Read Up On Our 2022 Journalism Award Nominees

This year's James Beard Journalism Award nominees delivered scoops covering America's foodways. These authors celebrated Indigenous culinary traditions in the Arctic, investigated the fight for better working conditions among delivery workers, traced the heroic rise of garlic powder, and explored much more in the name of better food and better food systems. Scroll down and click the links to read this year's best food writing from across the country.

Columns and Newsletters
Tasting Home: “Travels with Papa”; “ Following the Thread”; “In Her Footsteps”
Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein
Food & Wine

Tex-Mexplainer: “Nixtamalization Is the 3,500-Year-Old Secret to Great Tortillas”; “Live a Little and Try Crunching on Chapulines, or Roasted Grasshoppers”; “Forget Everything You Think You Know About Mole”
José R. Ralat
Texas Monthly

Taste Matters: “Really, Is Everyone a Critic?”; “Stop Calling Chinese Food Cheap. It Can Be Exceptional at Every Price.”; “The Ingredients May Be New. The Quest For Deliciousness Is Eternal.”
Mahira Rivers
Resy

Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award
“In Grand Central Market, a Beloved Chef Begins a New Chapter”; “Jumpstart Your Day at this Taiwanese Breakfast Pop-up in Chinatown”; “This Atwater Village Sushi Bar is what L.A. Fine Dining is all About”
Bill Addison
Los Angeles Times

“’Constant Evolution’”; “Restaurant Debuts as one of the Best in the Midwest”; “Pizzas Out of this World”
Louisa Chu
Chicago Tribune

“The Bay Area is Having a Love Affair with Smashburgers. This is the One You'll Want to Eat Again and Again”; “Impossible’s New Vegan Nuggets Taste Better than McNuggets. Sadly, that’s not Saying Much”; “S.F. Restaurant’s $72 Fried Rice Was a Runaway Hit. It Was Also the Chef's Nightmare”
Soleil Ho
San Francisco Chronicle

Dining and Travel
“Right Around the Corner”
Francis Lam
Condé Nast Traveler

“Eating in Xi’an, Where Wheat and Lamb Speak to China’s Varied Palate”
Ligaya Mishan
T: The New York Times Style Magazine

“The Ultimate Texas Tacopedia”
José R. Ralat
Texas Monthly

Feature Reporting
“Inside the Secretive, Semi-Illicit, High Stakes World of WhatsApp Mango Importing”
Ahmed Ali Akbar
Eater

“Tek Cyear uh de Root, Part One — The Schützenfest, Black Endurance, and Beer Culture in Old South Charleston”; “Tek Cyear uh de Root, Part Two — The Deliberate Reconstruction of the Charleston Schützenfest”; “Tek Cyear uh de Root, Part Three — The Lost Potential of Charleston Beer”
Jamaal Lemon
Good Beer Hunting

“Raising Cane”
Shane Mitchell
The Bitter Southerner

Food Coverage in a General Interest Publication
The Bitter Southerner

The New Yorker

The Washington Post

Foodways
“‘We’re Reclaiming Beer Because It’s Ours’”
James Bennett II
Eater

“The American Dream in the Back of a Sunoco”
Trisha Gopal
Eater

“In the Arctic, Reindeer Are Sustenance and a Sacred Presence”
Ligaya Mishan
T: The New York Times Style Magazine

Health and Wellness
“Cultivating Better Health”
Michael Behar
EatingWell

“Diet-Related Diseases Pose a Major Risk for Covid-19. But the U.S. Overlooks Them.”
Helena Bottemiller Evich
POLITICO

“Deeply Rooted: An Endocrine Web Special Report on Race and Diabetes”
Adriana Velez
Endocrine Web

Home Cooking
“The Way of Clay”
Mary-Frances Heck
Food & Wine

“For Garlic Powder, a Working Seasoning Finally Gets its Turn in the Spice Limelight”
Ben Mims
Los Angeles Times

“The Secret Society of Marmalade Makers”
Leslie Pariseau
TASTE

Innovative Storytelling
“Arturo and the Rancho Zen of Washing Dishes”
Javier Cabral
Pop-Up Magazine

“How Black Foragers Find Freedom in the Natural World”
Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee, Adraint Bereal, and Wulf Bradley
The New York Times

“A Feast for Lost Souls”
Annelise Jolley and Zahara Gómez Lucini
The Atavist Magazine

Investigative Reporting
“NYC Food Delivery Workers Band to Demand Better Treatment. Will New York Listen to Los Deliveristas Unidos?”; “Food Delivery Workers Toiling Through Historic Flooding Call Skimpy Wages and Tips ‘A Cruel Joke’”; “New York City Passes Landmark New Protections for Food Delivery Workers”
Claudia Irizarry Aponte and Josefa Velasquez
THE CITY

“Palestine and the West Bank Agricultural Struggle”
Marianne Dhenin
Life & Thyme

“Revolt of the Delivery Workers”
Josh Dzieza
New York Magazine; The Verge

Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award
“‘Too Much to Lose.’ Why a Miami Man Moved into a Backyard Tent During Coronavirus Crisis”; “Salt Bae’s Restaurant Called Cops on Customer who Wouldn’t Pay for Gold-Wrapped Steaks”; “How to Eat Like a Local in Miami: A Local's Guide to Dining in the 305”
Carlos Frías
Miami Herald

“Innovation and the Incinerated Tongue: Notes on Hot Chicken, Race, and Culinary Crossover”; “Two Friends Talk about Black, White, and The Grey: On Cooking and Collaboration Across the Color Line”; “Pimento-cracy”
Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee
The Counter; Oxford American

“Growing Up on Los Angeles’s Black Barbecue”; “Downtown LA’s Once-Unstoppable Restaurant Scene Now Faces an Uncertain Future”; “Tonight’s Dinner Should Be Fried Chicken From an LA Grocery Store”
Mona Holmes
Eater LA

MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award
“The Flavors of My Grief”
Yasmin Khan
Vogue

“Right Around the Corner”
Francis Lam
Condé Nast Traveler

“Life Was Not a Peach”
Hannah Selinger
Eater

Personal Essay, Long Form
“It's Time to Decolonize Wine”
Miguel de Leon
Punch

“All the Food You Can Eat and Only the Family You Can Stand”
Jackie Summers
Epicurious

“The Creature Comfort of Aunt Jemima”
Adia Victoria
The Bitter Southerner

Personal Essay, Short Form
“How It Feels to Close Your Restaurant for Good”
Kiki Aranita
Food & Wine

“Caribou Bones and Burgundy”
Elaine Chukan Brown
Wine & Spirits

“The Dangers of Bartending While Asian”
Kaylee Hammonds
Food & Wine

Profile
“Chef José Andrés Embraces the Chaos”
Jane Black
HuffPost Highline

“Patsy Young — American Brewer, Fugitive From Slavery”
Theresa McCulla
Good Beer Hunting

“The Man Who Sees a Future Where Indigenous Foods Are as Ubiquitous as Burgers”
Kate Nelson
Esquire

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The winners will be announced at the Media Awards ceremony in Chicago on the campus of Columbia College on Saturday, June 11, hosted by award-winning journalist, author, and host and executive producer of the new series Take Out on HBO Max, Lisa Ling.