Vermont Food Books Nominated for James Beard Media Awards

The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread, Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao’s Soul and The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America Credit: Courtesy

The James Beard Foundation announced the nominees for its 2025 Media Awards on Wednesday, May 7, including three books with Vermont ties.

The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread is one of three nominees in the Bread category, which recognizes recipe books “focused on the art and craft of making bread, including ingredients, techniques, equipment, and traditions.”

The “comprehensive new bread bible” from the team at Norwich’s King Arthur Baking features 125 recipes that range from quick flatbreads to relatively simple pan breads to complex, multiday endeavors such as chocolate levain, Seven Days wrote in December.

“As one might expect from the self-anointed ‘premier baking authority’ in America, the directions are crystal clear,” we wrote.

Rowan Jacobsen‘s Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao’s Soul is nominated in the Literary Writing category, which can include memoirs, culinary travel and tourism writing, biographies, and other narrative nonfiction. In his latest book, the two-time James Beard Award-winning food writer from Calais turns his attention to wild cacao hidden in Central American and Amazonian rainforests, weaving his deeply researched findings into a delicious tale.

Also nominated in the Literary Writing category is The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America, Sara B. Franklin’s biography of the part-time Vermonter who famously scooped up Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking after another publisher rejected it.

Franklin spent a decade getting to know Jones and interviewing everyone who knew her, including Jones’ longtime friend Rux Martin, who wrote an essay about the book for Seven Days last May. “The result is an intimate but clear-eyed portrait that clips along like a fast-paced novel,” Martin wrote.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago on Saturday, June 14. Wolf Tree; May Day chef Avery Buck; and restaurateurs Allison Gibson and Cara Chigazola Tobin, from Honey Road and the Grey Jay, are finalists in the Foundation’s Restaurant and Chef Awards, which will take place on Monday, June 16.