Award-Winning Cookbooks

2012 James Beard Foundation Book Awards

Book Talk tends to feature reviews and booklists of fiction and narrative non-fiction books, so I thought it was time to highlight another big part of our library’s collection: cookbooks. Here is a list of some of the best cookbooks published in 2011:

Cookbook of the Year:

Modernist Cuisine

by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet

[We do not own this 6 volume, $625 set, but have ordered the 2 volume Modernist Cuisine at Home, to be published in October, 2012.]

Cookbook Hall of Fame:

Home Cooking and More Home Cooking

by Laurie Colwin

[We don’t own these classic cookbooks from 1988 and 1993, but they are available for interlibrary loan from libraries in our area.]

American Cooking:

A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen

by Hugh Acheson

Baking and Dessert:

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home

by Jeni Britton Bauer

Beverage:

Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, & Formulas

by Brad Thomas Parsons

[Available for interlibrary loan]

Cooking from a Professional Point of View:

Modernist Cuisine

by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet

General Cooking:

Ruhlman’s Twenty

by Michael Ruhlman

Focus on Health:

Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen

by Heidi Swanson

International:

The Food of Morocco

by Paula Wolfert

Reference and Scholarship:

Turning the Tables: Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920

by Andrew P. Haley

[Available for interlibrary loan from several college libraries in Illinois]

Single Subject:

All About Roasting

by Molly Stevens

Writing and Literature:

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

by Gabrielle Hamilton

www.jamesbeard.org