Recipe book also improves cooks’ knife skills

The Slice A Recipe cookbook enables kitchen amateurs to practice their knife skills, as it needs to be carefully sliced open in order to be read.

We’ve already seen edible cookbooks that offer a tasty meal as well as instructions on how to cook. Now the Slice A Recipe cookbook enables kitchen amateurs to practice their knife skills, as it needs to be carefully sliced open in order to be read.

Designed by ad agency Ogilvy Bogota in collaboration with Colombian supermarket chain Carulla for those participating in the latter’s Escuela de Cocina cooking classes, the book features pages that are sealed shut at the edges. A dotted line shows where readers need to cut in order to correctly slice open the page. To open each recipe, users need a sharp knife and a steady hand. The cookbook serves to illustrate how those learning to cook need to master the art of cutting before they can continue following the recipes inside. It also provides students with an engaging challenge that will help them practice their skills. The video below explains more about the idea:

According to its creators, the book has proven a success in the classes where it was used as an introductory tool to cooking and a second edition is being planned. Perhaps this concept could be adapted for teaching in other fields where technical skills are required? How else can physical books be designed to give them an extra practicality that can’t be accomplished with digital publishing?