Epicurious breaks the mold with new cookbook awards

Readers of this blog are no strangers to cookbook awards. Each year, we provide full coverage of prestigious awards from the JBF and IACP, plus report on Food52’s The Piglet and other awards from across the globe. One entity that has heretofore not assembled any cookbook awards is the culinary website Epicurious. This December, that changed, with the announcement of their 1st Annual Cookbook Awards. 

The Epicurious awards don’t follow the typical format, don’t have a list of semi-finalists, and aren’t voted on by any governing body. Let’s face it – this is just a list of great cookbooks that the editors at Epicurious love, with categories created to suit the chosen books. For example, one category is ‘Best Use of Heat’, and the winner is Melt, Stretch, Sizzle: The Art of Cooking Cheese: Recipes for Fondues, Dips, Sauces, Sandwiches, Pasta, and More by Tia Keenan. Says editor Soleil Ho, “the cheese in  Melt inhabits a fantasy world of brilliant gold and neon. Sandwiches ooze and fondue glimmers with the kind of palette that would put Jem & the Holograms to shame.”

The rest of the awards follow suit. ‘Best History Lesson’ goes to Provisions: The Roots of Caribbean Cooking by Michelle Rousseau and Suzanne Rousseau; the winner of ‘Best Reminder to Call Your Mother’ is The Last Schmaltz: A Very Serious Cookbook by Anthony Rose. And who can argue with ‘Best Argument for Excess’ going to the Chewy chocolate chip cookies in Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook by Dorie Greenspan? Surely not me.