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.
Sara Moulton is an American cookbook author and television personality. In an article for The New York Times, Kim Severson described Moulton as "one of the nation’s most enduring recipe writers and cooking teachers...and a dean of food television and magazines".
Edna Regina Lewis was a renowned American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken, pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants.
Helen Jean Anderson was an American cookbook author and editor.
Joan Nathan is an American cookbook author and newspaper journalist. She has produced TV documentaries on the subject of Jewish cuisine. She was a co-founder of New York's Ninth Avenue Food Festival under then-Mayor Abraham Beame. The Jerusalem Post has called her the "matriarch of Jewish cooking".
Pamela Sheldon Johns is the author of seventeen cookbooks specializing in Italian traditional and regional ingredients. Her career, for more than twenty years, has included teaching, food photography/food styling, cooking school administration, food writing, innkeeping, and agriculture. She lives at Poggio Etrusco, her organic farm and Bed & Breakfast in southern Tuscany, and produces an extra-virgin olive oil called "Pace da Poggio Etrusco."
Ramin Ganeshram is an American journalist and culinary historian. She is known for her work in polycultural American history and historic foodways.
Tanya Holland is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, podcast host, writer, and cookbook author. She is known as an expert of soul food. Holland is an alumna of Bravo TV's Top Chef, where she competed on the 15th season. She was the owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California, which received national recognition and multiple Michelin Bib Gourmand awards.
Ronni Lundy, is an American author and editor, whose work focuses on traditional Southern American foods, Appalachian foods, and music.
Patricia Jinich is a Mexican chef, TV personality, cookbook author, educator, and food writer. She is best known for her James Beard Award-winning and Emmy-nominated public television series Pati's Mexican Table. Her first cookbook, also titled Pati's Mexican Table, was published in March 2013, her second cookbook, Mexican Today, was published in April 2016, and her third cookbook, Treasures of the Mexican Table, was published in November 2021.
Nicole A. Taylor is an American writer and cookbook author. Originally from Georgia, she moved to Brooklyn, New York in 2008 which became the basis for her 2015 cookbook, The Up South Cookbook: Chasing Dixie in a Brooklyn Kitchen. Taylor's food writing has twice been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. She has also hosted a podcast called Hot Grease.
Lois Ellen Frank is an American food historian, cookbook author, culinary anthropologist, and educator. She won a 2003 James Beard Foundation Award for her cookbook Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, the first cookbook of Native American cuisine so honored.
Francis Lam is an American food journalist, cookbook editor, and since 2017 the host of American Public Media's The Splendid Table.
Toni Tipton-Martin is an African-American food and nutrition journalist and author of several cookbooks, including Jubilee. She serves as the editor-in-chief for Cook's Country. She received the Julia Child Award in 2021, and two James Beard awards.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
Grace Young is an American cookbook author, activist, and food historian specializing in Chinese cuisine and wok cookery. She received the Julia Child Award from The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and James Beard Humanitarian of the Year award from the James Beard Foundation, both in 2022, for her culinary achievements.
High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America is a non-fiction book by Jessica B. Harris, published in 2011 by Bloomsbury. The book chronicles the development of African-American cuisine from its origins in African cuisines.
The Virginia House-Wife is an 1824 housekeeping manual and cookbook by Mary Randolph. In addition to recipes it gave instructions for making soap, starch, blacking and cologne.
