THE world’s oldest known cookbooks rest in the archives of the Yale Babylonian Collection at Yale University. Written nearly 4,000 years ago, the three small clay tablets are covered in minute cuneiform script. The script was deciphered in 1985 by Jean Bottéro, a French Assyriologist and gourmet cook — a delicious coincidence to say the very least — who discovered in them “a cuisine of striking richness, refinement, sophistication and artistry”.

In 1931, a few decades before Bottéro managed to crack the code, Irma S. Rombauer of St. Louis, Missouri, self-published 3,000 copies of Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat. The widowed homemaker could not have imagined that, over the years, her book of recipes would sell more than 18 million copies. One of the most published cookbooks in the United States, Joy of Cooking is often referred to as “America’s kitchen bible”.

The allure of cookbooks is not just a thing of the past. While the publishing industry is experiencing an overall slump — independent bookstores are struggling to stay open and booksellers are faced with competition from e-books — statistics prove that consumer demand for cookbooks continues to rise. According to figures released by Nielsen BookScan, out of the 25 bestselling cookbooks in 2013 in the United States, 14 were hardcovers priced at $20 or higher that sold more than 30,000 copies each.

Sales were much higher than average in the case of food blogger and TV chef Ree Drummond whose book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays, sold an astonishing 367,000 copies in 2013, and a further 152,439 copies in 2014. Another TV chef, Ina Garten, sold 512,872 copies of Make It Ahead: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook in 2014, while academic and food activist Michael Pollan’s Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation also reached the 100,000 mark (within 9 months of its publication). So despite the proliferation of recipe databases on the internet there appears to be no shortage of people who are willing to pay top dollar for best-quality printed cookbooks.

A Canadian publisher, who asked not to be named, provided some explanation for the enduring appeal of this particular genre: “At a very primitive level everyone just has to eat! But most people have some curiosity about food and want to learn more about what they can cook, whether it is just for themselves and their families or whether they want to entertain. Or they may be interested in learning about dishes and recipes from new cultures. Also, people collect cookbooks and often they may just use one or two recipes and then go out and buy another book!”

People no longer just want to eat food; they want to eat very good food. And for many this means cooking it themselves at home. Celebrity chefs on 24-hour food channels make cooking look both easy and exciting: their 30-minute meals, simple recipes from around the world, and 101 ways to make just about anything have turned the preparation of food into an adventure.

And chances are that if you enjoy food and cooking, you will also enjoy being the proud owner of some appetite-stirring books filled with fabulous recipes and luscious photographs. Which modern-day home chef worth their salt hasn’t been tempted to splurge on classic cookbooks or celebrity cookbooks? Although searching online for recipes has become the norm for people of all ages, many still like to invest in good old-fashioned cookbooks.

According to the anonymous publisher there is market research to support this: “We have found that people use Google for a single recipe but if they want more choice then they still go back to a cookbook. An open cookbook in the kitchen is much easier to use than a recipe on an open laptop, and furthermore it doesn’t matter if you spill something on it.”

“The biggest change is of course the world wide web and the ease in which anything can be looked up. But as far as cookbooks themselves are concerned, the biggest changes have been in format — no longer are they mostly coil bound and they are generally much more highly illustrated than they were 35 years ago. But the layout of recipes has remained the same, even if the measurements have now become metric.” This is the response received when asked what else has changed in the world of cookbooks over the past 35 years.

A section dedicated to beautiful volumes filled with easy-to-follow recipes and scrumptious colour photographs can be found in any reputable bookstore. And then there are those bookstores which specialise in cookbooks, and give space on their shelves and display tables only to books that are related to food, or the cooking and eating of it. Some enticing bookstores for food tourists to keep in mind are: Books for Cooks in London; Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco; Kitchen Arts Letters in New York; Books for Cooks in Melbourne; and Good Egg in Toronto.

Successful cookbook writers (who are not celebrity chefs) must clearly know the tastes of the audience to which they are catering. Some recent published works prove the close link that exists between food and popular culture. In Eat Tweet: 1,020 Recipe Gems from the Twitter Community’s @cookbook, Maureen Evans has crammed over a 1,000 recipes into just 250 pages thanks to Twittersphere’s maximum 140-character limit. The deliciously concise instructions are easy to follow once readers learn to decipher the shorthand: “Brwn 2c grndbeef. Toss w lb mixdfrozenveg/ can shroom soup/ s+p; top w 3c Mashed Potatoes. 25m@400°F”. This is a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie.

Albert Bates’s The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times is “a book about having your catastrophe and eating it too”. Tips on food growing and preservation with an emphasis on organic and locally-grown produce prepare readers for a world without abundant petroleum. Some of the advice offered in it is useful, while some sounds questionable: “In case fuel is hard to come by, you can put these potato wedges in an open fire” and includes a recipe for grasshopper quesadillas. Is it a joke? Only time will tell.

Every aspiring cook will be tempted to own a copy of Fifty Shades of Chicken: A Parody in a Cookbook by F.L. Fowler. It tells the story of a young, free-range chicken who meets with a dominating, ravenous chef. Mouth-watering recipes, memorable tips and revealing photographs demonstrate why cookbooks still rule the roost.