IACP announces 2016 cookbook award nominees

Last night the IACP has announced its 2016 Cookbook Award nominees. The categories were revised again this year, with the Culinary History, Global Design and E-cookbook sections dropped and the former Beverage/Reference/Technical category losing its Beverage component. 

Several of the nominations were expected, like The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science in the American category and Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook in Compilations, but many lesser-known tomes got the nod as well.

In the General category, Alana Chernila’s The Homemade Kitchen: Recipes for Cooking with Pleasure faces competition from The Picnic: Recipes and Inspiration from Basket to Blanket by Marnie Hanel and Andrea Slonecker and Jen Stevenson and Slow Fires: Mastering New Ways of Braising, Roasting, and Grilling by Justin Smillie and Kitty Greenwald.

The American category features two Southern cookbooks, Lighten Up, Y’all: Classic Southern Recipes Made Healthy and Wholesome by Virginia Willis and Southern Soups & Stews: More Than 75 Recipes from Burgoo and Gumbo to Etouffée and Fricassee byNancie McDermott pitted against J. Kenji López-Alt‘s smash hit, The Food Lab.

There’s a great matchup in the Single Subject category, with Madhur Jaffrey’s Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best of Indian Home Cooking competing against Pasta by Hand: A Collection of Italy’s Regional Hand-Shaped Pasta by Jenn Louis and Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto by Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay. (As an aside, is there any cookbook out there today that doesn’t feature a lengthy subtitle?)

Likewise the battle for the Julia Child Award for best first cookbook is heated, with Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees: Essential Techniques of Authentic Chinese Cooking by Kian Lam Kho and Jody Horton facing off  with Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons by Steven Satterfield and Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak and Jordana Rothman. Both Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees and Tacos were nominated in another category as well, the former in Culinary Travel and the latter in Chefs and Restaurants.

You can see all of the IACP-nominated cookbooks here. Visit the IACP website  to read about the cookbook nominees and the related food writing and digital media award nominees. The winners of both competitions will be announced in early April. Did your favorites make the cut?