As they surely do thousands of times a second the folks at Amazon have taken the time to analyze data about the cookbooks they sell, and this time they've broken the data down by regions in the US. A webpage set up about the project says they wanted to learn where their best selling cookbooks were coming from and what US regions had the most influential authors, among other things.
The folks at Amazon came up with a list of several hundred of their favorite cookbooks and then organized them by region. And wouldn't you know it, they put Texas in a category all on its own.
So what does this teach us about cookbooks authored in Texas? We love meat. We love meat so much that we rarely write about or read anything other than meat and the meat sweats that meat produces.
Well Fed and Well Fed 2 stole the first two slots on the list for Texas, hinting that many of us are obsessed with the meat-heavy paleo diet. The Slim Palate, another paleo cookbook takes the fourth slot. Barbecue books are also popular as Smokin' with Myron Mixon and Daniel Vaughn's The Prophets of Smoked Meat also nab spots in the top 10.
Lisa Fain has two books in the top ten, proving that Texans who defect to New York City can still be an authority on Tex-Mex cooking, and while Tim Byers falls just short of the top ten, his James Beard nominated Smoke: New Firewood Cooking comes in at 11.
Not one book in the list is devoted to vegetables, illuminating a clear market opportunity. Look for City of Ate's Steaming Vegetables with Lee Harvey, due out sometime early next year.