Professor Ken Albala’s book “Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese” was named the best foreign cuisine book in the world in 2012 by Gourmand International this weekend during the annual Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, which was held in France during the Paris Cookbook Fair.
The book previously had been named the best foreign cuisine book from America by the association late last year. Albala was notified of the award Saturday evening.
“I was surprised when I was told I won,” Albala said. “It was such an honor to just be nominated, but to have my book named the best in the world is really beyond any of my expectations.”
Albala, who teaches food history at University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., is the author or editor of 16 books on food including "Eating Right in the Renaissance", "Food in Early Modern Europe", "Cooking in Europe 1250-1650"," The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe," "Beans: A History," and "Pancake." He has also co-written two cookbooks with Rosanna Nafziger Henderson - "The Lost Art of Real Cooking" and its sequel "The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home" which also was published this year by Penguin.
Albala also was editor of three food series for Greenwood Press with 30 volumes in print and his 4-volume "Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia," which was published last year. He also is co-editor of the journal Food Culture and Society and general editor of the new series AltaMira Studies in Food and Gastronomy, for which he wrote "Three World Cuisines." He recently edited the Routledge "International Handbook to Food Studies" and is now working on a 3 volume Food Issues encyclopedia for Sage Publications.
A DVD of his Global History of Food class will be available from The Great Courses company this spring.
This is not the first of Albala's books to win an international award. "Beans: A History" was the winner of the 2008 International Association of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award.
Gourmand International publishes GOURMAND Magazine and sponsors the Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards.
For more information on Gourmand International, visit
http://www.cookbookfair.com/. For more information on Ken Albala,
visit the link.