James Andrews Beard was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, Oregon, and lectured widely. He emphasized American cooking, prepared with fresh and wholesome American ingredients, to a country just becoming aware of its own culinary heritage. Beard taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. He published more than twenty books, and his memory is honored by his foundation's annual James Beard Awards.
Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. It originated in the American South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans trafficked to the North American colonies through the Atlantic slave trade during the Antebellum period and is closely associated the cuisine of the American South. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas.
Chop suey is a dish from American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, generally consisting of meat and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery, and bound in a starch-thickened sauce. It is typically served with rice, but can become the Chinese-American form of chow mein with the substitution of stir-fried noodles for rice.
Anthony Michael Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, food writer, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine.
Rachael Domenica Ray is an American cook, television personality, businesswoman, and author. She hosted the syndicated daily talk and lifestyle program Rachael Ray. Other programs to her credit include 30 Minute Meals, Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels, $40 a Day, Rachael Ray's Week in a Day, and the reality format shows Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off and Rachael Ray's Kids Cook-Off. Ray has written several cookbooks based on the 30 Minute Meals concept, and launched a magazine, Every Day with Rachael Ray, in 2006. Ray's television shows have won three Daytime Emmy Awards.
Jacques Pépin is a French chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist. After having been the personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle, he moved to the US in 1959 and after working in New York's top French restaurants, refused the same job with President John F. Kennedy in the White House and instead took a culinary development job with Howard Johnson's. During his career, he has served in numerous prestigious restaurants, first, in Paris, and then in America. He has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored more than 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 also holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature.
Duncan Hines was an American author and food critic known for his restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name.
Mary Ann Esposito is an American chef, cookbook writer, and the television host of Ciao Italia with Mary Ann Esposito, which started in 1989 and is the longest-running television cooking program in America.
Food reality television is a genre of reality television programming that considers the production, consumption and/or sociocultural impact of food.
Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was an American culinary anthropologist, griot, poet, food writer, and broadcaster on public media. Born into a Gullah family in the Low Country of South Carolina, she moved with them as a child to Philadelphia during the Great Migration. Later she lived in Paris before settling in New York City. She was active in the Black Arts Movement and performed on Broadway.
Create is an American digital broadcast public television network broadcast on digital subchannels of PBS member stations. The network broadcasts how-to, DIY and other lifestyle-oriented instructional programming 24 hours a day.
Conrad Gallagher is an Irish-born chef/restaurateur from Letterkenny, County Donegal, based in Dubai since 2016. He was the youngest chef ever awarded a Michelin star at the time, for Peacock Alley in Dublin, at the age of 26 in 1998. In a career that has attracted both accolades and controversy, Gallagher has owned restaurants in Dublin, New York, London, Las Vegas and Cape Town, and has featured in two reality television cooking series. He opened restaurant consultancy Food Concepts 360 in 2018. Gallagher also owns chef recruitment agency The Chefs Connection and opened The Chefs Playground in Johannesburg, South Africa, in April 2020 as a culinary training centre and specialist shop for chefs’ apparel and equipment. In February 2021, Gallagher opened "Off the Menu Food Emporium", a delicatessen, coffee and wine shop serving tapas-style meals, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He also opened Bistro Vin de Boeuf, in St Francis Bay.
Culinary tourism or food tourism or gastronomy tourism is the exploration of food as the purpose of tourism. It is considered a vital component of the tourism experience. Dining out is common among tourists and "food is believed to rank alongside climate, accommodation, and scenery" in importance to tourists.
A foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food, and who eats food not only out of hunger but also as a hobby. The related terms "gastronome" and "gourmet" define roughly the same thing, i.e. a person who enjoys food for pleasure; the connotation of "foodie" differs slightly—a sort of everyday person with a love for food culture and different foods. Some, such as Paul Levy, say the foodie can still be a "foodist". foodie in slang can be used to describe someone who searches out food and bases his schedule around that endeavor.
Travels & Traditions is a television series hosted by Burt Wolf and his son Nicholas Wolf. The series began airing in 2000 and is currently in its 22nd season. The New York Times described it as “the best food, travel, and cultural history shows on television.” The programs are broadcast on Public Television to 90% of the television homes in the United States, then translated into Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Mandarin and Korean and syndicated to an international audience of over 100 million. Nicholas Wolf joined Burt Wolf in the 22nd season of the series.
Barbara Grunes is an American food writer based in Chicago. She is the author or co-author of 50+ cookbooks, including an entire series on grill cooking. A food consultant and historian, Grunes has also written on food and dining for the Chicago Sun Times and food consultant to the State of Illinois.
Vikram Vij is an Indian-born Canadian chef, cookbook author, and television personality. He is the owner, of the Indian cuisine restaurants Vij's and Rangoli Restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also owns My Shanti, a restaurant in South Surrey, BC which he closed in 2024. In 2014, Vij was announced as a new "dragon" investor on the Canadian reality show Dragons' Den for its ninth season and departed at the end of the season.
Loretta Barrett Oden is an American chef, Native foods historian, food writer, and television show host. She is an enrolled member of the Potawatomi tribe. She wrote and hosted the PBS series Seasoned With Spirit: A Native Cook's Journey. Oden writes a column, Spirit of the Harvest, for Native Peoples Magazine.
