The winners of the 2011 Canadian Culinary Book Awards were announced on November 7th at Toronto's Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
Sarah Elton's Locavore: From Farmers' Fields to Rooftop Gardens, How Canadians Are Changing the Way We Eat took the Gold for Special Interest, English Language. Earlier this year, Locavore appeared on Margaret Webb's Canadian Bookshelf Food Books Reading List, where Webb called it, "Lively, compelling and warm-hearted journalism with a generous helping of rigorous research."
Incredible Edibles: 43 Fun Things to Grow in the City by Sonia Day won the Silver Award. Check out Sonia Day's recent "The Real Dirt" column about growing (and taming) sorrel, and how to make it into soup.
Jeff McCourt, Allan Williams and Austin Clement won Gold in Canadian Culinary Culture, English Language for Flavours of Prince Edward Island: A Culinary Journey. There's a rave review of the book over at the cookbooks blog Cookbooks & Apps, back from way before the hype began.
The Silver Award was awarded to Michele Genest for The Boreal Gourmet: Adventures in Northern Cooking. Check out Genest's Boreal Gourmet Blog for great recipes-- wild blueberry and cranberry muffins, anyone?-- and photos (though it hasn't been updated for a little while. One suspects she's been busy!).
3 Chefs: The Kitchen Men by Michael Bonacini, Massimo Capra and Jason Parsons took Gold in the English Cookbooks Category. Over at CBC Books, they're featuring their recipe for Individual Turkey Pot Pie (yum).
The Silver was awarded twice this year. Meeru Dhalwala and Vikram Vij won for Vij's At Home: Relax, Honey. You can read a profile of husband-and-wife team Dhalwala and Vij at CanadianCuisine.com. (Turns out inspiration for the book was an argument over buying a dining room table.)
The other prize winner was The Harrow Fair Cookbook: Prize Winning Recipes Inspired by Canada's Favourite Country Fair by Moira Sanders, Lori Elstone, and Beth Goselin Maloney. You can find more information about the book, as well as great recipes (sweet potato pie!) and gorgeous photos, at Moira Sanders' blog.
Gold in the Special Interest Category, French Languge went to Martin Thibault and David Lévesque Gendron for La route des grands crus de la bière, and Silver to François Chartier for La Sélection Chartier 2011: Guide des vins et d’harmonisation avec les mets. In the Canadian Culture Category, Gold was awarded to Marie-Christine Rhéaume, Olivier Clément and Dominique Rhéaume for Le livre gourmand des Iles de la Madeleine: Découvertes du terroir et recettes originales, and Silver to Marylène Leblanc-Langlois and Lynne Faubert for À la bonne franquette: 80 Chefs Québécois dévoilent leurs recettes simples de tous les jours. In the Cookbook Category, Philippe Laloux won Gold for Le bonheur de cuire, and Chuck Hughes won Silver for Garde-Manger.
The Edna Award went to local food champions Antoino Druin and Suzanne Bergeron of Le Marché des Saveurs du Québec, Montreal. And two great cookbooks were inducted into the Landmarks Hall of Fame: Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne / Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine by Madame Jehane Benoît, and Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens: a collection of traditional recipes of Nova Scotia and the stories of the people who cooked them by Marie Nightingale.
Check out the Canadian Bookshelf 2011 Canadian Culinary Book Award Winners list.