Winners of the JBF Cookbook Awards

Jane and Jenny are at the James Beard Foundation awards ceremony in New York City, and live-tweeted the winners of the JBF Cookbook Awards. The first announcement was in the American category, where The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley edged out Homegrown and The Lost Kitchen. 

It’s no surprise that the comprehensive Modernist Bread: The Art and Science by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco J. Migoya took home top honors in the Restaurant and Professional field. EYB Member favorite Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat bested worthy competitors Christopher Kimball and Melissa Clark to take home the prize for best general cookbook. 

Joshua McFadden won in the Vegetable-Focused category with Six Seasons. This must feel good coming off the controversy with his IACP award being rescinded. I noticed a few tweets that said this win was “interesting” – I am not sure if they were implying that it was given to him because he lost the other award. Most EYB Members would agree that the honor is completely deserved; Six Seasons has earned superlative reviews in the EYB Library. 

Stella Parks is probably riding high right now, because her epic book BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts won in the Baking category over both Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh and The Sweet Spot  by Bill Yosses and Peter Kaminsky. This is a well-deserved victory although it would have been difficult for me to choose between BraveTart and Sweet – I love them both. 

Nopalito: A Mexican Kitchen by Gonzalo Guzmán and Stacy Adimando won in the International category. The Pho Cookbook by Andrea Nguyen took home the prize for best Single Subject book. Michael Twitty’s The Cooking Gene bested rivals in the Writing category, and also won the night’s biggest award when it was named Book of the Year. 

2018’s inductee into the JBF Cookbook Hall of Fame is Betty Fussell. She is the author of seven cookbooks, including The Story of Corn, I Hear America Cooking, and Food in Good Season. She specializes in American food and good home cooking, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Travel & Leisure, and other magazines.

You can see the complete list of nominees and winners in all categories on our JBF 2018 community page.