Best Cookbooks of the Year
Yucatán by David Sterling (University of Texas Press) is the 2015 James Beard Foundation Cookbook of the Year.
Sterling runs a Yucatán cooking school in Mexico and his book is an ode to the food he loves, a huge, 576 page encyclopedic tome, filled with photos and a richly detailed text. It weighs more than a five pound bag of flour and lists for $60. It won the award for best International Cookbook as well.
The James Beard Awards come on the heels of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Awards, which were announced late last month.
Their top pick is A New Napa Cuisine by Christopher Kostow (RH/Ten Speed Press; OverDrive Sample), the chef running The Restaurant at Meadowood, a three-Michelin-starred destination eatery in California. A mix of chef’s journey, regional spotlight, and artistic expression, it is a good example of the trend, as we reported last week, for cookbooks to be more than compilations of recipes.
Between the two awards there are five overlapping winners:
Liquid Intelligence by David Arnold (W.W. Norton) which won the James Beard Award for best Beverage book and the IACP Jane Grigson Award.
Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat and Pork by Adam Danforth (Workman/Storey Publishing; OverDrive Sample) which won the James Beard award for Reference and Scholarship and the IACP Beverage/Reference/Technical award.
Bar Tartine by Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns (Chronicle; OverDrive Sample) which won the James Beard Cooking from a Professional Point of View award and the IACP award for best Chefs and Restaurants book.
Heritage by Sean Brock (Workman/Artisan) which won the James Beard American Cooking award and the IACP Julia Child First Book award.
At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen by Amy Chaplin (Shambhala/Roost Books) which won the James Beard award for Vegetable Focused and Vegetarian cookbook and the IACP award for Health & Special Diet.
The full list of James Beard winners and IACP winners is available at each award’s website.