Tastemaker 1984 Choice Is Italian

“Guiliano Bugialli’s Foods of Italy” was named the best cookbook of 1984 recently at the 19th annual R. T. French Tastemaker Awards luncheon at the Park Lane Hotel in New York City. Bugialli, who won a Tastemaker category award in 1982, became the first overseas author to win the top prize since 1979.

The 304-page volume was selected by a national panel of newspaper and magazine food editors, authors, educators and publishing executives. The program, the nation’s only award program honoring cookbooks, is sponsored by the R. T. French Co. of Rochester, N.Y.

Second-place honors went to “Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen,” the top book in the Tastemaker’s American Regional category, while third place went to “Greene on Greens” by Bert Greene, the top book in the specialty category.

Two new special awards of excellence were also made to cookbooks produced by nonprofit community organizations for fund-raising purposes. Best in the new Community Hard-Cover category was the “Carnegie Treasures Cookbook,” produced by the Women’s Committee, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.

Taking top honors in the Community Soft-Cover category was “The Grecian Plate,” compiled by the Hellenic Ladies Society of St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, Durham, N.C.