Here are Your Must-Reads: The 2019 Journalism Award Nominees

JBF Editors

April 05, 2019

Food media has never felt more relevant. Political tensions across the globe may be rising, issues of culture, identity, and ethnicity are ever-more fraught, but asking questions about the food we cook and eat has proven increasingly valuable as a way to connect and understand the world around us. Whether you're looking for the latest restaurant review from a trusted source, or are simply curious about how Chinese food became the Christmas day meal de rigeur for Jews, this year's Journalism Award nominees offer indispensable insights into the ingredients that make up our food system.

Read all the exciting pieces from our nominees below*, and be sure to follow us on Friday, April 26, when we announce the winners at the Media Awards in New York City.

Columns
America’s Best Worst Cook: “Hi, I’m America’s Best Worst Cook”; “Dear Chefs, Will Eating This Kill Me?” and “How to Roast a Chicken? The Answers Are Horrifying.”
JJ Goode
Taste

Local Fare: “The Question of Dinner”; “Dixie Vodka”; and “Folk Witness”
John T. Edge
Oxford American

What We Talk About When We Talk About American Food: “The Pickled Cucumbers That Survived the 1980s AIDS Epidemic”; “A Second Look at the Tuna Sandwich’s All-American History”; and “Freedom and Borscht for Ukrainian-Jewish Émigrés”
Mari Uyehara
Taste

Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award
Counter Intelligence: “The Hearth & Hound, April Bloomfield’s New Los Angeles Restaurant, Is Nothing Like a Gastropub”; “There’s Crocodile and Hog Stomach, but Jonathan Gold Is All About the Crusty Rice at Nature Pagoda”; and “At Middle Eastern Restaurants, It All Starts with Hummus. Jonathan Gold says Bavel’s Is Magnificent”
Jonathan Gold
Los Angeles Times

“The Fire Gods of Washington, D.C.”; “David Chang’s Majordomo Is No Minor Feat”; and “North America’s Best Cantonese Food Is in Canada”
Bill Addison
Eater

“The Four Seasons Returns. But Can It Come Back?” “Why David Chang Matters”; and “A Celebration of Black Southern Food, at JuneBaby in Seattle”
Pete Wells
The New York Times

Dining and Travel
Chau Down: “A New Orleans Food Diary”; “A Portland Food Diary”; and “A Chicago Food Diary”
Danny Chau
The Ringer

“Dim Sum Is Dead, Long Live Dim Sum”
Max Falkowitz
Airbnb Magazine

“Many Chinas, Many Tables”
Jonathan Kauffman and Team
San Francisco Chronicle

Feature Reporting
“Big in Japan”
Tejal Rao
The New York Times Magazine

“A Kingdom from Dust”
Mark Arax
The California Sunday Magazine

“Shell Game: Saving Florida’s Oysters Could Mean Killing a Way of Life”
Laura Reiley and Eve Edelheit
Tampa Bay Times

Food Coverage in a General Interest Publication
New York Magazine
Robin Raisfeld, Rob Patronite, Maggie Bullock, and the Staff of New York Magazine

Roads & Kingdoms
Nathan Thornburgh, Matt Goulding, Anup Kaphle, and the Roads & Kingdoms Team

T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Kurt Soller, Hanya Yanagihara, and the Staff of T Magazine

Foodways
“Back to Where It All Began: I Had Never Eaten in Ghana Before. But My Ancestors Had."
Michael W. Twitty
Bon Appétit

“A Hunger for Tomatoes”
Shane Mitchell
The Bitter Southerner

“What is Northern Food?”
Steve Hoffman
Artful Living

Health and Wellness
“Clean Label’s Dirty Little Secret”
Nadia Berenstein
The New Food Economy

“The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right” and “The Last Conversation You’ll Need to Have on Eating Right: The Follow-ups”
Mark Bittman and David L. Katz
New York Magazine / Grub Street

“‘White People Food’ Is Creating An Unattainable Picture Of Health”
Kristen Aiken
HuffPost

Home Cooking
“Melissa Clark’s Thanksgiving”
Melissa Clark
The New York Times

“The Subtle Thrills of Cold Chicken Salad”
Cathy Erway
Taste

“Top Secret Ingredients”
Kathleen Purvis
Garden & Gun

Innovative Storytelling
“In Search of Water-Boiled Fish”
Angie Wang
Eater

“100 Most Jewish Foods”
Alana Newhouse, Gabriella Gershenson, and Stephanie Butnick
Tablet Magazine

“What’s in a Food Truck?”
Bonnie Berkowitz, Seth Blanchard, Aaron Steckelberg, and Monica Ulmanu
The Washington Post

Investigative Reporting
“‘It's Not Fair, Not Right’: How America Treats Its Black Farmers”
Debbie Weingarten and Audra Mulkern
The Guardian and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

“A Killing Season”
Boyce Upholt
The New Republic

“Victims Blame FDA for Food-Recall Failures”
Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan
Politico

Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award
“Storied Ovens”; “Food Outside the U.S. Open Gates”; and “A New Destination for Chinese Food: Not Flushing, but Forest Hills”
Max Falkowitz
The New York Times; Plate Magazine

“My Dinner at the Playboy Club”; “Curry and Roti Destination Singh’s Lights Up Queens”; and “Where New Yorkers Actually Eat in Times Square”
Robert Sietsema
Eater NY

“Yes Indeed, Lord: Queen’s Cuisine, Where Everything Comes from the Heart”; “Top 10 New Orleans Restaurants for 2019”; and “Sexual Harassment Allegations Preceded Sucré Co-Founder Tariq Hanna’s Departure”
Brett Anderson
Nola.com | The Times-Picayune

M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award
“A Kingdom from Dust”
Mark Arax
The California Sunday Magazine

“The Poet’s Table”
Mayukh Sen
Poetry Foundation

“What Is Northern Food?”
Steve Hoffman
Artful Living

Personal Essay, Long Form
“I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali’s Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter”
Geraldine DeRuiter
Everywhereist.com

“Need to Find Me? Ask My Ham Man”
Catherine Down
The New York Times

“Writing an Iranian Cookbook in an Age of Anxiety”
Naz Deravian
The Atlantic

Personal Essay, Short Form
“Doritos is Developing Lady-Friendly Chips Because You Should Never Hear a Woman Crunch”
Maura Judkis
The Washington Post

“I’m a Chef with Terminal Cancer. This Is What I’m Doing with the Time I Have Left”
Fatima Ali
Bon Appétit