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Three significant culinary award events happened during Spring 2019, and African heritage people fared well. Here’s a rundown of the winners at each event.
The James Beard Foundation Book Awards, New York City, NY–April 26, 2019
American Cookbook Award winners Veronica Chambers, Alexander Smalls and JJ Johnson (Photo Kent Miller Studios)
American Cookbook
Between Harlem and Heaven: Afro-Asian-American Cooking for Big Nights, Weeknights, and Every Day, Chef JJ Johnson and Alexander Smalls (with Veronica Chambers) (Flatiron Books).
Phot: John Pinderhughes
Cookbook Hall of Fame
Jessica B. Harris
Read more about Dr. Harris’s culinary accomplishments here.
James Beard Media Awards New York City, NY–April 26, 2019
Marcus Samuelsson’s Instagram
Outstanding Personality
Marcus Samuelsson
No Passport Required
Airs on: PBS
The James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Chicago, IL–May 6, 2019
Best Chef Southeast winner Mashama Bailey (photo: Galdones Photgraphy)
Best Chef: Southeast (GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, WV)
Mashama Bailey
The Grey
Savannah, GA
Watch the moment Chef Bailey won and her acceptance speech:
Rising Start Chef winner Kwame Onwuachi accepts his Beard Award (Photo: Kent Miller Studios)
Rising Star Chef of the Year (Presented by S.Pellegrino® Sparkling Natural Mineral Water)
Kwame Onwuachi
Kith and Kin
Washington, D.C.
2019 James Beard Foundation America’s Classics Honorees (Presented by American Airlines) Chicago, IL—May 5, 2019
A&A Bake & Double Roti Shop
Brooklyn, NY
Owner: Noel and Geeta Brown
James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards Chicago, IL—May 5, 2019
From the James Beard Foundation website: “The James Beard Foundation’s Leadership Awards spotlight the important and complex realms of sustainability, food justice, and public health. They raise awareness of these timely issues by celebrating the visionaries responsible for creating a healthier, safer, and more equitable and sustainable food system.
The Leadership Awards recognize specific outstanding initiatives as well as bodies of work and lifetime achievement. Excellence of work, innovation in approach, and scale of impact within a community or the nation are among the criteria used to select the recipients.“
Cornelius Blanding, Executive Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives / Land Assistance Fund. For his tireless work to develop and strengthen cooperatives for low-income African American and other limited resource communities in the South.
Leah Penniman, Co-Executive Director & Program Manager, Soul Fire Farm
For her work facilitating powerful food sovereignty programs, including farmer training for black and brown people, a subsidized farm food distribution program for communities living under food apartheid, and domestic and international organizing toward equity in the food system.
Anim Steel, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Real Food Generation.
For his work harnessing the power of youth and universities to create a food system that truly nourishes us all.
International Association of Culinary Professionals Santa Fe, NM—May 19, 2019
American Cookbook
Chef Todd Richards IG
Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes, by Todd Richards, Oxmoor House.
Culinary Classics
Vibration Cooking: Or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girlby Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, University of Georgia Press (1970)(awarded posthumously).
Congratulations to all of the award winners and the nominees!! Please support them by following their work, purchasing their publications, and by spreading the word about them through social media.