Do All Cookbooks Need Photos?

Earlier this morning food writer and NY Times columnist Melissa Clark tweeted this:

Now as a photographer and someone who gets paid to photograph recipes and cookbooks you might think that my answer is a solid YES. But it’s not. I believe that great writing like Melissa’s can be enough, photos don’t always have to support a recipe. When they work together it’s magic, and sometimes a photograph can help a written recipe for a myriad of reasons (maybe it’s complicated, an unknown method, foreign title, etc.)  So now I’m curious and would love to know what you think!