James Beard Foundation 2016 nominees

The James Beard Foundation has just announced the nominees for its 2016 cookbook awards. Compared to the recently published IACP list, the JBF award nominees seem to align better with the preferences of EYB Members. More Member favorites made the latter list than the former, including The New Sugar and Spice by Samantha Seneviratne, A Bird in the Hand by Diana Henry and Nopi: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully.

It’s a coincidence (or is it a conspiracy?) that 10 books overlapped both lists this year as well as in 2015. Not surprisingly, most of these standouts are popular additions to Member Bookshelves. A few of this year’s overlap books are Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak and Jordana Rothman, The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt, Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Matrix by Mark Bittman, Slow Fires by Justin Smillie and Kitty Greenwald, and Fire + Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking by Darra Goldstein. However, the books were often nominated in different categories in the two lists.

In addition to the afore-mentioned Fire + Ice, Darra Goldstein has a second book nominated for a JBF award this year: The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Given her track record, she had a decent chance at winning in at least one category: the Professor of Russian at Williams College won an IACP award in 1994 for The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia.

One theme that remained the same over both lists is the skew toward books on Southern cooking. Virginia Willis’ Lighten Up, Y’all, Angela Jill Cooley’s To Live and Dine in Dixie, and The Southerner’s Cookbook: Recipes, Wisdom, and Stories from the editors of Garden & Gun magazine were JBF nominees in various categories. The Southerner’s Cookbook was selected as one of the best new cookbooks of 2015 by Eater.

You can view the complete James Beard Foundation cookbook award nominee list to see if your favorites were nominated. Winners will be announced on April 26, 2016.