Tonight the James Beard Foundation announced the winners of the 2023 Media Awards. The Media Awards encompass cookbooks and other books, journalism and broadcasts such as television and audio programs. The finalists were announced in April. This year’s awards come after complicated headlines and backlash against the foundation. “There is some excitement surrounding this year’s awards ceremony as we are putting our mission and values front and center,” said Foundation Executive Director Clare Reichenbach in her opening speech, indirectly referring to the drama that has unfolded around the awards ceremony over the past month disqualification of nominees. “We’re about shaking people up, not challenging them.”
A few takeaways and highlights: In the new book categories, baker-blogger Maurizio Leo’s debut cookbook, The Perfect Loaf: The Craft and Science of Sourdough Breads, Sweets, and More: A Baking Book, won the Bread Books category, while Psyche A. Williams-Forson won in the Food Issues and Advocacy category for Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America. It wasn’t a smash hit for the Bon Appetit Exodus, but Andy Baraghani won in the General Cookbooks category for his acclaimed debut The Cook You Want to Be: Everyday Recipes to Impress, while Rick Martínez won in the International category for Mi Cocina: Recipes won and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico: A Cookbook. Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook: A Family Affair in Smoke and Soul by Kevin Bludso and Noah Galuten won the Restaurant and Professional category. Illyana Maisonet won the Emerging Voice Award for her debut Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook and Joe Randall’s 1998 book A Taste of Heritage: The New African-American Cuisine was inducted into the Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. Oxford, Mississippi-based chef Vishwesh Bhatt — one of the chefs who opposed the foundation’s handling of the disqualifications and resigned as a judge last month — won the US Foodways category for his book I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a”. Southern Chef (Bhatt did not accept his award in person at the ceremony).
Elsewhere, Erwan Heussaff (@Erwan) won for his social media account and Abena Anim-Somuah, the host of the Cherry Bomb podcast The Future of Food is You, won the Emerging Vice Award for Broadcast Media, while Detroit Free Press Restaurant and Restaurant Critic became Lyndsay C. Green won the Journalism Emerging Voice Award. Eater’s Brooke Jackson-Glidden won the Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award for her work at Eater Portland. LA Times restaurant critic Bill Addison took home the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Resaturant Review Award, which “recognizes sophisticated criticism that contributes to the larger discourse about cuisine or restaurants,” and Shane Mitchell took home the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award home “recognizes an individual article of outstanding literary merit on the subject of food and/or drink published in any medium” and the Feature Reporting Award for their Bitter Southerner play “Blood Sweat & Tears”.
The Restaurant and Chef categories will be announced at a gala ceremony in Chicago next Monday, June 5th. Here is the full list of 2023 James Beard Foundation Media Award winners:
James Beard Foundation Book Awards
baking and desserts
drinks with recipes
Drinks without prescriptions
Bread
Nutrition issues and advocacy
Generally
International
literary writing
Reference, History and Science
Restaurant and professional
single subject
US Foodways
Vegetable oriented cooking
visuals
Emerging Voice
Cookbook Hall of Fame
James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Awards
audio programming
audio reporting
commercial media
Documentary / Visual Media Documentaries
visual teaching media
Visual reality or competitive media
social media account
- Erwan Heussaff; Erwan; Instagram
Visual media – short form
Visual media – long form
Emerging Voice
James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards
drink
columns and newsletters
Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award
food and travel
feature reporting
Food coverage in a general interest publication
food routes
health and wellness
home cooking
Innovative storytelling
Investigative Reporting
Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award
Personal essay with recipes
Personal essay without recipes
- “On Boba” by Kyla Wazana Tompkins for The LARB Quarterly of the Los Angeles Review of Books
profile
MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award
Emerging Voice
- Lyndsay C. Green, Restaurant and Food Critic, Detroit Free Press
Disclosure: Some Vox Media employees are part of the voting panel for the James Beard Awards. Eater is partnering with the James Beard Foundation to livestream the awards ceremony in 2023. All editorial content, including this post, is independently produced by the James Beard Foundation.
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