedict by Anise Shaw
- Nutella Ice Cream by Andrew Fargo – Adapted from a recipe by Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini
And though it’s not a webcomic nor a specific cooking comic, let’s not forget that in volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim by Brian Lee O’Malley, Stephen Stills shows us how to make vegan shepherd’s pie. Daisy Edwards followed this advice, posting the scanned pages from the comic along with her own photos of the process. I once did something similar, using the description posted in volume 14 of xxxHoLiC by CLAMP to make potato-nishigori (read right-to-left):
Finally there’s Cheap Thrills Cuisine, a weekly syndicated strip by Thach Bui and Bill Lombardo. Running since 1993, the strip illustrates recipes as diverse as Cajun roast chicken and Tuscan bean salad, and the archive can be viewed on Comics.com as far back as January 2000.
