Culinary History Award, International Association of Culinary Professionals

Almost twenty years ago, the phone rang late at night.  “You’ve won,” said my lovely friend Cara De Silva.  “You’ve won the Jane Grigson Prize.”  That my Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage, historical essays about the exuberant mixture of foods in islands not then known for their cuisine, could win an award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals was overwhelming. After raising a glass of wine, I spent the rest of the night in a happy daze.

Daze over, the award propelled me to embark on a world culinary history. I’d always believed that without the mastery of cooking, that is turning raw plants and animals into food, there would have been neither culture nor civilization. In the years it took to research and write Cuisine and Empire, I accumulated a mountain of debts to those, both here and elsewhere, who helped me along the way.  And today the long haul comes full circle with this splendid recognition and honor from fellow culinary professionals. Tonight I shall once again raise a glass to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart.

When I learned that this year I was a finalist for the Culinary History Award of the IACP, I drafted this acceptance speech in case my book should be the one selected.  And then came a call from another friend, Ruth Alegria, with whom I’d shared so many culinary adventures in Mexico, saying that indeed I’d won the award.

I doubt that Anne Willan, who not only was generous enough to write a blurb for Cuisine and Empire but also to accept the award on my behalf had time to read it out. Hence I’ve posted it here.

And congratulations to Anne in turn for the award for her memoir, One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France, one more milestone in a career that reflects intelligence, professionalism, and sheer hard work in equal measures.

And three cheers for the International Association of Culinary Professionals for their long-standing support of food history. 

And three cheers too for this bumper year of wonderful books in food history. Each and every author deserves congratulations.

Meantime events like this leave me in a daze. A more organized person would have spent last night and this morning busily acknowledging the many lovely congratulations, blazoning the results across social media, and asking for your help promoting the book on Amazon, Goodreads, bookclubs, and the like (though please don’t hesitate!).

Instead I raised a glass with my husband. I’ve piddled about picking up the house, activating a credit card, doing my Sunday trio of filing, desk and computer clean up, and chatting through plans for the week.

But now it’s time to turn to the entirely pleasurable task, the once or twice in a lifetime kind of task, of reading and responding to all your notes and twitters and messages and letters. I cannot thank you all enough.

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