Eating with the eyes - Telegraph An old man is biting into a rosy red apple. You can tell from the pale light and his thick sheepskin hat that it is a winter day. He squints slightly, as if worried whether his teeth will withstand the first bite. But the way he grasps the fruit indicates that he is determined to enjoy this apple, if it's the last thing he does. This simple shot won Alexandrina Paduretu the Food Photographer of the Year award 2013, sponsored by Pink Lady apples (pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com). Paduretu, an amateur from Romania, beat more than 5,500 other entrants, many professional. The man in the photo is her grandfather. She wanted to show the way "he has learnt to smile and savour every moment... including a tasty apple." Looking at the other commended entries for the award, it seems we are living through a golden age of food photography. The style now is natural and hugely varied. My favourite entries included one of children licking spoons after cake-making; a filo-maker stretching his dough as thin as muslin; a Michelin-starred kitchen glimpsed through a collection of whisks; and an eerie field of cabbages covered in frost. The question, though, is whether these beautiful images enhance the pleasure of eating. Our world is saturated with food photos, whether it's friends" snaps of dinners on Instagram or sumptuous adverts. Looking at too many can do weird things to appetite. A recent article by Jeffrey Larson and Joseph Redden in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people were less hungry for peanuts after being shown photos of other salty foods, as if the participants had tired of the flavour of the nuts before they had even tasted them, just from the pictures. It can be the same with cooking, I find - though it's heresy to say it in a magazine that contains such gorgeous photography. When opening a new cookbook, I sometimes find myself so mesmerised by the visuals that I can't focus on the recipes. It's not that the photos aren't good. It's that they are too good. How can your gnocchi ever be quite as charming as the ones on the page, artlessly scattered on a floury board? Sometimes, I find myself staring so much at a photo of blackberry jam in a white dish, pondering its supple texture, that I feel I've already made it. The most useful cookbook photos are not the most attractive. There's a point to illustrations such as those in Richard Bertinet's Pastry (Ebury, £20), which show you just how hideous puff and choux look in the early stages. The photos help you keep your nerve. Likewise, knife work is better explained in pictures than in words. But I can't help noticing that the cookbooks to which I have the strongest emotional connection are those with very few images: Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, anything by Jane Grigson, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by the late Marcella Hazan. When I cook from these books, the voice of the writer feels more intimate, as if she is whispering advice at the hob. Photos can have a distancing effect: they tell you that great food is happening elsewhere. Cooking from Marcella, the only thing I have to look at is the dinner taking shape in my own kitchen.