This Year's Best Cookbooks

Peruse the 2019 James Beard Book Award nominees and you'll soon agree with our namesake's assertion that "goodness, how much there is to learn about food!" Among this year's nominees you'll find a cross-country trek that asks "what is American food?"; celebrations of regional and national heritage and terroir; deep dives into goat, pies, and yakitori; and much, much more.

Follow us on Twitter on Friday, April 26, when we announce the winners of the book, broadcast, and journalism awards at the JBF Media Awards in New York City.

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American
A Common Table: 80 Recipes and Stories from My Shared Cultures
Cynthia Chen McTernan
(Rodale)

Between Harlem and Heaven: Afro-Asian-American Cooking for Big Nights, Weeknights, and Every Day
JJ Johnson and Alexander Smalls, with Veronica Chambers
(Flatiron Books)

Sweet Home Café Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking
Albert G. Lukas and Jessica B. Harris
(Smithsonian Books)

Baking and Desserts
Black Girl Baking: Wholesome Recipes Inspired by a Soulful Upbringing
Jerrelle Guy
(Page Street Publishing Co.)

Pie Squared: Irresistibly Easy Sweet & Savory Slab Pies
Cathy Barrow
(Grand Central Publishing)

SUQAR: Desserts & Sweets from the Modern Middle East
Greg Malouf and Lucy Malouf
(Hardie Grant Books)

Beverage
Apéritif: Cocktail Hour the French Way
Rebekah Peppler
(Clarkson Potter)

The Aviary Cocktail Book
Grant Achatz, Nick Kokonas, Micah Melton, Allen Hemberger, and Sarah Hemberger
(The Alinea Group)

Cocktail Codex
Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, with Devon Tarby
(Ten Speed Press)

General
Everyday Dorie
Dorie Greenspan
(Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Milk Street: Tuesday Nights
Christopher Kimball
(Little, Brown and Company)

Ottolenghi Simple
Yotam Ottolenghi
(Ten Speed Press)

Health and Special Diets
The Complete Diabetes Cookbook
Editors at America’s Test Kitchen
(America’s Test Kitchen)

Eat a Little Better
Sam Kass
(Clarkson Potter)

More with Less
Jodi Moreno
(Roost Books)

International
Feast: Food of the Islamic World
Anissa Helou
(Ecco)

The Food of Northern Thailand
Austin Bush
(Clarkson Potter)

I Am a Filipino
Nicole Ponseca and Miguel Trinidad
(Artisan Books)

Photography
Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food
Nik Sharma
(Chronicle Books)

Tokyo New Wave
Andrea Fazzari
(Ten Speed Press)

Wild: Adventure Cookbook
Luisa Brimble
(Prestel Publishing)

Reference, History, and Scholarship
Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry
Anna Zeide
(University of California Press)

Catfish Dream: Ed Scott’s Fight for His Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi Delta
Julian Rankin
(University of Georgia Press)

Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture
Justin Nystrom
(University of Georgia Press)

Restaurant and Professional
Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong
Matt Abergel
(Phaidon Press)

From the Earth: World’s Great, Rare and Almost Forgotten Vegetables
Peter Gilmore
(Hardie Grant Books)

Rich Table
Evan Rich and Sarah Rich
(Chronicle Books)

Single Subject
Bread & Butter: History, Culture, Recipes
Richard Snapes, Grant Harrington, and Eve Hemingway
(Quadrille Publishing)

Goat: Cooking and Eating
James Whetlor
(Quadrille Publishing)

Korean BBQ: Master Your Grill in Seven Sauces
Bill Kim with Chandra Ram
(Ten Speed Press)

Vegetable-Focused Cooking
Almonds, Anchovies, and Pancetta: A Vegetarian Cookbook, Kind Of
Cal Peternell
(William Morrow Cookbooks)

Saladish
Ilene Rosen
(Artisan Books)

Vegetarian Viet Nam
Cameron Stauch
(W. W. Norton & Company)

Writing
Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine
Edward Lee
(Artisan Books)

Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat
Jonathan Kauffman
(William Morrow)

Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy’s Food Culture
Matt Goulding
(Harper Wave/Anthony Bourdain)

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