Culinary historians are trailblazers who shape a new way of studying both daily life and the larger issues that have confronted societies as a whole. Working at the intersection of the practical and the academic, they explore food, cookery, and dining cultures by drawing on the strengths of disciplines such as the hard sciences, social sciences, and humanities. They ask the most basic questions; who gets to eat, what they eat, how foods have been distributed within societies (justly or not), and why these patterns exist. The best culinary historians propel change by contextualizing the role of food in cultures. They provide tools for understanding the past and improving the future.
CHNY created the Amelia Award (named after Amelia Simmons, who in 1796 authored the first cookbook written in America) to acknowledge leading experts in culinary history who have demonstrated generosity and extraordinary support to others in the field.
Work at this high echelon deserves recognition, which is why CHNY created the Amelia Award. Named after Amelia Simmons, who authored the first cookbook written in America, American Cookery. . . adapted to this country and all grades of life (1796). Miss Simmons herself was a change-maker. Describing herself as an orphan, she sought to give those who needed to support themselves the tools to find respectable employment as cooks and housekeepers through her small book, what Miss Simmons called “a virtuous character.” Her work was “calculated for the improvement of the rising generation of Females in America.”
Two qualities distinguish all recipients of the Amelia Award: first, they are leading experts in culinary history, with deep knowledge in the field. Even more importantly, they have demonstrated generosity and extraordinary support to others in the field, helping to shape and elevate culinary history into the respected discipline, both scholarly and practical, that it is today.
