Food52’s ‘The Piglet’ cookbook competition returns for 2018

Indexed website Food52 has just announced the competitors for its cookbook competition called The Piglet. Now in its ninth year, the contest pits sixteen books against one another in a bracketed tournament competition. Over the course of several weeks, each of the judges (who are top food writers, chefs, and celebrities) make dishes from two books and announce which book was the better of the two. The advancing book takes on the winner from another bracket, until there is a victor. 

The books in this year’s competition are: 

Autentico by Rolando Berementi
Bangkok by Leela Punyaratabandhu
Bravetart by Stella Parks
Dinner: Changing the Game by Melissa Clark
Ducksoup Cookbook by Claire Lattin and Tom Hill 
Gather by Gill Meller
Kachka by Bonnie Frumkin Morales and Deena Prichep
Kaukasis: The Cookbook by Olia Hercules
King Solomon’s Table by Joan Nathan
Night+Market by Kris Yenbamroong
Onions Etcetera by Kate Winslow and Guy Ambrosino
The Pho Cookbook by Andrea Nguyen
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden
Tartine All Day by Elisabeth Prueitt and Jessica Washburn and Maria Zizka
The Art of Flavor by Daniel Patterson and Mandy Aftel

The judges for this year’s competition include food writer Bonnie S. Berwick of The Washington Post, actor Sarah Michelle Geller, Tim Gunn of Project Runway, novelist Kevin Kwan, celebrity cook Rachael Ray, and others. The complete list of judges is included in the announcement. 

If the photos that are side-by-side on the page indicate the matchups, it’s going to be an interesting competition. It looks like some of the books that would be considered favorites will face off in the first round, like Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat pitted against Six Seasons and Dinner: Changing the Game facing off against BraveTart. The announcement does not state whether the photo pairings represent the first round of competitions, so the matchups could be different. 

Notably absent from the list (and mentioned in the comments section) were Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, Dining In by Alison Roman and Smitten Kitchen Every Day by Deb Perelman. To those worthy-but-overlooked candidates I would add David Tanis Market Cooking by David Tanis and The Artful Baker by Cenk Sonmezsoy.

The overall winner of The Piglet will be announced on April 20, and the interim competitions will be published as they are completed. Good luck to all of the excellent authors on the list!