A most celebratory and exciting night for Canadian culinary authors took place last night in downtown Toronto. The Taste Canada Awards Gala at the Ritz-Carlton Toronto Hotel was hosted by Food Network Canada's Noah Cappe (host of Carnival Eats and Bachelorette Canada) and recognizes authors in a variety of French and English categories like General Cookbooks, Culinary Narratives, and more. In the past handful of years, the Taste Canada panel has also recognized high quality Canadian culinary blogs in two additional categories.

Gold winners included James Walt, for his book, Araxi: Roots to Shoots, Farm-Fresh Recipes; and Naomi Duguid for her book, Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan. Also and not obviously surprising, the well-known Angela Liddon took home the top prize for her book Oh She Glows Every Day: Quick and Simply Satisfying Plant-Based Recipes, and another award for her ever-popular blog, OhSheGlows.com.

Bake with Anna Olson (one of our personal favourites) scored a silver in the Single-Subject category as did Earls The Cookbook, which was remarkably one of the best selling cookbooks of 2016.

The awards, now in their twentieth year and originally named the Canadian Culinary Books Awards, were founded by Jo Marie Powers, who taught at Guelph University's School of Hotel and Food Administration (now Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management).
 
"From my experience with Canadian cookbooks, I found that they are among the best in the world, but few even knew our cookbook authors and I wanted to change that oversight," said Powers, who is now retired from teaching, but continues to serve on the Taste Canada Awards board of directors.

The complete list of winners can be seen at tastecanada.org.