The American Institute of Wine & Food is a non-profit organization dedicated to gastronomy and food culture. The Institute was founded in 1981 by a group of food industry professionals and enthusiasts, including Julia Child and Robert Mondavi. [1] Today, the organization includes educational programs, a bimonthly publication titled Savor This, and local chapters across the United States.
On their website, the group aims to further “the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food through fun educational experiences.” [2] The AIWF implements these goals by awarding scholarships to culinary programs, organizing lessons about food and health for schoolchildren, and hosting community events.
The initial concept for the AIWF was led in 1979 by John Ronsheim, as a university gastronomy program. [3] Ronsheim recruited 57 culinary experts to advise in the program’s development including Julia Child, James Beard, Robert Mondavi, Jeremiah Tower, Alice Waters, and Barbara Kafka. [3] In the following years, Ronsheim coordinated efforts to find a host university and investors for the program. [3]
In 1981, the Institute was officially formed after funding a special collection of books on the culinary arts in an agreement with the University of California at Santa Barbara. [3] Richard Graff was the first president. [4]
The organization began to hold conferences and dinners which address topics such as sustainable eating and the benefits of local ingredients. [4] The first of these was The Conference of Gastronomy held in New York City in 1985. [5] The AIWF also began publishing an academic journal, The Journal of Gastronomy, to highlight emerging and relevant research. [5] The journal was published from 1984 to 1991. [6]
The Institute eventually began local chapters across the United States, and today there are 13 regional chapters. [7] The AIWF also currently sponsors special collections at the University of California at San Diego and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Julia Carolyn Child was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.
Slow Food is an organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. It was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 and has since spread worldwide. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem. It promotes local small businesses and sustainable foods. It also focuses on food quality, rather than quantity. It was the first established part of the broader slow movement. It speaks out against overproduction and food waste. It sees globalization as a process in which small and local farmers and food producers should be simultaneously protected from and included in the global food system.
Robert Gerald Mondavi was an American winemaker. His technical and marketing strategies brought worldwide recognition for the wines of the Napa Valley in California. From an early period, Mondavi promoted labeling wines varietally rather than generically, which became the standard for New World wines. The Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) for Wine and Food Science at the University of California, Davis opened in October 2008 in his honor.
The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is an American private college and culinary school specializing in culinary, baking, and pastry arts education. The school's primary campus is located in Hyde Park, New York, with branch campuses in St. Helena and Napa, California, San Antonio, Texas, and Singapore. The college, which was the first to teach culinary arts in the United States, offers associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees, and has the largest staff of American Culinary Federation Certified Master Chefs. The CIA also offers continuing education for professionals in the hospitality industry as well as conferences and consulting services. The college additionally offers recreational classes for non-professionals. The college operates student-run restaurants on their four U.S. campuses.
Jacques PépinFrench pronunciation: [ʒak pepɛ̃] is a French-born American chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist. Since the late 1980s, he has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored over 30 cookbooks, some of which have become best sellers. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He has been honored with 24 James Beard Foundation Awards, five honorary doctoral degrees, the American Public Television’s lifetime achievement award, the Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2019 and the Légion d'honneur, France's highest order of merit in 2004.
The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone is a branch campus of the private culinary college the Culinary Institute of America. The Greystone campus, located on State Route 29/128 in St. Helena, California, offers associate degrees and two certificate programs in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. The CIA at Greystone and the Culinary Institute of America at Copia make up the school's California branch.
Warren Winiarski is a Napa Valley winemaker and the founder and former proprietor of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.
Richard Graff (1937–1998) was a Californian winemaker.
Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts was a non-profit museum and educational center in downtown Napa, California, dedicated to wine, food and the arts of American culture. The center, planned and largely funded by vintners Robert and Margrit Mondavi, was open from 2001 to 2008. The 78,632-square-foot (7,305.2 m2) museum had galleries, two theaters, classrooms, a demonstration kitchen, a restaurant, a rare book library, and a 3.5-acre (1.4 ha) vegetable and herb garden; there it hosted wine and food tasting programs, exhibitions, films, and concerts. The main and permanent exhibition of the museum, "Forks in the Road", explained the origins of cooking through to modern advances. The museum's establishment benefited the city of Napa and the development and gentrification of its downtown.
The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) is a United States-based not-for-profit professional association whose members work in culinary education, communication, or the preparation of food and beverage.
Betty Harper Fussell is an American writer and is the author of 12 books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history and memoir. Over the last 50 years, her essays on food, travel and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers as varied as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Vogue, Food & Wine, Metropolitan Home and Gastronomica. Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Eat Live Love Die, and she is now working on How to Cook a Coyote: A Manual of Survival.
Margrit Biever Mondavi (August 2, 1925 – September 2, 2016) was a Swiss-born American businesswoman. She was Vice President of Cultural Affairs at Robert Mondavi Winery which she joined in 1967. Under her direction, Robert Mondavi Winery developed original cultural and culinary arts programs. In 1980, she married Robert Mondavi and worked with him in many of his philanthropic activities including the founding of the museum Copia. Margrit played a key role in securing the downtown Napa location for the center, which opened in November 2001. She died of stomach cancer on September 2, 2016.
Irena Chalmers-Taylor was an author and food commentator/essayist, teacher and culinary mentor. Named "the culinary oracle of 100 cookbooks" by noted American restaurant critic and journalist, Gael Greene, Chalmers was recognized as the pioneer of the single subject cookbook. Her life story revealed an unlikely journey to becoming a James Beard Foundation "Who's Who" of Food and Beverage in America 1988 Award Recipient.
Alan Richman is an American journalist and food writer. He was a food correspondent for GQ magazine, and has won 16 James Beard Foundation Awards for journalism.
Charles Krug (1825–1892) was among the pioneers of winemaking in the Napa Valley, California, and was the founder of the Charles Krug Winery.
Christopher Gross is the chef and owner of Christopher's & Crush Lounge, located in Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix, Arizona.
Phyllis C. Richman is an American writer and former food critic for the Washington Post for 23 years, a role that led Newsweek magazine to name her "the most feared woman in Washington". Washingtonian magazine listed her as one of the 100 most powerful women in Washington.
Jan Longone is Curator of American Culinary History at Special Collections, Hatcher Library, University of Michigan. Julia Child, James Beard, and New York Times food editor Craig Claiborne were all early fans of Longone’s out-of-print cookbook collection. Their enthusiasm prompted her to create The Wine and Food Library in 1972, which offers books by mail order or private appointment and remains one of the most important antiquarian culinary resources in the world.
The Culinary Institute of America at Copia is a branch campus of the private culinary college the Culinary Institute of America. The CIA at Copia, located at 500 1st Street next to the Oxbow Public Market in downtown Napa, California, opened its doors in autumn 2016.The CIA venue provides food- and wine-related courses to visitors. The CIA at Copia and The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone make up the school's California branch.
Darra Goldstein is an American author and food scholar who is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, Emerita at Williams College.
