World’s Best Cookbook Awards

The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards date back to 1995, when French publisher Edouard Cointreau founded the annual event at the Frankfurt Book Fair. From 1997 onward it was held in various French cities.

Chef Denis Cotter of Ireland, receiving his award
for Best Vegetarian Book in the World,
Paradiso Seasons.

This year, the awards ceremony took place February 27 at the historic Casa Llotja, the site of Catalonian commerce since the Middle Ages.

Casa Llotja, Barcelona

Entries came from 33 countries. The international jury included Eduoard Cointreau, Chairman of the Awards Committee; Dun Gifford, President of the Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust; Prince Franz-Wilhelm of Prussia; and Jean Jacques Ratier, Mayor of Sorges (Dordogne), France.

Here are the winning titles, along with excerpted comments from the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards staff:
(Click any titles to order directly from Amazon.com at discount prices.)

Finalist, Best Cookbook of the Year; Best Cookbook in North America
Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine
by Marcus Samuelsson, (Houghton Mifflin, USA) Drawing from his Ethiopian-Swedish roots, French training, and creative artistry, Marcus Samuelsson showcases approachable recipes that reinterpret Scandinavian standards and introduce exciting new contemporary classics.

Best Easy Recipes Book in the World
Annie and Margrit: Recipes and Stories from the Robert Mondavi Kitchen by Annie Roberts, Margrit Biever Mondavi, and Victoria Wise (Ten Speed, USA) “More than a cookbook,” this book is a visit to one of the best and most efficient kitchens in California and “a moving experience by a mother and daughter team, with one of the best writers in the cookbook sector.”

Best Foreign Cookery Book in the World
Appetizer Atlas: A World of Small Bites by Arthur L. Meyer and Jon M. Vann. Photographer: Boyd Hagen (Wiley, USA) Written by authors who are experienced chefs, this wonderful, practical book will also inspire the reader’s own creations. Arthur L. Meyer has written two other master books.

Best Latino Cuisine Book in the World
The South American Table, The Flavor and Soul of Authentic Home Cooking from Patagonia to Rio de Janeiro, with 450 Recipes by Maria Baez Kijac; Foreword by Charlie Trotter (Harvard Common Press, USA) The result of 15 years of research, this landmark work contains 450 authentic recipes from 10 countries. The Awards staff notes that in his foreword, Trotter extols this book as “a masterpiece, a literal love note to the beauties and pleasures of the foods of South America."

Best Mediterranean Cookery Book of the Year
The Essential Mediterranean: How Regional Cooks Transform Key Ingredients into the World’s Favorite Cuisines by Nancy Harmon Jenkins (Harper Collins, USA) The best selling author of “The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook” shows how the Mediterranean attitude toward food can be cultivated across the Atlantic, resulting in a combination of respect, integrity, enthusiasm and sheer joy. The James Beard Awards in New York chose this as their “Book of the Year.”

Best Vegetarian Book in the World
Paradiso Seasons by Denis Cotter; Photographs, Jorg Koster; Design and Art Direction, John Foley (Hylas, USA; The Café Paradiso Cookbook: Vegetarian Cooking Season-by-Season is due for U.S. release 5/04) At Café Paradiso in Cork, chef Denis Cotter cooks vegetarian food that even non-vegetarians can come back to enjoy every day. The Awards staff notes that the publication of his second book “should make Cotter better known internationally, as he deserves.” Called ‘elegant, inspiring and astonishingly creative’ by Eric Treuille, Paradiso Seasons is “the best vegetarian chef’s cookbook ever written,” according to the Awards staff.

Best Cookbook Photography in the World
I Am Almost Always Hungry, Seasonal Menus and Memorable Recipes by Lora Zarubin; Photographs by Tessa Traeger; Foreword by Jay McInerney (Stewart, Tabori, Chang, USA) Tessa Traeger is one of the masters of still-life photography, and her food photography is the best this year.

Best Bread Book in the World
The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum (WW Norton, USA) This, the judges found, is the bread book in English. They considered it “very strong in techniques.”

Finalist for Best Single Subject in the World; Honorable Mention
Granita Magic: Rediscovering the Pleasure of Ices: More Than 50 Grown-up Recipes by Nadia Roden (Artisan, USA) Here, a rediscovered theme is treated in a completely new, and fresh way with real talent. The watercolor illustrations also by Nadia Roden are excellent, and perfect for the subject. As Roden writes enticingly in her introduction, "a granita looks and feels like icy snow, it is beautifully colored like glittering sequins, and it can be eaten any time of day."

Special Awards of the Jury for First Book
The Timeless Art of Italian Cuisine: Centuries of Scrumptious Dining; The Essence of Italian Food in more than 170 Traditional Recipes for Today’s Cook by Anna Maria Volpi and Pietro Mascioni (Volpi Publishing, USA) There’s an increasing trend for authors to become publishers—for example, Alain Ducasse and Ferran Adriá (El Bulli). The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards recognizes the best efforts in this category and this year, the prize for the best example of author-to-publisher was awarded to Anna Maria Volpi.

Finalist for Best French Cookery Book in the World (Published Outside France) Honorable Mention
The Balthazar Cookbook by Keith McNally, Riad Nasr, Lee Hanson and Kathryn Kellinger; Foreword by Robert Hugues (Clarkson Potter, USA) The best of French brasserie cooking, from one of the best known, most highly regarded French restaurants in the U.S., and perhaps in the world. In addition, the judges consider the foreword by Robert Hugues among the very best ever written for a cookbook.

Finalist for Best Entertaining Book in the World; Honorable Mention
Entertaining the Costco Way, A Cookbook and Practical Guide to the Art of Entertaining by Pat Volchok, Editorial Director with a foreword by Tom Douglas (Costco, USA)
Featuring products sold by Costco, its very first cookbook brings to publishing the same innovative approach that Costco has in retailing, with the same strong emphasis on quality and value.

Finalist for Best Culinary History Book in the World; Honorable Mention
Cuisine and Culture, A History of Food and People by Linda Civitello (Wiley, USA) An illuminating account on how history shapes our diet. Judges thought it “an excellent reference for all food readers.”

Finalist for Best Food Literature Book in the World; Honorable Mention
The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy, Twenty Years of the Best Food Writing from the Journal Petits Propos Culinaires, Edited by Alan Davidson; Foreword by Harold McGee (Ten Speed, USA) Although the judges do not usually reward anthologies or texts published in previous years, they felt that The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy should be present in all serious food libraries, “as it is food writing at its best.” They said of the late food scholar, “We all miss Alan Davidson.” [Davidson died in November 2003.]

Finalist for Best Book in the World for Food Professionals; Honorable Mention
International Dictionary of Gastronomy by Guido Gomez de Silva (Hippocrene Books, USA) Publisher Hippocrene has the world’s most extensive backlist of specialized country cookbooks. The author, who now resides in Mexico City, has worked in 69 countries as a United Nations official. Gomez de Silva’s book is expected to become a classic reference, according to the judges.

WINE BOOKS

Wine Publisher of the Year
The Wine Appreciation Guild (USA); Elliott Mackey
The Wine Appreciation Guild is the best publisher and distributor of wine books in the United States. Its catalog, VINDEX, offers a complete listing of nearly 1000 in- and out-of-print books on wine.

Best Wine Book in the World for Professionals
Icon, Art of the Wine Label, A Collection of Work by Jeffrey Caldewey and Chuck House; Foreword by Robert Mondavi; A Brief History by Hugh Johnson; Photography by Robert M. Bruno (The Wine Appreciation Guild, USA) This is the first book that explains the reasons for the choices behind wine labels and their design.

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