Introducing the James Beard 2024 Book Award Nominees

Baking and Desserts:

This award recognizes books with recipes focused on the art and craft of baking, pastries, and desserts, both sweet and savory items, including ingredients, techniques, equipment, and traditions.

This year, submissions to the Bread category were included for consideration within the Baking and Desserts category.

Dark Rye and Honey Cake: Festival Baking from Belgium, the Heart of the Low Countries

Regula Ysewijn
(Weldon Owen)

Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed

Abi Balingit
(HarperCollins)

More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community

Natasha Pickowicz
(Artisan Books)

Beverage with Recipes:

This award recognizes books with recipes focused on beverages, such as
cocktails, beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, or juices.

Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks

Toni Tipton-Martin
(Clarkson Potter)

The Maison Premiere Almanac: Cocktails, Oysters, Absinthe, and Other Essential Nutrients for the Sensualist, Aesthete, and Flaneur

Joshua Boissy, Jordan Mackay, and Krystof Zizka
(Clarkson Potter)

Slow Drinks: A Field Guide to Foraging and Fermenting Seasonal Sodas, Botanical Cocktails, Homemade Wines, and More

Danny Childs
(Hardie Grant North America)

Beverage without Recipes:

This award recognizes books without recipes that focus on beverages, such
as cocktails, beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, or juices; or books that cover these subject areas where recipes are not the focus of cooking, not just a single topic, technique, or region.

Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals

Gary Paul Nabhan and David Suro Piñera
(W. W. Norton & Company)
The New French Wine

Jon Bonné
(Ten Speed Press)

Vines in a Cold Climate: The People Behind the English Wine Revolution

Henry Jeffreys
(Atlantic)
Food Issues and Advocacy:

This award recognizes books that focus on investigative journalism, food
policy, food advocacy, deep dives, and critical analysis of the changing social landscape around food.

At the Table: The Chef’s Guide to Advocacy

Katherine Miller
(Island Press)

Avocado Anxiety: and Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From

Louise Gray
(Bloomsbury Wildlife)

Resilient Kitchens: American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis: Essays and Recipes

Philip Gleissner and Harry Eli Kashdan
(Rutgers University Press)

General:

This award recognizes books with recipes that address a broad scope of cooking, not just a single topic, technique, or region.

A Cook’s Book

Nigel Slater
(Ten Speed)

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z

Tamar Adler
(Scribner)

Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook

Sohla El-Waylly
(Alfred A. Knopf)

International:

This award recognizes books with recipes focused on food or cooking traditions of countries, regions, or communities outside of the United States.

Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation

Clarissa Wei with Ivy Chen
(Simon & Schuster/Simon Element)

My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora

Yewande Komolafe
(Ten Speed Press)

The World Central Kitchen Cookbook

José Andrés and Sam Chapple-Sokol
(Clarkson Potter)

Literary Writing:

This award recognizes narrative nonfiction books, including memoirs, culinary travel, culinary tourism, biography, reflections on food in a cultural context, and personal essays.

Food Stories: Writing That Stirs the Pot

The Bitter Southerner

(The Bitter Southerner)

For The Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes

Klancy Miller
(HarperCollins)

The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García

Laura Tillman
(W. W. Norton & Company)

Reference, History, and Scholarship:

This award recognizes manuals, guides, encyclopedias, or books
that present research related to food or foodways.

The Ark of Taste: Delicious and Distinctive Foods That Define the United States

David S. Shields and Giselle K. Lord
(Hachette Book Group)

Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

Bobby J. Smith II
(University of North Carolina Press)

White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation

Naa Oyo A. Kwate
(University of Minnesota Press)

Restaurant and Professional:

This award recognizes books written by a culinary professional or
restaurant chef with recipes that may include advanced cooking techniques, the use of specialty ingredients and professional equipment, including culinary arts textbooks.

Ester: Australian Cooking

Mat Lindsay with Pat Nourse
(Murdoch Books)

Fish Butchery: Mastering The Catch, Cut, and Craft

Josh Niland
Hardie Grant Books)

Rintaro: Japanese Food from an Izakaya in California

Jessica Battilana and Sylvan Mishima Brackett
(Hardie Grant North America)

Single Subject:

This award recognizes books with recipes focused on a single ingredient, dish, or method of cooking. Examples include seafood, grains, pasta, burgers, or canning. Exceptions are baking and desserts books, vegetable-focused books, restaurant and professional books, and beverage books—
which would be entered in their respective categories.

The Hog Island Book of Fish and Seafood: Culinary Treasures from Our Waters

John Ash
(Cameron Books)

Pasta Every Day: Make It, Shape It, Sauce It, Eat It

Meryl Feinstein
(Hachette Book Group

Yogurt & Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life

Homa Dashtaki
(W. W. Norton & Company)

U.S. Foodways:

This award recognizes books with recipes focused on the cooking or foodways of regions or communities located within the United States.

Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque

Ed Mitchell, Ryan Mitchell, and Zella Palmer
(Ecco)

Love Japan: Recipes from Our Japanese American Kitchen

Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi with Gabriella Gershenson
(Ten Speed Press)

Made Here Recipes & Reflections From NYC’s Asian Communities

Send Chinatown Love
(Self-Published)

Vegetable-Focused Cooking:

This award recognizes books on vegetable cookery with recipes that are meatless, vegetarian, or vegan.

Ever-Green Vietnamese: Super-Fresh Recipes, Starring Plants from Land and Sea

Andrea Nguyen
(Ten Speed Press)
Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook

Nancy Singleton Hachisu
Phaidon Press)

Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds

Hetty Lui McKinnon
(Alfred A. Knopf)

Visuals:

This award recognizes books on food or beverage with exceptional graphic design, art, or photography.

The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp

Yudi Echevarria
(Ten Speed Press)
For The Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes

Kelly Marshall and Sarah Madden
(HarperCollins)
Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South

Kate Medley with Dave Whitling
(BS Publishing)

Cookbook Hall of Fame:

This award is given to either a cookbook that has significantly influenced the way we think about food, honoring authors who possess an exceptional ability to communicate their gastronomic vision via the printed page, or an author whose cookbooks and other culinary books and work, taken together, make a difference in the world of food and cooking.

The Book Awards Subcommittee selects the winner for this category. The Cookbook Hall of Fame winner will be announced at the Media Awards ceremony on June 8.