Irish Food History Book wins Prestigious Gourmand Best of the Best Award
Known as the Oscars of gastronomy, The Gourmand Food Awards are celebrating 30 years this year at a special ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where on Thursday 27th November, Irish Food History: A Companion will be awarded the Best of the Best Award for Ireland, representing the best food book published in Ireland in the last thirty years. It is also nominated in the Best of the Best category for culinary history book in the world, which will be announced on Friday 28th November in Riyadh. Ninety-six countries from five continents will be represented at the ceremony.
Irish Food History: A Companion is a landmark edited collection of twenty-eight chapters written by experts in different fields covering the story of food and drink in Ireland from the Ice Age to the present day. It was published in hard copy by the Royal Irish Academy in 2024 and as an open access eBook online by EUT+ Academic Press. Co-edited by Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Dorothy Cashman, it immediately grabbed the public attention, winning the An Post Book Award for food and drink publication in 2024 and selling out its first print run by early December. A second print run became available in Spring 2025.
The book, which includes food-related poetry from Seamus Heaney, Paula Meehan and Raiftearaí, was the subject of a special edition of Nationwide on 30th June and recently won the Food History & Heritage Award at the Irish Food Writing Awards 2025, judged by Dr Neil Buttery. Beautifully designed by Brenda Dermody, the book was shortlisted for the IDI ‘best printed book design’ for 2024. The book previously won the Best Culinary History Book in the world for 2024 at the Gourmand Book Awards in Lisbon in June 2025. The Gourmand Awards were created October 15, 1995 at the Frankfurt book fair. They have become the Oscars of gastronomy.
The book is available open access at https://arrow.tudublin.ie/irishfoodhist/1/ and available at the Royal Irish Academy shop https://shop.ria.ie/products/irish-food-history and from all good book sellers.
For further information contact mairtin.macconiomaire@tudublin.ie