New York–Guiliano Bugialli`s ”Foods of Italy” took top honors Wednesday at the R.T. French Tastemaker Awards, the equivalent of Pulitzer Prizes for cookbooks.
Grand prize winner as ”Best Cookbook of 1984” and also the winner of the international category, Bugialli`s ”Foods of Italy” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $45) was among 10 cookbooks honored at an awards ceremony and luncheon at the Park Lane Hotel here.
Cajun chef and restaurateur Paul Prudhomme was the first runner-up in the best cookbook category and won the American regional award for ”Chef Paul Prudhomme`s Louisiana Kitchen” (William Morrow, $19.95), and first-time cookbook authors Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale topped the basic and general category with ”The Gold and Fizdale Cookbook” (Random House, $19.95).
Second runner-up for best cookbook and winner of the specialty category was Bert Greene`s ”Greene on Greens” (Workman Publishing, $12.95).
In the entertainment category, Barbara Kafka won for ”Food for Friends” (Harper & Row, &19.95) and Olivia Wu, now a resident of South Bend, Ind., took the special audience category with her ”Grand Wok Cookbook” (Barron`s, $14.95).
Other award winners and their categories were: Olwen Woodier`s ”The Apple Cookbook” (Storey Communications, $6.95) for a single subject; Joan Nathan`s ”An American Folklife Cookbook” (Schocken Books, $18.95) for American recipe collections; Marion Cunningham`s ”The Fannie Farmer Baking Book” (Knopf, $16.95) for baking, and ”Dieting for One” (Meredith, $5.95), edited by Linda Foley and the editors of Better Homes & Gardens, for health and special diet.
The trend toward cookbooks that not only give workable recipes but also tell a lively, readable story was evident among the top prizewinners this year.
”I want to give people my feeling for my country–which is much more important for me than just to give them recipes,” said the top-rated Bugialli, who heads a cooking school in Florence. ”It`s much more rewarding to me if someone says `I don`t cook, but I can still take your book and enjoy it and read it. It means a lot to me,” he said of his lavishly illustrated and anecdote-filled book.
The jovial, rotund Prudhomme, who arrived sporting a silver-tipped cane, said he felt much the same way about teaching Americans about his Louisiana heritage. ”There had been so many Louisiana cookbooks out in the past and I felt they just didn`t tell the story of the food. I wanted to do that and put down the recipes so that someone, anywhere in the world, could look at them and get an impression of Louisiana life,” he said.
A sampling of recipes from the winning books. In Thursday`s Food Guide.
