Country cooking got high-end treatment at the James Beard Foundation awards Sunday.
Cookbook of the year and top international-themed cookbook honors went to the earthy “The Country Cooking of Ireland” by Colman Andrews.
Donald Link’s “Real Cajun” was named the top cookbook in the American category, which this year was dominated by Southern cuisine.
The James Beard awards are regarded as the Oscars of the food world. Sunday’s awards were for cookbooks and media. A ceremony for chefs and restaurants is to be held today.
Thomas Keller’s “Ad Hoc at Home,” based on the fare at the chef’s Ad Hoc restaurant in California, took top honors in the general cooking category.
Claudia Roden’s “A Book of Middle Eastern Food” was named to the foundation’s cookbook hall of fame.
In the media awards, Chow was named the top food-focused website, while New Yorker Ed Levine’s site, SeriousEats , was named top blog.
Westword’s Jared Jacang Maher won for newspaper feature writing about restaurants and/or chefs with his article “A Hunger to Help,” about Denver’s So All May Eat (SAME) Cafe.
The defunct Gourmet took a final Beard for magazine feature writing with Barry Estabrook’s March 2009 piece, “The Price of Tomatoes.”
