Hippocrene’s International Niche

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 2/27/2009 11:52:00 AM

Cookbooks on the cuisines of Afghanistan, Belarus, China’ Fujian province, Myanmar, Norway and Romania may not scream “bestseller,” but that’s just fine with Hippocrene Books. The nearly 40-year-old New York house’s primary publishing focus is foreign language dictionaries, but it has also carved out a nook for itself as a publisher of cookbooks covering the foods of little-known regions. Over the years, Hippocrene has published cookbooks on Eritrean, Uzbek and Bolivian cuisines, as well as less exotic, if unexplored cuisines, like those of Ohio, New Hampshire and New Jersey. And when Hippocrene does branch out into more mainstream areas, it still tends to stay niche, with books on Filipino, South Indian and Neapolitan cuisine. Hippocrene’s cookbook program aims to bring the lesser-known cuisines of the world to American bookshelves and kitchens, and it has largely succeeded. It has published cookbooks covering 74 international cuisines.

Hippocrene’s international focus derives from founder and publisher George Blagowidow’s passion for travel and his personal history. Born in Poland of Russian parents, Blagowidow survived the Nazi occupation and escaped from communist Europe in 1945. He came to New York in 1951, earned master’s and doctorate degrees in business from NYU, and held executive positions at Doubleday, Macmillan and Reader’s Digest. Blagowidow founded Hippocrene in 1970. The house began as a distributor and publisher of foreign language dictionaries. Its first international cookbook was The Best of Polish Cooking by Karen West in 1983. The simple paperback Polish cookbook has been one of Hippocrene’s perennial top sellers, selling more than 30,000 copies, and the house did revised editions in 1991 and 2000. Polish Cooking set the stage for Hippocrene to develop an extensive Polish-interest list, including dictionaries, other cookbooks, history and travel titles. It published Polish Heritage Cookery in 1993, and followed up with a revised, illustrated edition in 1997. On Good Morning America, Julia Child hailed the 875-page, $44.95 hardcover as, “An encyclopedia of Polish cookery and a wonderful thing to have!” In the late 1990s, Hippocrene was selling approximately 3,000 copies each year; today, sales are still strong (by its standards) at about 600 copies/year. In all, Hippocrene has sold about 24,000 copies of Polish Heritage Cookery. Publisher Blagowidow says simply, “We fill a small but important need in the market where resources were previously unavailable.”

Editorial director Priti Chitnis Gress said the house uses numerous factors to decide which cuisines to focus on. It monitors sales of its foreign-language dictionaries; when certain ones are selling well, the editors consider adding a cookbook (Pilipino and Tagalog dictionaries were strong sellers, so Hippocrene eventually added a Filipino cookbook to the program). Another area Hippocrene considers is tourism; in recent years, exotic locales in Asia, South America and Europe have become popular, so the house has focused on publishing cookbooks featuring those countries’ cuisines. Gress said, “Savvy international travelers, gourmands, diehard foodies, cookbook collectors and second-generation Americans from a particular ethnic group are our customer base.” Upcoming cookbook titles for 2009 are Nile Style: Egyptian Cuisine and Culture (March), The Kerala Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christians of South India (April), and Menus and Memories from Punjab (June). In the fall, Hippocrene will publish cookbooks featuring the cuisines of Corsica, Malaysia and Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.

Hippocrene has not been immune to the downturn in the market, but Blagowidow says it still sees solid backlist sales. In particular, its Arabic- and Afghan-interest titles, including Afghan Food & Cookery (2000), have become house bestsellers in the last few years as the world has focused so closely on the Middle East. Its five top-selling cookbooks of 2008 were My Love for Naples, Healthy South Indian Cooking, Expanded Edition, Secrets of Colombian Cooking, The Best of Polish Cooking and Cucina di Calabria.